Insect Flight, Marey's Instrument, 1874

Insect Flight, Marey's Instrument, 1874

An instrument to illustrate the flight of insects, designed by Etienne-Jules Marey. Published in Marey's "Animal mechanism: a treatise on terrestrial and aërial locomotion" (1874). Marey (1830-1904) was a French scientist, physiologist and pioneer of early photography. He became fascinated by movements of air and started to study birds. He adopted and further developed animated photography into a separate field of chronophotography in the 1880s. His revolutionary idea was to record several phases of movement on one photographic surface. In 1882 he made his chronophotographic gun. This instrument was capable of taking 12 consecutive frames a second, recording them on the same picture. Using these pictures he studied mammals, birds, fish, microscopic creatures, mollusks, insects and reptiles. His research on how to capture and display moving images helped the emerging field of cinematography.

Album / Science Source / Getty Research Institute

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3898 x 2471 px | 27.6 MB

33.0 x 20.9 cm | 13.0 x 8.2 in (300 dpi)