Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-07-20
NEW FAST ACTION CAM ERA-By Frederic J. Haskin

VIZ ASHINGTON, D. c.. July 15-How a
wv Dig shell crawls into the armor
plate OF a oattelship,s and how a
golf club hits ball are two long standing
mysteries that are mysteries no longer.
The newest ultra-rapid camera anlyzes
the high speed motion of the she'll as though
1t were moving at snail's pace. To the
eye the shell, travelling at perhaps $500
feet second, seems to crash into the target
almost instantaneously after it is fired. The
nlgn speed camera shows 1t creeping with a
rotary motion down. to the armor plate,
Wrlggllng its way into the steel, and send
ing bits of wreckage floating SLOWLY into
the air.
The golf club shaft is shown by the
camera actually to bend forward as it
strikes the ball. That the stick did this was
suspected by some players, but there was
no way of proving the point. The camera
shows that as the club is brought down to
the ball the force of the drive bends the
shaft forward The head of the club lags
behind from the force Of the stroke. But
at the instant the clubhead contacts with
the ball the bend in the shaft is reversed.
The greater the power back of the stroke
the greater the bend in the shaft.
Motions as rapid as these have hitherto
been hidden even from the quick eyes of the
usual high speed motion picture cameras.
With these, catching 10000 pictures a min
normally but not slowly enough to show it's
exact action.
The new camera is the invention Of G.
Francis Jenkins of this city. His machine
takes 100000 pictures minute. This Is 100
times the speed of a normal speed motion
picture camera. A motion which, is perform
ed in one second can by Jenkins invention be
spread out over 100 seconds when turned into
film and shown on screen.
The race horse that you occasionally see
floating around track in the movie pictorials
can be made to go at one-tenth that speed by
Mr.. Jenkins. The cameras in commercial
use, however, are swift enough for this sort
of thing, he says. His machine goes after
more elusive subjects, with faster or more
complicated action.
Invented Thirty Years Ago
The principle of this camera was invented
by Mr.. Jenkins thirty years ago, but 1t was
only last year that he developed it to take
high speed movies. Since then he has made
a number Of pictures for the army and navy.
None has been publicly shown.
Besides wanting a. answer to the question
of how shell strikes battleship, the navy
asked Mr.. Jenkins to grind out an anlysis of
a seaplane taking off through the water. The
inventor had to film this four or five times
before camera and lane got into action to-
gether. The whole Gene had tv be filmed in
four seconds. This as more than sufficient
time since 400 feet IF film could be recorded
in four seconds. 1t even rwed margin of
100 feet o. film each side OF the action be-
cause the rush of the plane would fill only
200. The only problem was to start the
camera so that the plane would dash out
within the length of lie film. It was diff
cult assignment, but n. Jenkin filled it.
High speed pictures Of airplane flights
showed that no one had ever been able to see
the bending and y arping Of the propeller
under great powers j. the engine. This has
been shown in detail by the films and study
of the condition will probably lead to the
! production of stronger, sitter blades.
The navy also had pictures made OF sever
| al pigeons being released from a basket at
| the start Of race. The point in question
| was whether the pigeons bumped into one
another and were hindered at the start when
released simultaneously from one basket. This
| picture showed the tie pigeons did interfere.
By chance, facts that pigeon experts had
| never known were learned. The pigeon S
| wings were seen slowly rising on the up
stroke and touched below its breast. The
pigeon flies SO swiftly that this popularity
| had never been apparent to the eye.
The pigeon breeders were surprisd to find,
too, that the feather at the tip of the wing
| spread like fingers as the wind goes through
| them on the up stroke.
| Since the tumblins pigeon taught aviators
| how to loop the loop, it may be that the bird
men can 4ecrn further secrets from the pig
| con by the close analysis of its flight that is
now possible.
This camera is for scientific purposes. Just
as very high powered microscope is neces-
| sary for some exacting laboratory work, so
| the ultra rapid camera, with prospect of
attaining 900 pictures a minute, will have
| it's place in scientific research.