Maurice Ribble talks lightning with the Camera Axe
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Maurice Ribble’s the guy that came up with the design for the lightning trigger that I use. And apparently he’s pretty happy with what I’ve done with his design (slightly re-worked, as his original schematic was drawn for Canon.)
Article and video
I’d kill for one of those Axe jobbies.
Yours are better than that other-linked guy’s.
Just sayin’
Cool!
SilverStag, I’ve been thinking about making one too, or at least a ‘home-brew’ version of it. If we dropped the fancy box and got several people together that wanted one, we could save a few bucks. I have all the resources to do it, but it’s not worth-while to build less than three – below that the kit is is going to be cheaper (I haven’t run the actual numbers in a while, but that’s about the magic number for the circuit boards)
Cool!
SilverStag, I’ve been thinking about making one too, or at least a ‘home-brew’ version of it. If we dropped the fancy box and got several people together that wanted one, we could save a few bucks. I have all the resources to do it, but it’s not worth-while to build less than three – below that the kit is is going to be cheaper (I haven’t run the actual numbers in a while, but that’s about the magic number for the circuit boards)
Count me in on that if it can work with my Canon. Where do I paypal the funds?
Cool!
SilverStag, I’ve been thinking about making one too, or at least a ‘home-brew’ version of it. If we dropped the fancy box and got several people together that wanted one, we could save a few bucks. I have all the resources to do it, but it’s not worth-while to build less than three – below that the kit is is going to be cheaper (I haven’t run the actual numbers in a while, but that’s about the magic number for the circuit boards)
I’d be really interested in those numbers- maybe we could get something started 🙂
Cool!
SilverStag, I’ve been thinking about making one too, or at least a ‘home-brew’ version of it. If we dropped the fancy box and got several people together that wanted one, we could save a few bucks. I have all the resources to do it, but it’s not worth-while to build less than three – below that the kit is is going to be cheaper (I haven’t run the actual numbers in a while, but that’s about the magic number for the circuit boards)
I’d be really interested in those numbers- maybe we could get something started 🙂
I still need a good T-Storm to test the sensor I made for my quaketronics trigger. If it fails, I/we would be interested. Hell, I should probably say we’re interested so that even if it works, Kestrana and I aren’t fighting over the damn thing.
I still need a good T-Storm to test the sensor I made for my quaketronics trigger.
Well then, have I got the perfect location and time of year for you. The only problem is trying to find a good location to shoot that’s also not a good location to be struck.
Regarding this device, does it allow for other triggering mechanisms or is it bound to lightning? IIRC, I’ve seen devices like this that also have trigger inputs and adjustable timing delays so they could be used for doing high-speed photography like water droplets, things breaking, etc.
If so, I may be interested in one of these devices as well.
The camera axe is the most versatile of all the ones I’ve seen (and still cheaper than some of the dedicated “lightning only” triggers I’ve seen. $800 for an ir photocell, an adjustable-gain h-bridge amplifier, and a couple of op-amps!). With a little arduino knowledge and the right component wired as an input, you could make it trigger on anything you wanted. Like, say, optical recognition of Cindy Crawford walking down your street.
I’m pretty happy with my knock-off (bought from make magazine, originally as a bag-o-parts kit, now they only sell completed ones for a little less than double what I paid). Except it was designed solely as a flash trigger. Didn’t take much to wire a junction box that converts the active ground signal to a passive ground to trigger a camera for me. As-is, it’ll trigger on break-beam laser (both high and low with a 3-second null) or an analogue input. I’ve tested the analogue with sound and vibration more times than I can count, and wired up an ir photocell last summer. Optesting with a flashlight and remote control was sat, but haven’t had a t-storm with active flashes yet.
I’ll work out the costs over the next couple of days and see how it looks based on 5-6 people, and we can go from there?
Optesting with a flashlight and remote control was sat, but haven’t had a t-storm with active flashes yet.
Find something that’ll generate an arc, like a stun gun, a Tesla coil, a Jacob’s Ladder, or use any IR source (assuming you’re using an IR-sensitive phototransistor or other sensor – obviously, an IR source isn’t going to help for RF-based lightning detection.)
I used my TV remote to initially test my lightning trigger, since it functions by detecting a sudden rise in ambient IR, followed by a test with a stun gun.
You need one that generates more than one arc, though – a single snap doesn’t last long enough to verify the image since the camera’s going to have a delay of 35 to 80 ms from trigger-to-shutter.
olavf; count me in as one of the 5-6.
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