EXILIM Pro EX-F1: Shoot the Past

EX-F1_ff_flash

With a little smugness, I have to say I called this one, though I didn’t expect it so soon. A few years ago, the Planet Earth crew captured amazing slow motion video of sharks jumping out of the ocean, a sudden event that they had no warning of whatsoever. Here’s a youtube clip of the shot, compressed badly and set to inappropriate music. To make the shot, they designed a custom camera that continuously took high-speed footage of the empty ocean for days, erasing oldest data from memory at the same time. When the action happened, the crew would scramble to push a button that made the camera write the last few seconds to a hard drive instead of discarding them–in essence, they took a movie that started before they pushed the shutter.

So now Casio is releasing a consumer camera that shoots 60 frames per second at full resolution, and a pigs-are-flying 1200 frames per second at low resolution. This means that youtube will soon be flooded with Edgerton-esq films of eggs breaking and people shooting things in their backyards with guns. Most significantly (but less emphasized), it has a new feature called “Prerecord Still Images” that functions the same was as the Planet Earth device: press down the shutter and it’ll shoot continuously, saving the data from before you release after you release. Hot dog.

I believe this tech will work its way into professional bodies eventually, the main obstacle is the lack of an electronic shutter. Technically, you could add this behavior to a current SLR with a firmware rewrite or even a hardware hack that replaces the CF card with a fast line to a computer’s memory file. The continuous shutter blackout at high speeds wouldn’t be that bad, but you’d wear out the mechanical shutter pretty fast. Also, you’d sound like a machine gun.

Still, I wouldn’t laugh at someone who tried to shoot sports with this thing. Sure, the tiny Casio looks ridiculous next to a forest of white lenses, but it’s got tracking AF, a 432mm equivalent lens and is the only camera that can consistently take pictures of the unexpected. Assuming you could focus, of course. I have my doubts on that.

Press Release

Photograph is a crop of Casio press art.


About this entry