Thanks to digital photography, all thoughts what could be tested with a camera can suddenly be tried at "no cost" and the outcome can be checked instantly. After some experimenting, this very simple setup started to yield results. Forever bye, bye 35mm film - I don't miss you.

The exposure is controlled by a Speedlite 550EX, which is triggered via a shock-sensor and a programmable delay. The Speedlite emits an approximately 200µs long flash pulse when fired at 1/32 of full power, which seems to be sufficient to freeze even very high speed events.
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