Digital Video Capture and High Frame Rates?

Jeff asks: "So the folks at a place called Conniption Films (great name) developed a camera called the Millisecond Camera which can shoot 12,000 frames of film a second. I read the article and thought 'Hmm that's neat' but then realized they were still using an analog process for shooting this highspeed film. Being a geek, not necessarily into the film side of things but curious nonetheless, I wonder, shouldn't a computer be able to do a better job of such a thing? They say the film runs around a spindle going 500 mph (!). Wouldn't that be prone to failure and use alot of energy? Wouldn't it be more appropriate, easier, and overall cheaper to just hook up a high res CCD to a beowulf </duck> cluster of 2 ghz+ machines and capture high speed images that way? Why hasn't it been done yet? Or has it and I haven't seen it yet?" I did a double-take, when I first read this question, and then got curious and did a little digging. Turns out, high frame rates are not exclusive to the analog photography world, and to illustrate my point, I provide this link. It's woefully short on details, and the explanations as to why a camera that can record 1M frames per second is limited to a playback of only 103 frames, but the technology is out there. Has anyone seen any other digital cameras out there with high frame-rates? What visual mischief could you aspiring photographers get into with such a camera?

Comments

Designed with a purpose.

[bhsx]

Kinki University in Japan led the research, sponsored by the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan...

That's a mistranslation. The correct English translation would be Corporation for Private Schoolgirls of Japan

God, I love Kinki University.