Femtofotografia is a research field that deals with capturing images at very high speed.
What is it for? And who knows. To many things. First of all to 'photograph' the light, to study its behaviour. But it can also be used to do amazing things, currently out of our reach, such as photograph an image of an object hidden around a corner through the reflection of photons on an intermediate surface, on the object itself and then again on the intermediate surface towards the photographic lens.
Three years ago Prof. Ramesh Raskar's team surprised the world with the video of the first experiments (we present it again). The latest developments tell us that the initial goal has been successfully achieved: today there is a camera capable of capturing one trillion frames per second. To give you an idea, we were stuck at 24.
A single nanosecond of time produces a 20 second video. Again to give you an idea, if this video were to film a bullet fired into water it would last three years.
It is currently impossible to record light directly: this is why the camera creates this impressive number of frames, which are then put together. “Nothing in the universe today seems faster than this camera,” says Andrea Velten, a researcher involved in the project. Much emphasis, too much. But he can be really proud of it.
