This Is the $118,000 Camera Used to Film Shark Week’s Slow-Motion Videos

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The best part about Discovery Channel’s Shark Week is hands-down the ultra-detailed, split-second slow-mos of great whites shooting out of the water like scud missiles, snatching unsuspecting seal pups between jagged rows of dagger-like teeth. It’s gruesome, terrifying and, for fairly obvious reasons, I can’t stop watching.

So during a recent repeat of Air Jaws 2 on Sunday (the second offering in the video series posted above), when the crew stated that they’d been capturing shots using something called a Phantom Camera, my curiosity was piqued.

(MORE: Ultimate Air Jaws: The Amazing New Technology of Shark Week)

A few calls were placed, and I found out that the camera they were using was actually the beastly configuration you see below: The Phantom HD Gold (of which there are only about 150 in the world).

If you’re interested in capturing your own dramatic slow-mos (and have a cool $118,000 lying around), the Phantom HD Gold has a maximum resolution of 2048 x 2048 pixels and can capture 1,052 frames per second in 1920 x 1080 high definition. It’s capable of giving videographers a gorgeous 35mm depth-of-field to spotlight exactly where the action is, and supports a maximum low light sensitivity of ISO 600. In non tech-geek speak, it means beautiful, pitch-perfect videos captured in savage detail.

(MORE: Megashark vs. Giant Octopus: For Real!)

It comes equipped with 8, 16, or 32 gigabytes of internal memory, which can be supplemented with multiple 512-gigabyte CineMag flash storage magazines — an absolute must, especially if you’re staring at the water for six, seven hours on end waiting for a freakin’ shark to jump out.

MORE: Techland Talks with Jeff Kurr, the James Cameron of Shark Week

Chris Gayomali is a writer-reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @chrigz, on Facebook, or on Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.