What's more fun than fireworks on the Fourth of July? Fireworks at 960 fps, that's what. We grabbed a few slow-motion videos recently with the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 IV to test out its slow-mo video modes. Three of the four fireworks videos below are shot at 960 fps - one is 240 fps, which is still pretty neat in our book.
Friendly reminder, please be safe with fireworks. And don't do anything illegal. That would be silly.
Sony Cyber-shot RX100 IV @ 960fps - Sample 1
Sony Cyber-shot RX100 IV @ 960fps - Sample 2
Sony Cyber-shot RX100 IV @ 960fps - Sample 3
Sony Cyber-shot RX100 IV @ 240fps - Sample 4
Rest assured our full review of the RX100 IV is well underway! In the meantime we'll be thinking up more things that are sure to look cool at 960 fps. You know - for research purposes.
High-speed video can be interesting. Also, it allows for slow motion viewing without having to use software to convert, etc. In addition, it allows for seeing things that may not be possible to see in normal speed videos.
I have taken high speed videos of hummingbirds with a Panasonic FZ200 at 120 and 240 frames/sec, although it's not capable of 4K video, but I think the results are not bad for personal viewing.
Here is one video taken at 240 frames/sec. No need to register. Just click the X on the popup box/window that invites you to register.
Notice how the little bird continuously uses his tail to maintain balance! I hope you find it interesting. Tech info: i+ setting at max + zoom (1200mm equiv) plus a Canon 1.4X video teleconverter for a total of 1680mm.
This is the kind of advice that will be ignored, but you run the risk of blowing off a finger every time you hand-hold a Roman Candle. If a projectile gets blocked for whatever reason, pressure will build up and explode the tube. Most come with a warning right on the candle that says, "DO NOT HOLD IN HAND."
Youtube indicates video was captured at 60Hz so at normal playback speed the slow-motion factors are only 16x (960fps) and 4x (240fps). So playback can be slowed down by half without stutter, to yield 32x and 8x. To get max slow-mo factors of 40x and 10x it needs to be captured (or slowed down in post) at 24hz.
I thought 960 fps would slow things down even more. Not bad though. Other subjects? Drops of food coloring into water, hummingbirds in flight ( I know, not too easy), a camera shutter opening and closing are a few that come to mind.
I'm interested to see the 120fps footage, since it'll be much better quality.
The 960 fps is super impressive, but the quality is not really usable for larger than a phone screen (or Youtube videos, I guess). Maybe for scientific applications on a low budget, where the aesthetic quality isn't as important. Or heavily filtered, perhaps?
Is that the same 5% group? No. The point is, the tiny percentage that has a phone capable of 240fps, will hardly if even have any impact on those looking to buy a compact with this feature, since that group is part of the *whole* market.
Who are you to say that that 5% group isn't the same?
The iPhone 6 shoots 240 fps. That's 60 million phones. The Samsung Note 4 does, too. That's another 10 million phones.
That 70 million is nearly twice as many as all the dedicated cameras that were sold in 2014. What's more, those are both very high-end phones. A significant amount of overlap with the people who might consider spending $1000 on a point and shoot, don't you think? Or do most of the people you know with brand new expensive cameras still use Nokia flip phones?
73.6% of all statistics on the internet are made up on the spot.
As for phone that support 240 fps... Apple and Samsung are the two biggest phone makers in the world... and the both have been making hundreds of millions of phones with 240 fps
The first video depicts what lighting $948/USD on fire for a compact camera looks like; exciting at first but quickly petering out and leaving you with nothing but smoke in the end.
Is the first video really 960fps? The playback appears to be in real-time, at least until the last few seconds. Or is the spinner really moving that fast?
I have seen all these clips on youtube before it's featured here! Yup, I am searching for people reviewing the RX100IV, and I really hate all those unboxing and comparison 'review' kind of clips. They are so bloody tedious and boring. Worse of all, those who babble and babble for 10-20 minutes and showed NO pictures or videos taken with the camera. I mean WHAT'S THE FREAKING POINT? And now we have machine-voiced 'reviews' too, clearly a click bait/troll videos... *sigh*
BarnetET. I couldn't agree more. Pitiful by Canon. My next body may well be a Sony. Moreover, I am very much thinking that I might replace my Canon M with an RX10 II as my 'travel' camera. The M3 was a disappointment for me.
There are very view cameras that have super slow motion video. This application is great for analyzing a golf swing (or tennis, etc.) for teaching purposes.
Does anyone know the duration of video that can be shot at say 240 or 500 fps?
I don't have much of an interest in video, but I definitely would consider getting the RX-100 IV for my carry anywhere camera if I could also use it to analyze a golf swing especially in real time.
@xiao fei this is 60p playback which equates to 16x slow-mo (960/60). Slowing the playback speed down to 0.5 gives you 30p playback and 32x slow-mo without any real loss in quality. Doing that will give you a little better look at the wings, though still not quite slow enough to get a really detailed look at the wing mechanics. But yea those wings be flapping fast!
Can you use manual shutter speed settings on this camera for video? If so, the way I would do it, would be to crank the shutter up as fast as possible and then use a program like twixtor pro to slow it down even more. Adding 2 rendered frames after each frame isn't so bad, and when played back at 30fps would get you close to 100x. At 1/32000 (kinda nutty for a point and shoot) the wings should be pretty clear. Small sensors still have nice depth of field at low apertures, shouldn't be too hard.
Hmmm. Interesting thought. You could set video exposure manually on previous models so I assume you still can, but don't know if you'll have the full SS range available. At 24p playback that would 120x or with one rendered frame 80x (not sure which one would end up looking better). Using that same technique you could push the near-HD 240fps footage to 30x slow-mo as well. Very interesting indeed! One thing is for sure though, at 1/32000 you'll need very good light. If you try this I'd love to see the result.
The sharper your image, the easier it is to add rendered frames. f16 1/100 ISO-100 is the same as f4 1/32000 ISO-2000, so it's not unreasonable. Also, it may be unnecessary. 1/4000 or 1/8000 might be enough. It's not going to look like it came out of a phantom flex, but all your facebook friends are going to think you're cool as a-synonym-for-defecate-which-dpreview-wont-let-me-submit when they watch it on their smartphones.
examples, gopro (which uses a glorified phone sensor, the sony is WAY better) slowed down an additional 5x with twixtor. Clearly some distortion around my arm (blue shorts), coulda fixed that had I spent more time on it, but it just didn't bother me. Having it up an hour after I got home was more important. Even when 4 out of 5 frames are rendered, it's still only 600fps. That new Sony cam is a beast. Gopro generally terrible for this kinda stuff, setting the frame speed is very helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnbQWt0ybdc
Aside from the distortion that's not bad. Should look quite good using footage from the Sony. Looks like bees flap their wings btwn 100-250 times/s, slightly faster than a humming bird, but their wings are shorter (and I think sweep a smaller angle) so the tip velocity is likely the about the same or lower. I've seen "lucky" pics with bee wings stopped at 1/4000, so certainly 1/8000 should be able to do so reliably. FYI, I did the math and 1/32000 is actually fast enough to stop subsonic ammunition (0.5 or less of travel during exposure). So yea the new RX twins are beasts!
I'm kicking myself for not having the camera last night when I bumped in to a free runner. Hopefully I see him doing backflips again next time I have it.
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