Etienne Jules Marey, a French Physiologist who had been specializing in the problems of locomotion, was inspired by Muybridges work to invent in 1883 a single camera that would take a series of exposures on a single plate. The name of this process is known as chronophotography. It made the movement even more implicit by showing each position of a moving body in relation to all other positions on the same plate.

Marey won a high reputation as a physiologist after publishing some studies on the circulation of blood. Appointed Professor at the College de France in 1868, he devoted himself to the study of heart movement, muscular contraction, bird flight and all forms of organic movement. After seeing the horse-in-motion photographs published by Muybridge, Marey turned his mind to photography as an instrument of demonstration and research. He wrote in 1885 "I turned to photography for the solution of certain problems which had eluded the processes of recording movement by mechanical means." He used a rotating disc shutter to record these photographs.

For example: Man in black suit with white stripe, Marey, 1884.

He clothed men in black, painted white lines along their arms and legs, and had them run or walk against a black background while many exposures were made on the same plate. The result was a linear graph of the motion of arms and legs, rhythmic, harmonious and flowing; however Marey was not concerned with artistic effect but with scientific discovery. He entirely renewed the understanding of the mechanical functions performed by human muscles and bones.

In the technique of chronophotography men and horses in rapid movement were photographed with a camera set up on a movable wagon running on rails parallel to the subject. A flash would go off at each action with exposure times worked out beforehand. The camera was fitted with a gun attached to a rotating disc shutter with 12 openings around a circumference. In front was a second disc pierced with a slit. On pressing the trigger of the gun a clockwork mechanism rotated the discs. The disc carrying the 12 frames rotated 1/12 of a revolution while the disc carrying the shutter slit revolved once - so that each of the 12 openings appeared in turn behind the lens and was exposed through the slit. The result was a plate carrying 12 separate photographs showing the lens the less blurred movement is recorded. A short focal length lens captures motion with a minimum of blurr. The shutter was simply powered with a rubber band which permitted brief exposures - enough to stop the action of slowly moving subjects. Shutters were usually sliding plates or flaps which gave exposures as short as a quarter of a second.