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Create Your Own Bullet Time Camera Rig With Raspberry Pi

sfcrazy writes "A team of extremely creative people have created a really inexpensive bullet time set-up using Raspberry Pis — and the whole set-up costs less than a professional DSLR camera. The rig looks more like the LHC at CERN using nearly half a kilometre of network cables, 48 Raspberry Pis fitted with cameras and PiFace Control. The rig worked perfectly — in terms of doing what a bullet time set-up should do. Raspberry Pis achieved the Hollywood's 'frozen time' effect at a much lesser cost."

5 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Affect/effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Submitter either meant 'effect' or is being a little sarcastic about the prevalence of bullet time.

    Nah, I do special affects all the time.
    Especially around people I don't like.

  2. Re:sort of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The "really inexpensive" part was what I thought was humourous. "costs less than a professional DSLR camera". Math is fun!

    So the "best" DSLR right now according to reviews is the CanonEOS-1D X which can be had for ~$5500. Divide that by 48 because that's how many pi complete devices they used and we get $114.58. The Pi that they used was the $35 unit because they needed Ethernet. They also had a $30 camera and a $33 PiFace display on each. We're up to $98... oh wait, they used preloaded SD cards at $13 a pop, and we're up to $111 with no power supply. Fine, lets say that with bulk prices we get PS from the goddamn Loch Ness Monster for three fiddy a piece. Bam, we've hit or target. Or at least we would if we didn't have to factor in networking components, a custom "laser cut" frame, or 0.5km of cable and a days worth of time to crimp ninety six RJ45 plugs.

    The TL:DR point is to stop giving us meaningless indicators of how much some shit costs. Just tell us a number. Did you know that this project supposedly costs less than the average trade in value of a 2005 Honda Accord? ($5775) It costs sufficiently less than giving birth to a child ($8802) It even is less than the cost of eating a donut a day for thirty years? ($5962.50 @ $0.50 ea plus 6% sales tax) and that doesn't even factor in the added costs of type 2 diabetes!

    So just tell us how much it costs. Everything else is just wasting our time. My apologies if you actually read through my entire post.

  3. Re:costs less than a professional DSLR camera? by mbstone · · Score: 3, Funny

    No, no, no. Not $5280. He said "half a kilometre" which is $1640.

  4. Terrorism by rebelwarlock · · Score: 3, Funny

    It has the word "bullet" in it, and you can make it at home? Prepare to hear the sweet music of militarized cops breaching your front door.

  5. Server? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Must be running their server off a Raspberry Pi as well...