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One frame from the NASA video, a HDR merge from six different cameras shooting 250 fps.

Just eye-popping. I wonder why it’s not color?

And I got to thinking that we need a pad cam like that! =)

I saw a gonzo camera shoot 2,700 fps HD for one of our desert launches. In color. I think it had a 1000mm lens. They called it The Pig.

So instead of 6 cameras shooting 250fps, with post-processing for perspective compensation, we could use one Pig at 10x that speed and grab clumps of 3 frames with +/- 2EV at 1/250 sec intervals to create the same effect (might require a firmware hack).

In other words, when I shoot at 1/3000 sec, I can freeze a supersonic rocket with tack sharp focus. With the heavy shuttle lumbering off the pad, three shots at 1/2700 sec would span about 1/900 sec., and I bet the shuttle would be sharp, and we’d just see some edge effects around the plume in the HDR post processing (i.e., the pixels in the brightest area could be 1/900 sec off from the pixels in the darkest area, but come to think of it, those are probably not adjacent pixels, as the medium exposure would be in between and so the edge mismatches may only be 1/1800 seconds off). And the darkest exposure for sky and pad would not be moving at all, so they should be fine in every image.

Could work. Just need the price to come down a bit on that camera…

(NASA image, thus public domain)

9 responses to “HDR Video of STS-134 Shuttle Launch”

  1. Gone-Walkabout Avatar
    Gone-Walkabout

    well, with only 1 shuttle launch left (I believe) you could rent one?

    Reply
  2. therese flanagan Avatar
    therese flanagan

    Wow! That energy is amazing.

    Reply
  3. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    An old astro trick…!
    Cannot see the Shuttles engines exhaust…
    ? too dim here..

    Reply
  4. posamentier Avatar
    posamentier

    That almost looks like a solid-state camera with a deeper IR filter… The HDR effect makes the solid rocket booster thrust look alive.

    Also, rather than asking for 3 bracketed frames, just ask for 16 true bits of color per channel – that way, you don’t get HDR ghosting effects and the thrust retains better sharpness. Or alternatively, just put R, G, and B filters on 3 parallel BW cameras 🙂 Or ad IR to a 4th and then synchronize…

    Reply
  5. Pieces of Eye Avatar
    Pieces of Eye

    Maybe something to do with the better sensitivity of B&W sensors. I agree with you. The image definitely has large distinct exposure regions so single high speed HDR with decent post processing seems reasonable. Though, I think they have it right, to capture the plume the best way would be three or four high sensitivity B&W image sensors with synced frame rate and different EV’s

    Reply
  6. obskura Avatar
    obskura

    This looks pretty awesome. I was surprised how much the individual frames shift towards each other (one can see image parts of different original brightness "swimming" around quite a bit). The camera must have been bashed around a lot…
    I think it would be easily possible to align the frames by matching features in the image… I wonder why they didn’t, they’re NASA after all 🙂

    It’s a neat trick to use multiple cameras – that way the HDR frames are perfectly in sync. I had another thought – for those mere mortals who can’t afford a 1000 fps camera, one could maybe build a cluster of relatively cheap cameras and trigger them in quick succession – 20 cameras with standard 30fps ==> 600fps 🙂 Now, the question is, what is the cheapest HD camera, and how would one sync them so accurately? Maybe it would have to be industrial vision sensors to get the syncing feature…capturing the video data would also be challenging, quite some data rate… mmh, probably it’s still cheaper to just buy a high speed camera 😉

    Reply
  7. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    ooh, like bullet-time in The Matrix, but using EV-shifted video frames instead of still cameras

    Reply
  8. obskura Avatar
    obskura

    something like that… 🙂

    I wish I had that sort of budget… 😉 I am sure that all these SLRs stacked together, with some long tele lenses, would make a lovely slow-motion HDR rocket launch video… with 100 cameras shooting RAW at 5fps you’d get a 5K 500fps colour video 🙂 Only problem is to find a screen that can play it at that resolution…

    Reply
  9. bike-R Avatar
    bike-R

    Always like the SHOCK DIAMONDS that came from the SSME’s and when they popped off at lift-off it was a treat along with the pyro show to ignite the stray Hydrogen fumes to contol the ignition

    Reply

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