Taking remote Photography up a notch!!

Following on from my last post and taking the learning that failure delivers, I decided to change the setup around.  Firstly, I managed to get hold of a suitable log to act as a focal point for the feeding birds.  Using a router I made a "tray" in one end and then positioned it with the final shot in mind, so that the background would be as uncluttered as possible.



Upturned log with a "tray" routed into the top.

Of course just sticking the log out would not guarantee any feathered visitors so I filled the tray with live mealworms which did the trick in a matter of minutes!

The idea of the tray rather than just a pile of food was to keep the food below the surface of the log so it looked clean on the photos (that didn't really work as to get to the good stuff they flicked the other food onto top!) and to stop the mealworms from escaping.

My plan then involved placing the Laser at one side of the log, shining across the "tray" to a light sensor on the other side.  I then planned to focus the camera where the beam crossed the tray so if the beam was broken the camera would trigger and take the shot.

However, trying to mount the laser robustly so that its narrow beam bridged the gap and hit a 4mm target proved impossible.  I need to rethink that one, the sensors are tricky over a couple of inches so this gap was nigh on impossible.  So it was back to the microphone!

So technically the setup was the same as before but now I had a better target, better background and knew that I needed to frame the shot better so that I'd get more usable shots.  I put the camera into Shutter Priority at 1600 to ensure that it would freeze motion, set ISO to 800 so that the camera had enough "headroom" to adjust Aperture to give consistent light levels (to compensate for differing light levels as clouds go past the sun etc).  Then sat back and let it run.

This was my favourite shot, you can see the microphone under the birds tail and the scattered food on the top of the log.

I had good shots of a Robin and a Blackbird too.

In the final analysis, yes its an improvement, but theres still a lot more to be done.  The issues I have at the moment is that as sound is used to trigger, there are a lot of images with nothing going on.  Thats because the microphone picks up birdsong, dogs barking, aeroplanes etc etc and snaps away!   It would also be difficult to argue that the setup wasn't obtrusive and thats not good.

A friend wanted to try the setup at his birdbath but the sound of the water bubbling would constantly trigger the camera, and I didn't fancy getting water in the mic either so we need another solution. 

Watch This Space!!

A New Toy

This week saw the arrival of my latest gadget a device called a Phototrigger from http://www.phototrigger.com.  I’ve wanted one of these devices for a while now, ever since I tried water droplet pictures (see Union Jack pic below), which although was reasonably successful, always felt a bit hit and miss.

There are a few devices out there but I settled on this particular one as it had the features I wanted (guess what, I want more now!) and was at the price point where it enabled a dabble in the technology without the need for a second mortgage.

In summary, the unit can trigger the camera or a Flash or both, when a specific physical situation occurs.  This could be a sound or vibration, a change in light levels or something interrupting its laser beam (cool, it has a laser!).  It will also function as an intervalometer for time lapse work should you wish to try this (I have an idea for this one!).

As always with new kit there is a learning curve that you have to climb before you can start getting creative.  Therefore my first attempts have been to get to learn the way things work with simple subjects.  In the first instance, garden birds.  Since they flee very quickly when they spot a human (or the dog), if I can master the technology I should get a few nice shots.  

I decided to use the microphone as a trigger and you can see the setup in the picture below. 

Did it work ? well, sort of. 

Nothing whatsoever wrong with the equipment, it triggered fine when birds (or my dog) were in the right area.  The issues I had were all in the setup of the camera.  Have a look at the picture below, no laughing now!!

As you can see, it triggered fine, BUT the framing is way off.   When I set zoom and focus point (I set focus manually so lens didn’t have to waste time finding focus, I may need to adjust this strategy).  Obviously I underestimated the size of the birds that would feed.  Also, though you can’t see it here but the original was quite dark.  This is because I set the camera up on full manual as I wanted to dial in a constant fast shutter speed to freeze motion, I think shutter priority would have been better as the camera can change Aperture to maintain light levels.

Still, making progress up that learning curve, I can only improve!

Cheers, Peter.

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