The explosively formed projectile (EFP) is an important warhead technology; its performance affects a weapon’s ability to inflict damage on an intended target. The testing of EFPs is essential in performance evaluation, verification, and guidance design to improve the damage ability. In this study, an experimental system was developed to implement simultaneous shadow and reflective observation of high-speed EFP behaviour in flight. The self-luminescence can be filtered out by using a narrow-band pass filter and adjusting the appropriate aperture. The EFP shape and surrounding shock wave are clearly captured by a high-speed camera using shadow/direct photography. This work demonstrates the considerable capability of the imaging system for monitoring of ultrafast projectile with strong self- luminescence, and its great potential in similar observation applications.