andit Posted June 19, 2007 Share #1 Posted June 19, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi Guys, Just a quick question to see of there is such a thing available. Does any know of a remote release with a built in timer (ie to take a picture, say every 2 min) for the M8. As far as I can tell, this can only be done at the moment with the camera tethered to a computer running Leica Capture. Any comments would be great. Andreas Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted June 19, 2007 Posted June 19, 2007 Hi andit, Take a look here Automatic Time Interval Remote Release?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted June 19, 2007 Share #2 Posted June 19, 2007 As the M8 has a totally classic cable release all mechanical thingamejigs built in the past for mechanical cameras should work. I'td search e-bay and camera fairs if I were you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted June 19, 2007 Share #3 Posted June 19, 2007 I suspect it's not an easy find... good luck for your search... I think that the basic problem is the fact that (besides the USB connector) M8 must be shot with a TRADITIONAL release button and, usually, traditional button were used for cameras that had to be manually film-advanced/shutter cocked : so it had no much sense to develop a remote timer for such kind of button: in fact timer existed typically for motorized SLRs (Nikon, Canon, even the dear old Zeiss Contarex Electronic...) in which the process shutter fires-motor advances-shutter ready to shot again was NOT activated by the traditional button... even if it was present on the camera body... Surely timers exist for digicameras of some vendor (I know by sure of a Canon device TC3xxx...a code something like...), but , again, the traditional button is out of play... and then there are the infrared-activated digicameras... surely timers availble. Maybe, as Jaap suggests , better to find in marketplace some sort of "semi-artisan" device... obviously, not a difficult task to engineer one (timer-linear magnetic actuator-cable...), but I suspect not any important vendor has such a thing...at least in Europe... in USA they say one can find any kind of gear one can imagine... and this is very easy to imagine...and is useful... I saw massive US catalogs of car accessories with lot of devices of incredible unusefulness... This forum has number of very good technicians : can be an idea for some of them... we have seen here people that has setup little personal businesses (nothing bad, of course !) about lens coding, body re-paint, small accessories... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted June 19, 2007 Share #4 Posted June 19, 2007 ...And another idea for another kind of technicians - software nerds - could be to decode ("crack"?...don't use this term...) some pieces of Leica Capture, and recompile it for the OS of some phone with USB connection : you could even reprogram the timer remotely with another phone...and maybe hell of other strangeries, depending on the capabilities of Capture1... for my direct knowledge, smart software developers can go crazy on tasks like this... a smart guy of my company reprogrammed a Nokia model to become an intelligent terminal for people acquiring data in big truck load/unload areas... phones cost a fraction of the classical wireless terminals... the customer was a lot happy and have a device he can replace in 1 hour at a shop 1 mile from the site... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wparsonsgisnet Posted June 19, 2007 Share #5 Posted June 19, 2007 Andreas, do you have a solution for an alternative power source? Your M8 battery should last 3 or so hours, maybe, but then the camera is going to go to sleep. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourfa Posted June 20, 2007 Share #6 Posted June 20, 2007 there's the Canon TC-80N3, a very capable programmable intervalometer with a trivial 3-pin interface. Nikon has an equivalent model with a 10-pin interface. Then it's just a matter of hooking a linear actuator to a cable release with a couple of logic relays. Funny you should ask, because I'm starting a project to do exactly that (for film ultralong exposures). My plan is to modify a cable release with a spring loaded latching mechanism (think ballpoint pen - push once, latch open. Push again, latch closed), then attach a simple solenoid actuator. Rising or falling edge from the Canon dongle (I already own one) triggers a 1-second timed relay to fire the solenoid. The whole thing fits in a small project box that velcros to the tripod. No power is consumed except while the solenoid is energized. 3xAA supply most likely. I can post plans and part numbers when I'm done... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andit Posted June 20, 2007 Author Share #7 Posted June 20, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Thanks for your help, guys. The main reason that I need this is to do aerial photography. Basically, what we need to do, is hook up a camera rig to a helium blimp, and then fly that at an alitude of some 300ft. Very often it is not possible to fly with either a plane or a helicopter into the areas that we do (such as between buildings, around airports etc.). In addition to this we can bring in the job much cheaper and easier than the alternatives. One of our clients currently use helicopters to do game (animal) head counts in the parks that surround us here. That means that we need to use really hi-res so that the image can still be viewed at high magnification. The M8 with a cv12 or cv15, taking an image every 30 secs for 8 minutes would actually work out very well. At this stage, it looks like we'll just have to send up a Mac Book with the M8. However, even with a 30' blimp, we only have a certain amount of lifting capacity. Coupled to this, we work in altitudes that range from about 120msl to well over 2100msl. As the altitude goes up, helium's lifting capacity goes down. I'll let you guys know how this works out in the end and post some "flying M8" images. Thanks for your idea's. Andreas Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted June 20, 2007 Share #8 Posted June 20, 2007 And when the blimp springs a leak, will the M8 capture its own demise as it heads earthwards? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andit Posted June 20, 2007 Author Share #9 Posted June 20, 2007 Hi Mark, I'm pretty sure it should make for some good images to post here on the forum. I can just imagine the title "M8 in Free Fall" lol... No, seriously though, these craft are made of aircraft grade materials that loose less than 0.1% volume helium per day. The envelope (the outer skin) has a life expectancy of 10 years. Should a leak develop, they do come down real slow. I'll post some images once we get this whole thing sorted out. Should make for some interesting discussions. Andreas Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.