Static Flow of Water

Creating the illusion of a static flow of water using sound. Of course this isn't my idea and plenty more refined examples already exist.

I tried this same experiment years ago but using a strobe light, but it's harsh on the eyes after a while and hard to video successfully. It only dawned on me shortly before making this that for video purposes, no strobe light is required. This is because the frame rate and shutter of the camera is doing a similar job to the strobe.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• frozen
• time
• illusion
• water

[PhotoExtremist2]

Hey Bibio :) I am about to try this - what did you use to generate the tone? Is it a 25hz sine wave or square wave, or what? Will the camera match up with the tone perfectly right from the get-go, or will you have to have the option to offset the tone until it matches up with the frame rate?

[mrbibio]

@PhotoExtremist2 I used the test oscillator in Logic, sine tone. You may need to adjust to decimal points around 25Hz to get it to stay still, but play around with the pitch to get the drops to move.

[goldbonebillionaire]

what kind of camera are using for this sir bibio? really awesome trick by the way.

[mrbibio]

@goldbonebillionaire Canon 5D mkii.

[jocamaneiro1]

please tell me this is fake....

[mrbibio]

@jocamaneiro1 Just to explain in a little more detail: the speaker is moving at 25 times per second, and so the pipe is vibrating at that rate. If it is loud enough, the stream breaks into drops at a uniform rate relative to the vibrating speaker. The camera is capturing at 25 frames per second but the shutter speed is fast, meaning each frame is sharply frozen in time, rather than consecutive frames of motion blurred drops. Basically you are syncing the pattern of the drops to the camera.

[Jakerpooify]

bibio, if i ever make it to the UK, can we hang out?

[eatcows]

Awesome

[askd221]

Can anyone tell me what the fuck is going on ??

[TyneSpeedx95]

Is that a speaker. How did you do that the water seems frozen like a picture

[PhotoExtremist2]

@mrbibio Hmm, I just tried it with a Nikon D300s DSLR (24FPS) and generated a 24hz sine wave in Audacity, and it didn't seem to work. Any help?

[odin2free]

Camera tricks, gotta love em...

Specially when you can control sound ;)

[haribo687]

What is this wizardry...