One of my favorite features of any Mythbusters shows is the high-speed sequences, where they film an explosion, a reaction, etc. on a high-speed camera, then slow it down to half or a quarter of real life speed (example).
Watching season four on Netflix recently, I saw a rare closeup of the high-speed, and to my surprise, found mounted a 50mm f/1.4D Nikon lens (the same one I use on my D90 70% of the time!). It's an excellent lens, and I can understand why they use it; it's basically a 'light vacuum cleaner," meaning it sucks up light like few other lenses. You can only get a little wider (Nikon makes an f/1.2 (and used to make an f/0.95, and Canon used to make an f/1.0!).
When shooting high-speed, you need as much light to enter the lens as possible - you're taking sometimes 120 or more frames every second, and you have to divide the photos per second into those frames. Less photons reaching the sensor = lower picture quality. So it's understandable why they have such a nice lens on the high speed.
I'm glad they're a Nikon shop :-)
Comments
I am using Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras. This is the lens to get for any Nikon SLR, from the simple N75 all the way to the Digital D70. It's faster than a zoom and much, much sharper. That's right, no zooming!