Rapatronic Magnetic shutter, 1/100,000,000th/sec

[Brian C. Miller]

PetaPixel: Rapatronic Camera: An Atomic Blast Shot at 1/100,000,000th of a Second

Check out the Burke & James! (Or maybe Cambo. It looks like my Orbit. Hmmm, I saw Adams using it, and now this! Man, my camera gets around, almost like a garden gnome!)

That's a fantastic shutter for a camera! The magnetic shutter actuates for as little as 10 nanoseconds, rotating polarizing filters.
I also wonder where that 120-inch lens went to. That would be an awesome, if a bit unwieldy, lens!

Now, let's all chant the mantra: location, time, and the right light! (How I learned to stopped worrying and learned to love my suntan...)

[Tin Can]

I always look at those images and think I have never seen anything that ugly.

Oh, great photography, but the subject is inherently ugly.

[hoffner]

Oh, great photography, but the subject is inherently ugly.

Then, looking at the Sun, you must be disgusted? It's full of "the subject".

[Tin Can]

Then, looking at the Sun, you must be disgusted? It's full of "the subject".

You may be blind from staring at the Sun.

[pasiasty]

It would be really interesting to participate in a photography project with budget close to what they had.

[Jmarmck]

Well light availability certainly was not an issue with those shutter speeds. I have one of those cameras too but I have not found that shutter speed yet. Is there a button behind the compur shutter I am unaware of?

TBH, that subject matter is truly ugly, but only because of its use and the changes it has made on this planet. Particularly it use as a tool of fear.

[hoffner]

You may be blind from staring at the Sun.

You must be even blinder not to see it beautiful.

[Ari]

I always look at those images and think I have never seen anything that ugly.

Oh, great photography, but the subject is inherently ugly.

Well light availability certainly was not an issue with those shutter speeds. I have one of those cameras too but I have not found that shutter speed yet. Is there a button behind the compur shutter I am unaware of?

TBH, that subject matter is truly ugly, but only because of its use and the changes it has made on this planet. Particularly it use as a tool of fear.

That's like saying a car or a cookie is inherently ugly because of the potential ill-effects.

[Vaughn]

Beautiful -- no. It is as ugly as a photograph of piled bodies of some genocidal act...no matter how tastefully one piles the bodies and how well chosen the camera angle is.

But it is still an incredible image. There is a SF short story that I remember that was probably written based on these photos, or at least on the concept if the writer never saw the images. Basically, in the story the photos revel the face of the Lord of Hell in the atomic explosion.

[Jmarmck]

That's like saying a car or a cookie is inherently ugly because of the potential ill-effects.

And that is an invalid argument as cars or cookies were not developed with the intensions to kill millions of people.
Yes the images are intriguing and beautiful from a purely physical approach but they are ghastly when the use is considered.

BTW that looks like a Calumet CC-401.