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rotating-mirror system

motion-picture technology

Quick Summary

The rotating-mirror system is a high-speed cinematography technology used to record phenomena that occur too rapidly for normal cameras. This system can achieve frame rates of up to 10 million frames per second by reflecting a primary image through a series of individual relay lenses onto stationary film. This allows for the study of extremely fast events like explosions and plasmas.1

Early motion-picture technology, like the Kinetoscope invented by Thomas Edison and William Dickson, used a spinning wheel as a shutter to create the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of still images. The fundamental principle of motion pictures relies on the human brain perceiving continuous movement from images displayed at a rate above 15 frames per second.23

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