Capturing Transient Events in Series: A Review of Framing Photography

Observing transient events is of great importance for understanding fundamental principles and further controlling the related processes. To surmount the limitations of human vision, special tools are required to detect and record these transient events. Among existing approaches, framing photography stands out by its high spatiotemporal resolution with a 2D field of view and low crosstalk between adjacent frames. This review aims to summarize the technical routes of framing photography and provide a guide for choosing suitable tools for the observation of transient phenomena. The basic principles of framing photography are introduced and then an overview of the main categories by analyzing the system configurations and working principles are presented. Then, the existing devices are classified into mechanical, electrical, and optical framing photography. For each category, representative techniques and applications are discussed. Finally, a prospect for framing photography is provided.