Re: Some photo projects.

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tom wrote:
> It's surprising how time flies.  I've been off the list for seven 
> weeks.  Just to catch you all up, and maybe to stir up some 
> conversation, here's what I've been doing/making:
> 
> (3) Flash holder.  I am shooting some flashbulbs, and have made a 
> flash bulb holder on a pole with a cord for remote fire.  Yes, bulbs.
> 

This sounds neat.  I've just about given getting a proper 3 cell flash
gun for my Speed Graphic.  Darn those Star Wars weenies!  I've thought
about getting a large D cell flash light and converting it, but
haven't done anything about it yet.  One of my lensboards for the
Graflex has the proper time delay solenoid.

I'd appreciate it if you could bring this along to the next 3rd Friday
Stereo Dinner.

> (6) Backpacking tripod II.  I am in the process of building am ultra 
> lightweight tripod for backpacking.   I have three 5/8 inch carbon 
> rods, which are amazingly strong.  Whether it will be useful at all, 
> I don't know yet since it's not finished. I missed a ton of nice 
> scenes this fall for want of a tripod.
> 

There are several web pages and magazine articles by amateur
astronomers on building tripods.  One method is to use three crutches
(available at thrift shops) as legs and attach them to a plywood disk.
Steve Grimes <URL:http://www.skgrimes.com/> has a page on someone's
home made photo tripod that looks pretty good.

I carry my Bogen 3021 tripod with Bogen 3047 head on a shoulder strap.
It weights about ten pounds.  I just got a Bogen 3275 (Manfrotto 410)
Junior Geared Head.  This head is lighter than the 3047, a bit more
compact (the handles don't stick out as far), has a built-in bubble
level, and much finer controls.  The geared controls make leveling
easier and I won't have to carry around the fine motion controls I
used to put between the tripod and my telescopes.  Unfortunately the
geared head uses yet another different quick release plate (I'm up to
four different Bogen styles now), and probably won't take being
dropped or banged around as much.  I plan on always keeping my Bogen
3273 Pro Quick Release Adapter with Sliding Plate on the geared head
and getting more of the sliding plates.  Since the head comes with
both 1/4 and 3/8 inch interchangeable studs, and the adapter has both
sockets, if you use both studs on the head you can keep the adapter
from twisting.  The only down side is that the adapter plate will be
rotated 90 degrees from the direction the head expects the lens to be
pointing.

> (8) Electronic shutter control. I want to build an electronic shutter 
> release.  The idea is to attach a box to a shutter cable.  You set 
> the box for a given delay time and a given exposure.  Say for 
> instance, you could set it for a 40 second delay, then open the 
> shutter for 0.5 seconds.
> 

You might also want to look into using this with your flash holder.
You could set the shutter controller to fire the flash, wait 15ms for
the bulb to reach maximum brightness and then fire the shutter.

I don't know which microcontroller you've been looking at, but I have
some experience with the Motorola 68HC11 series.  I can point you
towards single board computers, documents and tutorials available
online.

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Dee Dee!  Don't touch that button!"
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              | "Oooh!"
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds  |    -- Dexter and Dee Dee
NAR# 54438                      |       "Dexter's Laboratory"