Construction and Performance of a High‐Speed Cinemicrograph

This report describes the construction and performance of a high‐speed cinemicrograph capable of producing a series of 200 pictures at 100 000 frames per second. The basic principle of this ``image‐dissecting'' camera consists of reproducing each scene in half‐tone (i.e., breaking the picture up into an array of widely‐spaced dots) and interspersing succeeding frames on the same composite plate by moving the plate one dot diameter between successive frames. After processing, the frames are ``played back'' in sequence. The technique of image dissection is further improved by the use of a plate of small, spherical lenslets to produce the dot structure. This advance considerably increases the light‐gathering power and ultimate top speed of the camera, making it possible to do high‐speed cinemicrography using a commercial Vickers projection microscope for magnifications up to 2000× with various illumination techniques. The ciné record so produced is of quite high quality; each frame conveys about the same information as a standard 16‐mm ciné frame. Some examples of ``movie'' scenes are shown for visual comparison.