Pirate own and operate several specialist high speed 16mm and S16mm film cameras as well as four different high speed video cameras, covering a wide range of budgets, qualities and speed ranges.
The video camera range comprises:
Phantom HD GOLD Camera Hire - True Hi-Definition footage (1080i or 1080p) at up to 1000fps and 2k footage (2048 x 2048 pixels) at up to 550fps.
Photron Fastcam BC2 Camera Rental - a superb HD colour camera giving film-like images at 2,000 fps at 1920 x 1080 and 5,000fps at Standard Definition 16:9.
Photron Fastcam SA1.1 Rental - a Standard Definition camera working at a staggering 9,700 fps at 16:9 Standard Definition TV (1024 x 576 pixels).
NAC C3 - an analogue colour analysis camera also shooting at 125, 250 or 500fps onto S-VHS tape.
Motion Scope 500 - a digital black & white analysis shooting at 125, 250 or 500fps giving NTSC composite output.
The film camera range comprises:
Photec S16mm camera - a rotating-prism super 16mm film camera shooting from 100 - 3,000 fps.
Photo-Sonics Actionmaster-500 - a pin-registered standard 16mm film camera shooting at 10 - 500 fps.
Photo-Sonics Actionmaster-200 - an ultra compact pin-registered standard 16mm film camera shooting at 24 - 200 fps.
If you're thinking of ideas for shots, a great resource on the web belongs to David G. Alciatore. And if you'd like a technical discussion about the pros and cons of film vs digital, read this.
Some high quality examples of high speed shots can be found on the Vision Research site.
Pirate's Conditions of Hire (printable .pdf file)
