Four-axis Camera Mount Rides On A Wire

February 9, 2011 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

Here’s [Badwolf’s] team posing with their college project. It’s a 4-axis gimbal mount for a camera that they designed in CAD, cut parts using a laser, then milled them down to specifications. In the picture above there is a tiny point-and-shoot camera mounted inside the suspended ring but the rig’s strong enough to support cameras of any size.

That mounting ring can rotate like the hands of a clock, but it also pivots on a horizontal axis. The bracket that holds the ring can rotate on a vertical axis, and the entire assembly moves along the wire supporting it. After the break you can see some test footage that shows the rig being operated via a handheld radio controller.

This setup let’s the camera travel as far as the cable can reach. But if you want something that lets you take photographs of very tall objects you’ll need to use a different setup. Continue reading “Four-axis Camera Mount Rides On A Wire” →

Remote Camera Trigger Built From Air Freshener Parts

February 4, 2011 by Mike Nathan 11 Comments

Remote camera trigger assembled front view

[jcopro] took a look at a Glade automatic air freshener he had sitting around and couldn’t help but open it up to determine how the mechanism worked. After taking it apart, he found that the automated system was comprised of a 3v motor, a series of gears, and a mechanical arm. When actuated, this arm simply pressed the spray nozzle of the air freshener canister contained within the device. After some consideration, he decided that the components would make a great remote trigger for his Casio point and shoot camera. He fabricated a small plywood rig including both the camera and air freshener components, which was able to be mounted on a tripod. [jcporo] also mentions that the air freshener has the ability to be triggered by a built-in timer. Although the presets are locked at 9, 18, and 36 minutes, he suggests that a 555 timer could easily be used to add some custom timing intervals when wired to the manual trigger. Be sure to check out his video of the remote trigger in action.

Triggering A DSLR Shutter With An Audio Clip

February 3, 2011 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

Apparently Pentax DSLR cameras have a remote shutter option that used infrared signals. [Pies for you] gathered up several different hacks and built a method of triggering the camera using custom audio. He put together the dongle above, just a headphone extension cord and two IR LEDs, which plugs into the headphone jack of any audio device like an iPod or an Android phone. When you play back a file the audio signals drive the IR LEDs. This is completely worthless unless you craft your own audio file using the correct frequency, duty cycle, and bit encoding. [Pies for you] did just that and got things up and running. Looks like the system doesn’t do so well with MP3 compression, but take a look at the waveform analysis that he posted and then make sure you’re using a lossless format.

Bringing An LCD Viewfinder Back To Life

February 2, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

[Foobarbob] posted a pretty simple job of bringing an LCD viewfinder back to life. He doesn’t specify what was wrong, but since he replaced the backlight, we’re guessing that was the main issue. It was pulled off of a JVC camcorder. The camcorders with LCD viewfinders are getting more and more common at garage sales, so we’re surprised we don’t see more of these used. [Foobarbob] cracked it open, traced out the power lines and replaced the backlight with an LED and a makeshift diffuser made from a bottle cap. His results look great, we could see this being perfect for an HMD, or possibly a home made VR helmet.

No More Blurry Pictures

January 22, 2011 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

Say goodbye to ruined images thanks to this add-on hardware. It measures the movement of the camera when a picture is taken and corrects the image to get rid of motion blur. Above you see a high-speed camera which is just there for testing and fine-tuning the algorithm that fixes the photos. Once they got it right, the setup that the camera is attached to only includes an Arduino board, Bluetooth modem, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, and a trigger for the camera. You use the new hardware to snap each image and it takes care of triggering the SLR’s shutter in order to ensure that the inertial data and the image are synchronized correctly.

[Thanks Rob]

Rapatronic Shutter; Snap A Pic Of An Atomic Bomb

January 20, 2011 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

We never really thought about it before, but this post about Rapatronic Shutters answers the question of how to photograph an atomic bomb detonation. The post includes an MIT video where [Charles Wyckoff] explains how he and [Harold Edgerton] developed the Rapatronic Camera. It is designed to snap a photograph based on zero time, marked by the X-ray transmission emanating from the bomb before it actually explodes. This pulse is picked up by a light sensor on a delay circuit, allowing for very precise exposure timing. Many of these cameras were used at the same time, all with slightly different delays so that the images could be viewed in order to show what happens during each stage of detonation.

[Thanks Petrus]

Is Your Camera Lying?

January 17, 2011 by James Munns 25 Comments

It is easy to rely on the ratings marked on different tools, whether it is a power supply, scale, or speedometer. However calibration is essential for any part that is relied upon either professionally or for a hobby. [Jeremy] wanted to see if his Lomography camera shutter really was only open for 1/100ths of a second when set to that. In order to test his rig, he set up an LED on one side of the shutter, and a high speed phototransistor to gauge the time spent open, using an oscilloscope to measure the time the reference point was pulled low. In his case, when the camera was set to 1/100, the shutter was actually open for closer to 1/150th of a second (the mean was 1/148ths of a second, with a standard deviation of 417 uSecs). This difference can make a large difference in picture brightness.

Be sure to check his blog for more pictures of the setup, as well as some useful part references and circuit diagrams.