[ytterbium]

Last night, willing to capture some Perseids i was faced with a problem that it's quite annoying to hit the shutter every 30 sec.

Simply locking the shutter button didn't make continuous exposures. Taking a look at the stuff i had laying around i couldn't figure what might do timed exposures and be easily wired up to my camera. Then i realized, that with long exposures, camera already does all the timing i require and i just need a way, to feed it back.

Luckily i had some photo resistors laying around, and the camera was generous with various lights .

As soon as preview of the shot taken is displayed on the LCD, light from it opens the LDR (light dependent resistor) and fires the shutter again. I fixed it to place where some bright indication is shown, like Delete icon. Otherwise the picture taken could be too dark to open the LDR.

Timing can be adjusted with exposure time, or by choosing 2, 10 self timer.

Not shown in the illustration, but important ingredient is any sticky tape, allowing to fix the LDR to LCD.

And of course, unless specifically shielded from light, this would work only in night time. Since it has to be right next to (almost touching) LCD, some stray light will not trigger it, so it doesn't have to be completely dark.

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Last edited by ytterbium; 08-14-2011 at 03:01 AM.

[newarts]

Clever!

[Ex Finn.]

Brilliant!

[ytterbium]

I can add that i just tested this to be working at ISO100, F8, 1/15 light level when directly touching LCD and is covered (held in place) with el. insulation tape from behind.

When it is removed from LCD it will trigger from stray light.

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Last edited by ytterbium; 08-18-2011 at 11:00 AM.