CameraTrigger

The laser trigger module is the most useful gadget to come out of the camera trigger project so far. It is a simple board that controls up to two lasers with sensors to detect if the beams have been broken. The electronics involved in detecting a broken beam are very simple so using a microcontroller might at first glance seem to be unnecessary overkill, but using a microcontroller gives a significant amount of flexibility in a small and inexpensive package.

The box of tricks is a simple microcontroller based gadget and its purpose is to provide a way of detecting / recording / modifying or generating a signal. This simple set of requirements allows for a helpful set of features to be provided by single small gadget though. One of the driving factors behind this particular gadget was to allow a delay to be introduced to the signal sent to the camera. As mentioned previously , this opens up new possibilities and allows limitations with setups to be overcome. It also, when combined with the splitter , allows multiple cameras to capture the same event at different times which might increase the chance of getting 'the' shot. The picture above shows the board without a case. The headphone jack in the top left is the input, the jack on the top right is the output and there are buttons in each of the bottom corners. The display is a 3 digit 7-segment display that displays numbers and some letters. Choosing the display was one of the

The test today was shooting at ground level. The aim here is to catch ground feeding birds but also to simplify the whole setup. A couple of metal poles were hammered into the grass instead of using multiple tripods. Since the birds are walking around they are moving relatively slowly, so the exposure becomes easier to manage too. Here is a shot of the basic setup. The camera in this test is a Canon 6d with a 100mm 2.8 lens.

One key moment that sparked life into this camera trigger project was sitting in the well known  kingfisher hide  waiting for a kingfisher to dive. The observation was that my odds of getting a shot at the right moment would be increased if I was using my second camera body at the same time. For diving kingfisher shots the focus is preset so operating two cameras at the same time shouldn't be a problem as only the shutter needs to be activated. A diving kingfisher, taken in August 2015