Cable Release
A couple weeks ago, I started to get really obsessed with the idea of building a cable release for my camera. A cable release is just a wired remote for your camera that controls when your camera focuses and/or opens the shutter. Why is this useful? Well, in landscape or astro-photography or any other area of photography where you want to minimise camera shake, you typically want to use some kind of remote to trigger the camera. A timer is sometimes used as well.
Having read several DIY websites about this sort of project, I set out to build one myself.
Having a fair bit of experience with soldering and electronics (my first degree was a lot of EE), I knew putting the device together would be a breeze. The bigger challenge was more a matter of finding the parts. I consider myself quite lucky in that the workshop fellas at the ISVR are very friendly and approachable; my buddy Antony was able to scrounge up a box, a switch and some wires in no time! Total cost: free.
Also, because I'm cool like that, I decided to braid the cables. Not only is it stylish and keeps them from getting entangled, the basic braid reduces any mutual inductance between the wires (though for such a short run, it's pretty much negligible). This goes back to the good ole days in High School when my best friend and I would braid twisted pairs of Cat5 network cable for hours on end to produce high quality loudspeaker cables at a low cost.
Hey, I never said I wasn't a geek :)
the finished product
Last night was the first time I had a chance to try out my cable release. There've been lightning storms here for a couple nights now, and I've always wanted to catch a storm on film (CCD?). This was also a perfect opportunity to put my new cable release into action. By setting my camera to Fully Manual 'Bulb' mode, I could use my cable release to keep the shutter open for as long as I liked-- until I saw lightning. Why is it called 'bulb' mode? I always thought it was an air bulb that depressed the trigger, but I guess someone found a variety of answers.
In case you care-- an aperture of f/9 and an ISO 100 seemed to work decently with the focus set to infinity.
While I think my first application of the cable release turned out okay, the view from my kitchen in Monte is pretty rubbish, haha. The view from my friend
zeke_xa3's window however is much more photogenic.
Now all I need is a true wide lens... Christmas is just around the corner, isn't it?
Having read several DIY websites about this sort of project, I set out to build one myself.
Having a fair bit of experience with soldering and electronics (my first degree was a lot of EE), I knew putting the device together would be a breeze. The bigger challenge was more a matter of finding the parts. I consider myself quite lucky in that the workshop fellas at the ISVR are very friendly and approachable; my buddy Antony was able to scrounge up a box, a switch and some wires in no time! Total cost: free.
Also, because I'm cool like that, I decided to braid the cables. Not only is it stylish and keeps them from getting entangled, the basic braid reduces any mutual inductance between the wires (though for such a short run, it's pretty much negligible). This goes back to the good ole days in High School when my best friend and I would braid twisted pairs of Cat5 network cable for hours on end to produce high quality loudspeaker cables at a low cost.
Hey, I never said I wasn't a geek :)
the finished product
Last night was the first time I had a chance to try out my cable release. There've been lightning storms here for a couple nights now, and I've always wanted to catch a storm on film (CCD?). This was also a perfect opportunity to put my new cable release into action. By setting my camera to Fully Manual 'Bulb' mode, I could use my cable release to keep the shutter open for as long as I liked-- until I saw lightning. Why is it called 'bulb' mode? I always thought it was an air bulb that depressed the trigger, but I guess someone found a variety of answers.
In case you care-- an aperture of f/9 and an ISO 100 seemed to work decently with the focus set to infinity.
While I think my first application of the cable release turned out okay, the view from my kitchen in Monte is pretty rubbish, haha. The view from my friend
zeke_xa3's window however is much more photogenic.
Now all I need is a true wide lens... Christmas is just around the corner, isn't it?