Two cameras one trigger

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

The outcome was a very simple gadget that allowed two cameras to be controlled from a single switched input. Note that the input can be whatever you like, a manual button, a laser trigger system or anything else you can think of. My manual trigger of choice is a modified replica Wii nunchuck controller. The boards can actually be daisy chained together allowing as many cameras as necessary to be activated, but the dual camera setup seems to be the most useful. The picture below shows the custom circuit board sitting in its 3d printed case with the lid off.

The next thought was that instead of firing both cameras at exactly the same time, it would be more useful to delay one camera before firing. This again would increase the chances of obtaining the shot at the right time. This led to the development of a more complex gadget that I've named the "box of tricks". It is essentially a box with a single input, a single output a 3 digit display and a couple of buttons. This gadget though allows a whole series of different functions to be performed in a single package but the relevant one here is the delay function. Whenever an incoming signal is detected, the electronics know to delay firing the output signal by the amount the user has specified. Combined with the splitter above, this allows multiple cameras to fire out of sync and thus cover more of the action.

The box of tricks has been covered in more detail in this post.

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CameraTrigger

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