Super slow-motion footage turns even the mundane motion of a circular saw into a spectacle worth watching. Vision Research’s Phantom cameras have long been the masters of the medium, with their absurdly high frame rate possibilities up to a million frames per second. And its monster camera just got even faster.
The new Phantom v2511 adds more frames where they count: at its top 1280×800 (one megapixel) resolution. The old v2010 could shoot at 22,500 fps at that resolution, whereas the new camera burns at 25,600. Sure some cameras can shoot millions or even tens of millions of frames per second, but usually only at tiny resolutions that are useful to no one but scientists. In the case of the HyperVision HPV-X, for example, you get 10 million frames at 400 x 250. Impressive! Have fun squinting at it. The new Phantom’s extra 3000 extra frames per second at higher resolution gives you that much more to work with when you’re doing fun stuff like, I dunno, watching babies be cute or blowing up fruit. (If you want to shoot one million fps with the new Phantom, you can, but it will top out at itty bitty 128 x 32.)
Additionally, the new Phantom gets improved daylight ISO performance of up to 6400 (colour) and 3200 (monochrome), from 5000 and 20,000 before, which affords you more flexibility on shutter speed and aperture settings.
And of course this hot tech doesn’t come cheap. Expect a ludicrous price in at least the high five figures. The slowest pleasures in life are worth paying for. [Vision Research]