Small digital camera with remote shutter release?

[tunnelfly 0]

Well, I bought the camera used on ebay for ~200$, after being inspired by your modification. 5 months is the time between arrival of the camera and jumping it the first time. I don't jump during the winter (rather do tunnel-time), so I wasn't in a hurry. Besides that, I'm married and have a 15 month old son, which doesn't leave much time for "continuous" working on this project.

And selling it ?? No way...

No.1 reason NOT to be an astronaut: ...You can't drink beer at zero gravity...

[JSE 1]

Wouldn't it be great to make a small canon point and shoot (like the s600 that I have) jumpable?

Well now I am fairly certain it is possible - and I will tell exactly how...

Let me start by saying that these cameras will never be able to replace dSLRs. But, there are a couple situations where I have thought "gee, I would prefer not to have a big camera like my xti on my head"

There are two parts to this puzzle, software and hardware.

The software part has already been mostly taken care of by the CHDK project. The website for the project is http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page . You will need to download this software, which is a nondestructive firmware update. It is nondestructive because it lives on the camera’s memory card, not the camera itself. I won’t get into the details of everything chdk does, but it adds a ton of really cool and useful features such as the ability to shoot in raw, manual shutter speed (very important in skydiving) and a bunch of other stuff which you can read about on the website. Many, but not all powershot cameras are supported. If yours in not officially supported, you can check in the forums. My camera was not officially supported but I found a version that works there.

The second part is building a remote shutter release. The key feature of chdk that makes these cameras potentially jumpable is the ability to activate the shutter remotely though the usb port. In order to do this you have to build (or buy) a powered remote shutter release. It doesn’t look very hard and there are diagrams available at http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/USB_Remote_Cable
I’m not exactly a whiz kid at electronics, and I’ve been insanely busy, so I haven’t gotten around to building a switch yet. There is an entire thread running in their forum about building these things. I’m sure some enterprising dz.commer can find an easy cheap method for doing this and share it with the rest of us (hint hint)

The best part of this whole thing is that it doesn’t require making any real modification to the camera itself, thus you will not void your warranty by doing this.
Have fun and please share your experiences.

[cj1150gs 0]

WOW! Incredibly nice! It would take me 50 years to build something alike! Well done.

Carlos Martins
Portugal www.cj.smugmug.com

[Gadget 0]

Clicky is your friend

Quote

Wouldn't it be great to make a small canon point and shoot (like the s600 that I have) jumpable?

Well now I am fairly certain it is possible - and I will tell exactly how...

Let me start by saying that these cameras will never be able to replace dSLRs. But, there are a couple situations where I have thought "gee, I would prefer not to have a big camera like my xti on my head"

There are two parts to this puzzle, software and hardware.

The software part has already been mostly taken care of by the CHDK project. The website for the project is http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page . You will need to download this software, which is a nondestructive firmware update. It is nondestructive because it lives on the camera’s memory card, not the camera itself. I won’t get into the details of everything chdk does, but it adds a ton of really cool and useful features such as the ability to shoot in raw, manual shutter speed (very important in skydiving) and a bunch of other stuff which you can read about on the website. Many, but not all powershot cameras are supported. If yours in not officially supported, you can check in the forums. My camera was not officially supported but I found a version that works there.

The second part is building a remote shutter release. The key feature of chdk that makes these cameras potentially jumpable is the ability to activate the shutter remotely though the usb port. In order to do this you have to build (or buy) a powered remote shutter release. It doesn’t look very hard and there are diagrams available at http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/USB_Remote_Cable
I’m not exactly a whiz kid at electronics, and I’ve been insanely busy, so I haven’t gotten around to building a switch yet. There is an entire thread running in their forum about building these things. I’m sure some enterprising dz.commer can find an easy cheap method for doing this and share it with the rest of us (hint hint)

The best part of this whole thing is that it doesn’t require making any real modification to the camera itself, thus you will not void your warranty by doing this.
Have fun and please share your experiences.

If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes???
My logbook

[dynamite 1]

Just to reignite this thread - i have now successfully used the Ricoh GX100 for the last 5-6 tandem camera jumps and have to say it's made a huge difference to the load on my head.

I spliced a tongue switch to the ricoh shutter release which connects via the mini usb port. I have had the best results when using the camera on continuous shoot mode which has taken some getting used to. Using this mode I get about 2 frames per second have been delivering 40-80 images to the customer (from a 10K jump).

The images it produces are a fine but grainy above 200ISO so in low light i have tried to alter the f stop rather than increase the iso. The lens (24mm equivalent) is roughly as wide as my old Zenitar 16mm on my canon.

Having switched from a PC1000 and canon 350D setup to a CX-6 and Ricoh i think i've saved about 500grams from my head or roughly a third and it is very noticable. It feels like i am missing the stills.

Sample images below. Not quite the same quality as the Canon as you can see the grain as you zoom in.

[drudchen 0]

this morning, I've modified my Casio EX-Z700 compact digital camera to add external shutter release. It was pretty simple, just soldered a wire to a tiny place on the circuit board next to the actual shutter. So to take a picture, you just connect the two wires together. Still need to get a biteswitch, but that should be a very simple connection.

Now the good part:
-it only weights 112 grams!
-it remembers all the manual settings when you turn it off, and then turn it back on later
The bad:
-no autofocusing, as you need to half-press the shutter. (but the manual focus works fine, i set it a tad below infinity)
-works at 0.5 fps,, so can't get a fast sequence of shots
-quality of the optics isn't that great, but still it's 7.1 megapixels
-400-800 ISO setting is pretty grainy when zoomed in

should be easy to top-mount onto my rawa helmet...


I came across another camera that I think could be pretty good: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18
If I can modify it the same way, it's going to be awesome
360 grams total, good quality lens, has continuous autofocusing (all the time, dont have to half-press shutter), works better at higher ISO levels, and can possibly attach wide angle lens, better burst mode/continuous shooting framerate (2-3fps), 28mm at its widest setting (35mm equiv), can do RAW.
Has anyone played with this camera?

edit: ..note that I'm not doing tandem stills, so not looking for professional quality for sale for now, but, rather just playing around :)

Dmitry R.

[drudchen 0]

Just wanted to share a couple of pictures that I've got over the last little while with my pocket-sized Casio EX-Z700

it's so small and light - love it.

[Bengel 0]

Here are my two cents to this thread. Fuji Finepix F40d with a packing bungee attached to the trigger.
So after the two minutes call, I just set it on continuously shooting and forget about it. Not as good as a DSLR but still nice ;)

I'm a British nanny, and I'm dangerous!

[ruthers 0]

I carved a block of styrene foam to match the curve of the helmet I use for skydiving, and added a small plastic box to the front and mounted my Ricoh Caplio R5 in it.

Here's one view of the setup:
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/OCPss34C9cD52aOQ2FZTaQ

At first I just set the camera on "interval", so it just takes a photo every 5 seconds, I was using it for some CRW jumps.
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/6nz79ynMK8lv5xISx6xoXw

Good things:
- 28mm lens on the camera
- nothing to think about while jumping.
- I built in a cutaway handle which disconnects the camera holding foam block from the helmet (it's held by four loops, a bit of cable threads through them, the purple knotted cord under the block is the cutaway.).
- very light. Total system weight adds only 300gm to the helmet.
- foam all around the camera so it poses no hazard to other jumpers on rel jumps.


bad things:
- actual image quality on this camer is poor. Low dynamic range and noise, typical of small point and shoot camera.
- the 5 second intervals mean of course rather random results but some occasional nice shots for no mental load.

Subsequently improved it by adding a blow switch which I built inside the foam block. I had to open up the camera to attach extra wires to the shutter switch, brought them out to a phone jack expoxied to the front of the camera. The phone jack connects to the blow switch.

I used the blow-switch setup for all the photos in the Canungra paragliding gallery (see first link), with auto bracketing switched on, so the camera takes three shots (under expose 0.5 stops, normal exposure, over expose 0.5 stops) for each puff on the tube.

Good things:
the caplio R5 has quick shot to shot time. 3 shot burst is about 1.5 seconds.
Bad things:
as above, the basic camera's image quality is so so.

But I get some nice shots with a very light setup.

Could also run the camera in video mode, but I like stills so haven't done this yet, and there is no possibility of a tally light.

Cheers,
Hamish