Some photo projects.

[Tom Deering <deering@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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:

(1) Pentaprism slide viewer.  I wanted to be able to preview my 
slides, so I would know which ones had problems before I want through 
the trouble of mounting them.  I like my siamised Lubitels, because 
it's easy to swap the left and right sides for viewing, but I find 
myself shooting with the Sputnik more often now.

I made a viewer out of plexiglas.  The interocular is not adjustable, 
so it works okay for me and my wife, but other people have trouble. 
Has a built-in florescent light source.  The penta prisms I used were 
from 35mm cameras, so they have a 2:3 aspect ratio.  (not tall enough 
.)  When I get the slide far enough away to see the whole thing, the 
image is kind of small.

Works well for the intended purpose.  I went through ten rolls of 
unmounted slides in about fifteen minutes, which was a BIG thrill.

(2) Filter holder.  I  made some gradient filters and filter holder. 
They are based on the "p" series cokin filters, cut in half and 
mounted on plexiglas.  They work very well, and were not expensive to 
make.

(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.

(4) Pole "tripod".  I often want to get up off the ground, higher 
that i can get with a tripod.  To help me, I built a camera  support 
that uses a ratcheting web belt to secure it around any pole or 
column.  I used it to attach a camera to one of the columns near the 
Bethesda fountain in central park. Works pretty well if the pole is 
steady.  Light poles vibrate if there's wind.

(5) Backpacking tripod I.  This is a super simple camera support for 
deep woods use.  It has a cheap ball head on top, and coarse wood 
screw threads on the bottom. To use, drive the threads into nearby 
stump and presto.  Backpackers often cut the handles off their 
toothbrushes to save weight.  A regular tripod is WAY too heavy. 
Problems: applicable stumps are not as common as you might think. 
Also, they tend to be too low to the ground and nearby items are 
often too close for stereo photography.

(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.

(7)  High speed strobe trigger.  I have wanted to do this for a long 
time, but could not justify the expense of an electronic trigger.  I 
found several simple circuits on the internet, and I built one. 
Works great.  I was able to freeze a balloon halfway popped.  I 
haven't taken any stereo pictures yet, but I'm anxious to try it. 
Still want to build the electronic delay.

(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.

This appeals to me for two reasons.  One, I often want to get into 
the picture, but the 5 second built in timer of the Sputnik is too 
brief.  I may need to climb a rock or walk into a stream.  A bigger 
problem is that I usually shoot longer exposures on a steady tripod. 
The slowest speed on the sputnik is 1/15.  I find myself estimating 
quarter and half second exposures, but it's not 100% accurate. 
Plus, the built-in timer can't make a two second exposure.

I plan to use a microprocessor to control the timing, and an LED 
readout to set the timers.  I've found the processors and solenoid, 
need to buy parts. I think I can teach myself the assembly language 
programming.

I'll bet I'm forgetting something, but this is a good start.    Any comments?

Tom