Throughout the recent spate of slow motion posts I’ve been looking at sites for the cameras themselves. These sites all have something in common: None of them list a single price anywhere.
So I sent an email to my local high speed camera dealer, and they have generously allowed me to reprint some of their prices to give people an idea of how much working with these things is going to cost. I’m not going to steal their thunder with an exact line or price list, but a ballpark figure will help you get started.
Photron FastCam-X 1024 PCI
Up to 1500fps @ 1024×768. US$80,000+ to buy, around US$2000 per day to rent in stripped down form.
If you want to spend less money you get less resolution and lower framerate. The upcoming Fastec SportsCam will do 250fps @ 640×480 and 500fpx @ 440×330. US$8800 to buy or US$350 per day to rent (US$1400 per week).
If all of this expensive gear is getting you down maybe this may cheer you up: Shot with 12 Sony K750i camera phones at 10fps. Presidents of the United States of America’s Some Postman:
(Higher quality quicktime version, more information and making of video)
I was searching too on the web for a price on such a camera and found none. Thank you for the information. Now I know what to ask Santa to bring me for Christmas 😉
Thanks so much. You've probably saved me a ton of time by posting this. I hope Maria gets her wish, but I know my santa will be getting me something cheaper. 🙁 I'll have to settle for watching all the you tube clips.
[…] speed video is rapidly getting more accessible. In late 2006 a camera which could do 500FPS would set you back US$8800 (or $350/day rental). Now, the newest addition to the high-speed-cameras-for-normal-people – the […]
Yeah good luck with that thanks for posting
[…] either – “high speed camera price” was our #5 search term for the last month. The article that search result points to is from August 2006, and back then a camera shooting 500FPS@440×330 would set you back […]
I am a resident in PM&R at StonyBrook Univ. doing a research project on sprinting biomechanics. I need to film some sprinters for a few days and want to know what it woud cost to rent the high speed video equipment.
My contact info is cell 973 900-3672
email noted above.
Thank you. It’s frustating not seeing the rental prices. Now I can justify buying a Casio or Fuji DSLR with high frame rate burst.
You can also go with a Red Epic and shoot 5k at 120fps, or higher frame rates at reduced resolution. A ready-to-shoot package will ‘only’ cost about $23,000. A relative bargain as this camera was twice as much two months ago!! Not to mention that is is useful as a camera beyond slow motion.
These prices and camera speeds are no longer up to date. Searching Google and you’ll find camera prices as low as about $100 per day for older technology (1,000+fps at 1024×1024 resolution) and it looks like $700 per day for “1 Million FPS cameras” through Aimed-Research.com. A lot of places still rent cameras for $thousands$ a day but those cameras are luxury liners compared to renting something more affordable like a Vision Research MIRO.
New cameras prices are about $125,000 for the top of the line models going down to $5,000 for cameras like the Edgertronic. Cameras on the bottom end are not going to be that good, as the Edgertronic is a little hard to get good images. Vision Research Phantom cameras are the best out there.