Guitar Oscillations Captured with iPhone 4

Guitar strings look the same way when played under a strobe light. It's really fascinating to see for the first time, especially if you have no prior knowledge of it.

If anything, this shows you how good the iPhone4 camera isn't.
 
I cant stand people jamming their guitars, especially outdoors, I wanna smash their guitars, and that guy would loose his iphone in the process also :mad:

The clip was cool though :)
 
MindBuster said:
I cant stand people jamming their guitars, especially outdoors, I wanna smash their guitars, and that guy would loose his iphone in the process also :mad:

The clip was cool though :)
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I totally understand! When I see (or hear) people spreading art and culture it totally makes me want to punch a kitten! :p
 
MindBuster said:
I cant stand people jamming their guitars, especially outdoors, I wanna smash their guitars, and that guy would loose his iphone in the process also :mad:

The clip was cool though :)
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Seraphical said:
I totally understand! When I see (or hear) people spreading art and culture it totally makes me want to punch a kitten! :p
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HAHAHAHHAHA.... Awesome.

It really depends on who is doing the guitar jamming. I know somebody that can play like nobody's business. He has been playing for at least 10 years. Listening to one of his jamming sessions for a couple of hours is pretty awesome.
 
I'm pretty sure that's not real... the mode shape looks way too high for a guitar....
 
-Sn1PeR- said:
I'm pretty sure that's not real... the mode shape looks way too high for a guitar....
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And I didn't read him saying it's an effect of the "rolling shutter" and not a vibrational mode being captured.... over-engineering my problems as always.
 
R4CK3R said:
If anything, this shows you how good the iPhone4 camera isn't.
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Haha, that's the first thing I thought too. It just shows how the camera isn't fast enough to properly capture the movement of the vibrating string (but to be fair, neither can any normal video cameras)
 
The way the strings were vibrating was certainly odd... Not sure what to make of that...
 
What's even cooler is as you adjust the frame rate the wave patterns change slightly.
 
The clip was cool in a non-apple, non-hipster way. However, I want to strangle him with his guitar strings or break the guitar over his head for the multiple times he stopped/cut playing "Tears in Heaven".
 
MindBuster said:
I cant stand people jamming their guitars, especially outdoors, I wanna smash their guitars, and that guy would loose his iphone in the process also :mad:

The clip was cool though :)
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Wow man, you're in need of some serious stress management :eek:
 
I actually watched the clip to the end... so often I get bored with them long before... or slightly motion sick int he case of a certain recent one.

I thought he was reasonably good. And despite having seen similar with a strobe light thought it a fun concept to play with.

Each to our own thoughts I guess.

Might be an interesting experiment to try something similar with various cameras/phones/gadgets and see how they compare.
 
tazzmissionx said:
The clip was cool in a non-apple, non-hipster way. However, I want to strangle him with his guitar strings or break the guitar over his head for the multiple times he stopped/cut playing "Tears in Heaven".
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No shit right?!?!? I mean don't be messing around with that song please, go butcher something like Stairway to Heaven like everyone else!
 
This is not how the guitar strings actually move but looks like this instead because of the camera scanning the image top to bottom. Realistically they just move back and forth.
 
R4CK3R said:
Guitar strings look the same way when played under a strobe light. It's really fascinating to see for the first time, especially if you have no prior knowledge of it.

If anything, this shows you how good the iPhone4 camera isn't.
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That's what I was thinking, what's the frame rate of the iphones video camera feature?

Also why was the iphone in the guitar? Couldn't you just as easily put a bright light in there and had the iPhone shooting from down at it?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Also why was the iphone in the guitar? Couldn't you just as easily put a bright light in there and had the iPhone shooting from down at it?
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Probably because he had an iPhone but not a bright light that could fit into the guitar? And if you're going to use an iPhone anyway, why add another, unnecessary component to the process?

The real question is why did he use the iPhone's microphone - audio quality was garbage.
 
Rodrigo y Gabriela should do this for their next video. They would have to super glue it to Gabriela's guitar, but it would be pretty neat.
 
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltMPMz37VPk"]‪Plane Propeller from iPhone‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]
 
kllrnohj said:
Probably because he had an iPhone but not a bright light that could fit into the guitar? And if you're going to use an iPhone anyway, why add another, unnecessary component to the process?

The real question is why did he use the iPhone's microphone - audio quality was garbage.
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Hmm makes sense, guess the iPhone simply slips in, where as a light would require the strings to be removed... getting the iphone out may have been a bit trickier though :D
 
Seems like a conflict between the cameras scanning frequency and the string. I wonder what it'll look like if the camera was rotated 90 degrees.
 
iphone 4 does strange things with lasers as I found out (not my phone)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv-TfKTp8sw"]‪Tribute to Dave Laser Show .1‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]
 
Portrait mode for video is unnatural and just plain ugly. It's like sticking blinders on your head. Let's move past this trend already!
 
Oldie said:
Those weren't steel strings, that was a classical guitar using probably mostly nylon.
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I know that. Unless the guy went old-school and used catgut. LOL

Still... The vibration shape of the strings just looked... Odd. Not round enough considering what I've seen on an oscilloscope in the past.
 
kllrnohj said:
Probably because he had an iPhone but not a bright light that could fit into the guitar? And if you're going to use an iPhone anyway, why add another, unnecessary component to the process?

The real question is why did he use the iPhone's microphone - audio quality was garbage.
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The funny part, though... The wave shapes of the vibrating strings looked distorted... Like the audio.
 
sfsuphysics said:
That's what I was thinking, what's the frame rate of the iphones video camera feature?

Also why was the iphone in the guitar? Couldn't you just as easily put a bright light in there and had the iPhone shooting from down at it?
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Probably because his hand would be in the way. :rolleyes:
 
GilmourD said:
I know that. Unless the guy went old-school and used catgut. LOL

Still... The vibration shape of the strings just looked... Odd. Not round enough considering what I've seen on an oscilloscope in the past.
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I think it's related to the cameras scanning frequency. If you try using an older camera phone to take a video of the outside while you're riding a bus, you'll notice that everything is slanted. Even on my old camera, it's sharp, it just couldn't capture the image fast enough

Cameras don't take pictures instantly like film does. The light sensor chip is actually made up of thousands of little light sensors, and the controller has to get the color information off each of them one by one. If the object it's looking at is moving fast enough, the camera could be looking at something diffent by the time it reaches the last sensor. Sort of like playing a game with vsync off.

It's the digital version of motion blur.
 
Sly said:
Cameras don't take pictures instantly like film does. The light sensor chip is actually made up of thousands of little light sensors, and the controller has to get the color information off each of them one by one. If the object it's looking at is moving fast enough, the camera could be looking at something diffent by the time it reaches the last sensor. Sort of like playing a game with vsync off.

It's the digital version of motion blur.
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No. CCD sensors (most digital cameras - point and shoots, DSLRs, etc..) do not have a rolling shutter and thus do not have this problem. Most CMOS sensors (cell phones, other tiny embedded cameras) have a rolling shutter, but it isn't actually a limitation of CMOS necessarily, they *could* have a global shutter, they just almost never do (not sure if it's a cost thing or a size thing)
 
kllrnohj said:
No. CCD sensors (most digital cameras - point and shoots, DSLRs, etc..) do not have a rolling shutter and thus do not have this problem. Most CMOS sensors (cell phones, other tiny embedded cameras) have a rolling shutter, but it isn't actually a limitation of CMOS necessarily, they *could* have a global shutter, they just almost never do (not sure if it's a cost thing or a size thing)
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Then i'm out of ideas on why the waves look like they're at sharp angles.
 
kllrnohj said:
No. CCD sensors (most digital cameras - point and shoots, DSLRs, etc..) do not have a rolling shutter and thus do not have this problem. Most CMOS sensors (cell phones, other tiny embedded cameras) have a rolling shutter, but it isn't actually a limitation of CMOS necessarily, they *could* have a global shutter, they just almost never do (not sure if it's a cost thing or a size thing)
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Googled "rolling shutters" and turns out the iPhone4 does have it after all. The explanation i gave above does apply :)
 
Sly said:
Googled "rolling shutters" and turns out the iPhone4 does have it after all. The explanation i gave above does apply :)
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Yup, I was just trying to clarify that it isn't a limitation of digital cameras, but of the specific implementation most cell phones (including the iPhone 4) have - that implementation being CMOS sensors instead of CCD sensors. Most point and shoots and DSLRs would not work for this video.
 
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