Picture a crowd of flash camera photographers at a brand new product unveiling or a red carpet celebrity event. It is adjustable:

  • Any number of LED Ports
  • The furious rate of flashes can be raised or lowered
  • The type of flash can be changed, ranging from fast xenon electronic flash tubes to classic magnesium flash bulbs to late 1800’s powder flash

This effect can be switched off with an external switch on the CC pin (Flashes are On with no CC connection; Off if CC is connected to 5V)

Single Channel

The single channel version simulates a single photographer. Use Theme Designer to create a group of up to 9 photographers on the Morsel. The sequence is simple. It consists of:

Six Statements (2 channel setting, 4 Go statements)
Five time stamps
Four labels

The rest is comments and defines for documentation purposes.

//Celebrity Flash Photography
//Single Channel (single photographer)
//Use Theme Designer to make more channels

//CC pin enabling with an external
//switch or sensor

//estimated flash times for different types:
// 
// Type          Xenon       Bulbs     Powder
// Mainstream  1975-today  1930-1980  1880-1935
// RiseTime      0-25ms      0-50ms    20-75ms
// Sustain       0-35ms     15-40ms    25-50ms
// FallTime      0-20ms     25-75ms    30-150ms
// Total         5-70ms*    40-150ms   75-200ms
//*Video cameras can miss some of the flashes when shorter than 35ms
 
define flashRiseTime 0ms
define flashSustainTime 30ms
define flashFallTime 20ms

//suggested delays between pictures
// Type            Xenon     Bulbs      Powder
// interflash      45ms       0.5s        5s
// papRest         15ms       1s         10s

define interFlash 45ms
define interFlashExtended 90%
define papRest 15ms
define papRestExtended 80%

            //code starts here

paparazzi
@+interFlash
            go to paparazzi with interFlashExtended chance

            chn1 = fade to 100% within flashRiseTime
@+flashSustainTime
            chn1 = fade to 0% within flashFallTime

            go between paparazzi and paparazziRest3

paparazziRest1
@+papRest
paparazziRest2
@+papRest
paparazziRest3 
@+papRest
            go to paparazziRest3 with papRestExtended chance
            go between paparazzi and paparazziRest3

Using Theme Designer to make more channels is easy. Export a theme to play many copies of the sequence, like the following screen shot:

Theme Designer basically creates several copies of the same sequence, then plays them in separate players. Since they contain random Go statements, they don’t flash the same as one another.

We also exported the sequence to Custom 1 memory using Sequence Composer.

We got a little fancy: We chose to have eight separate photographers, one of which had a flash bar with two strobes on it. The Shared ID column tells the Morsel these two channels will use the same player and their LED Ports will flash together. They need not be adjacent ports.

Nine Channel

We put all nine photographers into one sequence. This functions much like the single channel version with the following differences:

All nine can be seen at once by exporting to a test sequence.
No channel flashes twice in rapid succession
Pauses or rests tend to be longer, since all channels are affected by a single rest period

We sped up interFlash by a factor of nine, from 45ms to 5ms, to make it look as fast as the single channel version.

Although the timing is subtly better than the single version with regard to pauses, it hardly seems worth the extra code writing: It consists of 143 statements, time stamps and labels.

A short excerpt of the changes follows.

define interFlash 5ms

            //code starts here

paparazzi1

@+interFlash
            go to paparazzi1 with interFlashExtended chance
            chn1 = fade to 100% within flashRiseTime
@+flashSustainTime
            chn1 = fade to 0% within flashFallTime

            go to paparazzi2 with 10% chance 
            go to paparazzi3 with 11% chance 
            go to paparazzi4 with 12% chance 
            go to paparazzi5 with 14% chance 
            go to paparazzi6 with 17% chance 
            go to paparazzi7 with 20% chance 
            go to paparazzi8 with 25% chance 
            go to paparazzi9 with 33% chance 
            go between paparazziRest1 and paparazziRest3

paparazzi2

@+interFlash
            go to paparazzi2 with interFlashExtended chance
            chn2 = fade to 100% within flashRiseTime
@+flashSustainTime
            chn2 = fade to 0% within flashFallTime

            go to paparazzi1 with 10% chance 

            go to paparazzi3 with 11% chance 
            go to paparazzi4 with 12% chance 
            go to paparazzi5 with 14% chance 
            go to paparazzi6 with 17% chance 
            go to paparazzi7 with 20% chance 
            go to paparazzi8 with 25% chance 
            go to paparazzi9 with 33% chance 
            go between paparazziRest1 and paparazziRest3

paparazzi3

@+interFlash
            go to paparazzi3 with interFlashExtended chance
            chn3 = fade to 100% within flashRiseTime
@+flashSustainTime
            chn3 = fade to 0% within flashFallTime

            go to paparazzi1 with 10% chance 
            go to paparazzi2 with 11% chance 

            go to paparazzi4 with 12% chance 
            go to paparazzi5 with 14% chance 
            go to paparazzi6 with 17% chance 
            go to paparazzi7 with 20% chance 
            go to paparazzi8 with 25% chance 
            go to paparazzi9 with 33% chance 
            go between paparazziRest1 and paparazziRest3 

//continues through paparazzi9

 

 

 

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