The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-07-20
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC .. AAsKIN. Director.
Washington, ID. g.
NEW FAST ACTION CAMERA

1
alyzes the high speed motion of the
shell as tho it were moving at a snail's
pace. To the eye the shell, travelling
at perhaps $500 feet a second. seems
to crash into the target almost in
SPONTANEOUSLY after it is fired. The
| high speed camera shows it creeping
| with a rotary motion down to the ar
NOR plate, wriggling its way into the
steel and sending bits of wreckage
| floating slowly into the air.
The golf club shaft is shown by the
| camera actually to bend forward as ii
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 for
| ward. The head of the club lags
behind from the force of the stroke.
But at the instant the clubhead con-
facts 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 minute, the
shell would burst more slowly than
normally but not slowly enough to
show its exact action.
The new camera is the invention of
c. Francis Jenkins of this city. His
machine takes 100000 pictures a min
ute. This is 100 times the speed OF
a normal speed motion picture cam
ara. A motion which is performe ed
in one second can by Jenkins inyen-
| ton be- spread out over 100 seconds
when turned into film and shown on
a SCI cen.
The race horse that you OCCASION
ally see floating around a track in the
| movie pictOrials can be made to go
at one-tenth that speed by Mr.. Jen-
kins. 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.
The principle of this camera was in
vented by Mr.. Jenkins thirty years ago,
bun it was only last year that he de-
velcped it to take high speed movies.
| Since then he has made number of
pictures for the army. and navy. None
has been publicly shown.
Besides wanting an answer to the
question of how shell strikes a pat
tleship, the navy asked Mr.. Jenkins
to grind out an analysis of seaplane
taking off thru the water. The in
ventor had to film this four or five
times before camera and plane got
into action together. The whole scene
was more than sufficient time since
400 feet of film could be recorded in
four seconds. 1t even allowed a mar
gin of 100 feet of film each side OF
the action because the rush of the
plane would fill only 200. The only
Pre- blem was to start the camera so
that the plane would dash out within
the length of the film. 1t was a. diff
cult assignment, but Mr.. jenkins
filled it.
High speed pictures of airplane
flights showed what no one had ever
been able to see-the bending and
warping of the propeller under great
powers of the engine. This has been
shown in detail by the films and study
of the condition will probable lead to
the production of stronger, SITTER
blades.
The navy also had pictures made
of several pigeons being released from
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 re-
leased simultaneously from one bas-
ket. This picture showed the pigeons
did interfere.
BY chance facts that pigeon experts
had never known were learned. The
pigeons wings were seen slowly ris-
ing on the up stroke until they
touched over it's back; then they
dropped on the down stroke and
touched below its breast. The pigeon
flies SO swiftly that this popularity
had never been apparent to the eye.
to find, too, that the feathers at the
tip of the wing spread like fingers
as the wind goes thru them on the up
stroke.
Since the tumbling pigeon taught
aviators how to loop the loop, it may
be that the birdmen can learn further
secrets from the pigeon by the close
analysis of its flight that is now pos
sible.
This camera is for scientific pur-
Tvs h uI7 a6
microscope is necessary for some ex-
acting laboratory work, SO the ultra
rapid camera, with a. prospect OF at
tanning 100000 pictures minute, will
have it's place in scientific research.
Mr.. Jenkins has lately been at
tracing great interest by another in
vention of his, an instrumtnt for send
ing pictures by radio. He has already
sent pictures successfully and now he
is working to send moving pictures
by radio. He knows how it is to be
done, but he estimates that it will be
about a year before the necessary ad-
ditional instruments for the higher
speed will be completed. The instru-
ments for all his work have to be
made in his own laboratory, or else he
has to have them made at great ex-
pense and difficulty by manufacturers.
The necessary apparatus or parts are
not commercially available.
Sending moving pictures by radio is
merely an amplification of the method
by which ordinary pictures can be
sent, the inventor says. The main
principle of the camera used in all of
his work is a prismatic ring, a new
optical shape in glass
BY means of these prismatic rings
and photo-electric cell at the, sending
station, the light chara cteristics which
make up a picture are converted into
electric current characters" Mr.. Jen-
kins explains. These in turn modu-
late radio waves employed as carriers.
When these arrive at a receiving sta
ton the electric characteristics are
changed back into picture character
isties by means of another pair #
prismatic rings and light valve and
the scene at the sending station is
reproduced with fidelity.
IAN actual scene may be transmit