Some new videos

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 2:03 am

Learning more about video... not totally pleased with results yet, but while experimenting with various things I came up with a few that I think are interesting. If you have a high speed connection and are curious, have a look!

(Clockwise from top left)

Euglena really doing some "shape" gymnastics:
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/euglena1.avi 4.5Mb

Litonotus in final stages of binary fission:
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/litonotus1.avi 8.3Mb

Vorticella, opening from it's "closed" position:
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/vortic1.avi 777Kb

Vorticella, slow motion showing movement of cilia. The quality is not that great (and it's too long), but you can really get a good idea of what is involved in this motion, and how hard it is to get an overall view in a single image because of the shallow DOF:
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/0010a.avi 7.3Mb

(Clockwise from top left)

Colpidium feeding (slow motion):
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/colpfeed.avi 7.1Mb

Chilomonas "frenzy":
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/0044b.avi 5.9Mb

Stentor:
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/stentor1.avi 2.8Mb

Amoeba:
http://www.krebsmicro.com/videos/93b.avi 6.7Mb

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 2:29 am

Charlie,

Thank you very much for the Christmas present!

I will study these in detail tomorrow...uh....later today.

Can you explain briefly what equipment & technique you used to produce the slow motion Vorticella video?

--Rik

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 3:28 am

Interesting videos - all of them. I particularly enjoyed the Euglena vidio - I note that even a casual passer-by took time out just to stand (er...float?) and watch in envious disbelief

Thanks for the Christmas trees Charles - very festive and I for one had never seen them (or anything like them) before.

Merry Christmas!

Bruce

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 3:44 am

Your videos may not be to your liking Charlie but I think they are great, especially the euglena.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 3:52 pm

Rik... I've been trying this small firewire camera:
http://www.theimagingsource.com/en/prod ... /overview/

Some things I really like, but the 1/4 inch sensor is tradeoff. The sensor's physical dimensions are smaller than I would like, but it offered the possibility of doing 60fps at 640x480. The difficulty this presents from a practical standpoint is trying to arrive at a good relay optics solution... I'm still working on it. Shooting at 60fps and then presenting the clip at 15fps (or even 10fps) is not exactly "super slow-mo" by any stretch, but it can still be revealing with some subjects. (I have seen some cameras spec'd at 200fps that were still relatively affordable, but most of those would require me to use the SDK and create custom applications. I also want to see how that much info can be reliably captured over Firewire 400 or 800, or GigE). As is is.... 640x480 at 30fps seems to be stretching Firewire 400 pretty thin. This particular camera has a proprietary format that lets me capture at 60fps. Sometimes I get it with no dropped frames, other times it is a little slower.... yet another thing to decipher!

.... so much for the long-winded answer. I could have simply said captured at 60fps and output at 15fps!

Bruce and Ken... yes the euglena is weird alright! My daughter doesn't even like to watch it... sort of creeps her out. (The boys seem to like it though...)

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 4:07 pm

Boys always seem to like squirming things like that Charlie. I have been wondering though, the more I watch that thing, the more it reminds me of Distigma proteus, which does resemble an Euglena and also has an eyespot, a red one.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 11:20 pm

Charles Krebs wrote:I could have simply said captured at 60fps and output at 15fps!

Well, yes, you could have -- but then I would have pressed you for the details! Thanks for the explanation. 'Twas exactly what I wanted to know!

I agree with your daughter, by the way. That Euglena (or Distigma!) pretty much freaks me out, too. I'd say "Computer-Generated FX!", but I don't think you're into that stuff (yet...

).

--Rik

Kite · Post by **Kite** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 5:13 am

lovely christmas present for me to enjoy... later today

got to go to grans for lunch, but by the looks of the photos (and the sounds of the responses) I think it will be brilliant to watch

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 2:10 pm

Charlie,

Your investigation has prompted me to look around a bit. I'm pleased to see how nicely high speed video is coming along. http://www.epixinc.com/products/sv642.htm is offering 640x480 at 204 fps, or fewer rows at correspondingly higher rates, e.g. 812 fps at 640 x 120. This for $1500. Not a bad little tool for some investigations. I'd be interested to know what else you found in this same class.

Or "for a few dollars more", I guess one could go with the Cine SpeedCam -- 1536 x 1024 pixels at 1000 fps -- but I'm pretty sure that one's outside my price range.

--Rik

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:43 am

Rik... there are some cameras out there that would be a blast to play with. Some of the offerings by Redlake and the Phantom HD. But when I see that the company will rent a camera for a week for a mere $800...
...well not much point in getting pricing information!

But there were a few 640x480 ~200fps based on the same Micron CMOS sensor (CMOS MT9V403). In addition to the one you mention I came across ones from Basler, Leutron, and Tapix. There are probably more. You could do some fun stuff with 200fps!
(... let's see now.... where did I put that box of terabyte hard drives?...

)