Jump to content

Audio & light gate triggering


aaron l

Recommended Posts

<p>What are you photographers using for light gate and audio triggering? I was looking at the triggertrap app on the iphone. The dongle looked okay and the price beats the heck out of Nero or any of those other devices. I've had need for triggering with vibration, sound, and light gates but don't have anything but my best guess for firing the camera. I've seen some fun and neat work done that would only work with and audio or light gate trigger, so I'm hoping the combine PN knowledge will lead me in the right direction.<br>

I'd rather have a good, dedicated piece of hardware that works rather than relying on the vagaries of my phone, but it's a dollars vs delivery issue, too.<br>

Thanks!</p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>Aaron, I think all of these products are compromises often requiring user modifications to suit a particular task. There are two ways to go about this: either custom-build (or modify) the required hardware for specific applications, or adapt to the trigger's limitations. </p>

<p>The Triggertrap app. looks interesting but one has to imagine a real-world scenario. For example, in order to trigger on vibration, the smartphone needs to be physically coupled to the vibrating body in order for its accelerometer to detect vibration. I imagine using it as a light gate trigger will be equally awkward if at all possible. It's probably the reason they highlighted GPS in a moving car in time lapse as an an application illustration and not much else. </p>

<p>Dedicated hardware triggers are probably more fitting but they are usually expansive especially ones that offer versatility in adjustments, but even then the sensors may not be suited to unique needs.</p>

<p>There is really no simple solution that fits every requirement but the Triggertrap is an inexpensive way to get involved if you just want to experiment, unless you have a very specific need in which case we might be able to suggest a solution. </p>

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>I got the Nero trigger for Christmas but I haven't really tried anything too difficult yet. It has a user input jack with sensitivity and delay settings. If you can build the sensor you can plug it in and get everything else. I am capable of building and programing my own design but I decided it would be quite a lot of effort. There are some plans and software out there for Adruino units as well. Good luck.</p>
Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>The Triggertrap appears to use the headphone output as the camera trigger.</p>

<p>The "dongle" plugs into the headphone jack and a separate (camera-specific) cable/connector plugs into the dongle and the other end into your camera. If that's the case, the dongle shouldn't contain more than a couple of transistors like this:<br>

<a href="http://bitshift.bi.funpic.de/en/dslr-remote/hardware/cable-s.php">http://bitshift.bi.funpic.de/en/dslr-remote/hardware/cable-s.php </a> - from an Android app called DSLR Remote<br>

<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.dslrremote&hl=en">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.dslrremote&hl=en</a></p>

<p>It wouldn't be hard to verify; in which case you can build it and save yourself $40.</p>

<p>It's also conceivable to use its sound trigger as a global input and build yourself an array of outboard sensors which will output a tone to trigger the app. </p>

<p> </p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>I built myself a lightning trigger using an Arduino starter kit - which tested as working, but was frankly a bit of a faff mostly because of the form factor. I ended up with cheap trigger from eBay - search for "MJKZZ-LSD" since I can't link - a which appears to be okay, but was cheap enough that I decided it was worth the risk. I've not actually had a thunderstorm since, so I've not really tried it in anger, but it does the right thing when I wave an LED at it or make clicking noises. (Obviously I'm nothing to do with the seller, so I can't vouch.) It was much cheaper than my best option for finding a 10-pin connector cable, when I did the Arduino solution (and <i>that</i> was to find a 10-pin adaptor for another remote trigger, not buy Nikon's over-priced banana plug cable).<br />

<br />

Relying on the latency of anything much on a phone seems like asking for trouble to me, but I may be overly paranoid. Good luck.</p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>Jim - You're right about being able to design your own. Yes, I can design, program and build my own but that means I'm not making photographs. I'm not really in the business of making photographic gadgets. It always sounds interesting but getting any real sales volume is a killer.<br>

C.P.M. - That Joker looks like a really nice system, though the entry cost is very steep. I suppose like all things photographic.<br>

Mike - I wonder what happened to the controlmynikon.com site? It looks like they messed up their wordpress install and are getting a white screen. I watched the youtube videos - that looks pretty cool. I wonder what the lag is from audio to camera or flash trigger? Thanks for the links - that's very handy.<br>

I plugged in my ear/mic buds into the phone and listened to what the app was sending out. It sounds just like a voltage edge, nothing amazing. You're right, I could hit up radio shack, hack apart one of my cheap remotes, and build up something. Though $35 looks pretty inexpensive by the time I buy an audio cable, hack the remote, drive around and build the thing.<br>

Good thing I'm not under pressure right now, but I want to be ready when a client asks for something esoteric and I'm ready.<br>

I wonder if there's a way to take advantage of my Pocketwizards to make this an even more capable system?</p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>Forgot to tell..<br>

One of the nice things about the Joker system : It can control ( in the right setup) multiple devices like trigger a trp door and within 200Us trigger the camera & flash, so that conrolled action and taking a pick becomes possible..</p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>Since it wasn't clear from my above post and price was mentioned, I just wanted to be clear that the "MJKZZ-LSD" that I bought from eBay was (or at least, currently is) $39.99. It's much less flexible than the others (although it allows a delay on the audio), but it's standalone, rechargeable, sits in the flash hotshoe and tiny. As a minimal "have it in the bag in case of lightning", it's pretty good, at least if you protect its minimal packaging a bit. Assuming it works, of course, since I've not yet tried it with actual lightning. :-) Still, this is hardly rocket science... I'm sure something like Joker is far more configurable, but I wasn't prepared to spend $500 on something that's a few transistors and an LDR. I'm sure it's possible to make something way cheaper, but getting hold of the 10-pin connector for my D800 was a sticking point and I decided life was too short.<br />

<br />

That said, ControlMyNikon seems to have gained features since I last looked, although I'll be more interested when they have Mac support (Windows 8 made me give up on my PC). It's certainly cheaper than Registax... Thanks for bringing it to my attention!</p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>I compared comercial units and felt Nero had the most to offer in a small package. Right out of the box it has sound, lightning, and broken beam/laser. It can trigger camera or flash. It has HDR and time lapse too which are nice but most cameras do this better. But it has the DIY input which gives lots of flexibility. That's mainly why I picked that one. The DIY input can take a simple contact or more complex analog input. <br>

FYI... if you want a good quality trigger cable get a Vello FreeWave Camera Release Cable as a spare part from B&H. They have all the brands and they are only $7.50 including the Nikon 10 pin. And the jack is compatible with the Nero trigger!! </p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

<p>Aaron, i agree the price is steep, but for me ( for my needs..) it is the only unit that i could find that combines triggering traps and flash with a minimal delay between events and trigerring the camera ( and the possiblity to synq sufficient) . I do not find that speed in any other unit i have been trying and that is available on the European ( Dutch) market.<br>

Some devices are not even shipped from the US to our country, so that also excludes soem possibilities.. Th Phone based possibilities are mostly to slow and do not provide the pin-point precise trap as do the Laser supported devices so for me peronally they do not get the job done that i want them to.. ( or i am to clumsy getting them adjusted properly maybe.. ? :-) )</p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...

I doubt if you can get a response-time to match this, using a smartphone's microphone. The OS would introduce latency and an unforeseen delay of 1 mS might as well be a week. Photographing a volume of water, vaguely shaped like a balloon, is child's play by comparison.

 

vignette.thumb.jpg.3b7b29b7141ecc9e1d99a1f10a799023.jpg

Edited by Piranha
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another 2014 thread alert. But yes, there are some moderately affordable options on the market that I'd hope could do better than a smartphone reasonably can. I'm still a little unimpressed by my cheap lightning trigger - but to be honest the easiest way to capture lightning these days is probably to record 4K video and do a frame grab.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My problem with a lot of these devices is that the electronics involved are really simple. I mean really. I've made one with a PIC and a breadboard (because I've not soldered for twenty years and couldn't be bothered). I have a basic light/sound trigger one - which I admit doesn't work very well - that cost me about $30, I think. The decent ones, which quite possibly include the snaperturepro one? Nearly $350. Others are in a similar ball park. I appreciate the economies of scale can't be in their favour, but I struggle to justify that for a gadget (although I'll certainly spend it on a lens...) and I can't see how it can reasonably be made to cost that much.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andrew, I agree that making a single sensor-activated trigger on a breadboard is cheap and simple. Making a multi-sensor, ergonomically-designed, programmable, robust unit, however, is neither cheap nor simple. Add to that the software involved in providing the user with a wide range of parameters, operational modes and triggering options, and you begin to appreciate the development costs involved. If you want a high-quality, permanent addition to your photography accessories, you should be prepared to pay for it. I agree that there are a few pieces of junk out there (well, I would say that, wouldn't I?), and I would point out that this was the driving force behind Snaperture.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why would a multi-sensor trigger be any more complex? A light diode and dynamic microphone need about the same level of amplification. The circuitry is going to simply be an op-amp followed by a comparator and triac/thyristor/transistor to trip the shutter or flash. Why would you need a PIC and get into unnecessary programming?

 

Whatever the sensor, the circuit flow is going to be the same - amplifier (with rectification) - voltage comparison to a manually variable level - (variable delay) - trigger device. All of which can be done in analogue components. The blocks in brackets are optional.

 

Basically a box with 3 potentiometers for gain, trigger level and delay is all that's needed. Any required sensor could then be plugged in. The whole thing could be done with a TL082 dual op-amp, a 555 timer and a transistor, plus three pots and half-a-dozen other components.

 

I bet the box to put it in would be the most expensive buy!

Edited by rodeo_joe|1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm afraid I'm with RJ. I used a PIC so that I had the ability to tweak timing (and because I'm a software engineer so it was easier for me than tweaking components - and it was about ten lines of code anyway and I thought I might do something else with it). The components aren't free, but the bill of materials - possibly excluding a custom PCB - was certainly in the "few dollars at most" range. For me, the most expensive bit was the 10-bit connector (pro tip, get an adaptor from someone else's radio trigger, don't spend a fortune on Nikon's banana plug version). I didn't add a simple display and a couple of buttons, but it wouldn't have added much to the cost if I had. I only didn't keep using it because I couldn't be bothered to solder it together properly, and a 9V battery made it a little unwieldy.

 

I do appreciate that there's a lot to be said for someone solving this problem so I don't have to, and I'm often willing to pay for that. I'm also aware that I'm slightly more aware than the average member of the public (though not necessarily of this forum) of what goes into a simple bit of electronics. Still, it rankles that something like this has to cost so much (more than a smartphone!) At least a lens of this cost has some precision machining and expensive equipment required to make it; a camera trigger can be knocked up by a student in a school electronics club. I'd honestly pay a premium for something better to use than my cheap ebay model (which is, ergonomically, not that bad - it's small, it sits nicely in the flash socket, it does have adjustable delay, it does internal sound and light changes and comes with an external trigger socket, it's charged over mini-USB, it seems robust... it just isn't quite as reliable as I'd like in practice). But £50 for a better way to capture lightning rather than spending a few hours building something is one thing; spending hundreds is another.

 

I'm sure others have a different price/value metric for this kind of thing, otherwise they wouldn't sell. I just wish they were a bit cheaper, and wonder how many others like me might be more tempted by an impulse purchase if they were. If the BoM justifies the price, something's wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I take your point about my using this forum to "plug" the device and will refrain from doing so in future, but I feel I have to defend its capabilities and potential.

 

This device is by no means a collection of separate, simple triggers, with on/off response. For example, the range finder can pinpoint distance to the nearest centimetre, up to four metres. This is a digital feature and involves signal sequencing in software, as you will appreciate. If one wished to sense that a body had come within a specified distance, then ensure that it's movement had ceased, followed by a light illuminating, then a noise occurring, it could not be realised simply by a handful of components in a breadboard. This is just a random example, of course, but demonstrates that this device has a great degree of versatility. I agree that if you simply want to detect noise, it is wiser to put something simple together with a few components, however if one wishes a multi-medium, quick response unit that is robust and portable, them more is required.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, I've got to say I missed the rangefinder feature. Fair cop, and thanks for pointing it out, Piranha. (Again, I don't mind you telling us about something interesting - if not too repeatedly - so long as you say if you have an association with the product; however, I'm not a moderator.) I've seen a number of trigger devices that seem to be in a similar $300+ range which don't offer anything you can't do very cheaply, so I apologise for not looking too closely at this example.

 

Interesting though it is in an external device, I wish Nikon would just make trap focus more configurable, though!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andrew, I appreciate you were not aware of the complexity of Snaperture. The software is very extensive and I took great care (as I always do) to ensure that it was well structured and efficient. May I ask you, as a software engineer, if you are familiar with the Jackson Structure Method, or JSDs, as the diagrams are known? I swear by this methodology and would not consider coding without carrying out this planning exercise first. At work, my boss sometimes commented on the fact that my software took longer than expected, but once commissioned, he was delighted to be spared irate irate calling to report malfunctions.

 

I also failed to mention a feature in my device, whereby the camera trigger can occur zero to ten seconds after the sensor activates, in one millisecond increments. This is just one example of a function that involves significant user interface, adding to the versatility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...