High Speed Photography By Alan Sailer

Mr Sailer, who describes the process as 'beyond dangerous, says: 'The special item is the flash. It is a home-built unit based on the design Harold Edgerton (Harold Edgerton (1903-1990) was a pressor electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute Technology, and is regarded as the father high-speed photography). The flash is about .5 microsecond in duration and runs at 17,000 volts. It is beyond dangerous, it's deadly.
'The flash is triggered when the pellet from a rifle travelling at about 200 metres per seconds passes through a laser beam. Its the same principle as those beams that set f a chime when you walk into a store,' he continues.
'The camera is set at one second and an f-stop 9-13 depending on the reflectivity the subject. The flash stops the action. The one second gives me time to click the camera shutter with one hand while I pull the trigger on the rifle with the other.'