Home made remote
This is the home made remote I made for the 400D. Alas, one of the wires in the dodgy piece of phone cable I used seems to be broken so the focus button (black push button on top) does not work.
However, since I built it primarily for bulb mode exposures (black rocker switch at the rear, or red push switch) and that seems to work just fine, I'm happy enough to leave it like that for now.
I'll resolder it at a later date when I'm more awake and after the burn on my pinkie has healed a bit.
Basic howto / circuit here: www.peeters.com/300d.html
Hmmm, this shot has now made it to Explore for Dec 2nd 2006 (#311)
View all photos taken: Saturday, 2nd December 2006, This photo: 10:06pm
Ok, I want one of them for my 400d now :)
You've jumped ship and bought a 400d Cyron ? Surely not!
A remote was the first thing I bought for my camera , very handy extra
i want something like this for my old canon powershot 95 (the one i dropped). i want to tie it to a kite and fly it - taking aerial photos...
what yu reckon?
I reckon I'm not making any more of these suckers - I burnt my finger and almost set fire to my shorts! (soldering really isn't my thing, and especially not after a beer). ;-)
RH, Canon sell remotes for about $50, parts for this cost $15.98 including solder (since I couldn't remember where I'd left my solder). I probably could have saved a further $3 by finding a box somewhere under the house in the workroom (maybe), but why bother.
The Olympus infra red remote was about $90 in the shops I got a Chinese copy off eBay for $19 delivered .
Next project is to get a friend to make me a timer to take shots every minute or so to catch the kingfishers that have retuned to the nest again.
You can get an Infrared remote for the 400d too, but the sensor is on the front of the camera so it's only really useful for self portraits (well ok, you might be able to trigger it for other shots where you're in front but not in the frame). I didn't deem it useful enough for the kind of photography I do.
A timer on the other hand would be nifty. The S2 has one built in, but the 400d doesn't.
I saw a refector that clips on the lens like a rear view mirror,
most of the time I use the 2 sec delay to get out of frame
It would not be to hard to put a timer circuit in the remote you made
Where did you get the circuit?
Yes, I jumped ship and bought a 400d. I wasn't expecting to like it, but I actually prefer using it to the Olympus.
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Seen in my recent comments. (?)
RH, come to think of it, I think I saw that mirror arrangement somewhere on flickr... However as for the timer circuit, that'd take more electronics knowledge and skill than I have.
Brian, circuit is here: www.peeters.com/300d.html
Holy Cow Cyron! I didn't think I'd see the day you'd buy a Canon ;-)
I'm definitely enjoying mine :)
Well initially I bought it as a second camera for my stock photography. Unfortunately, I found that I enjoy using it more than the Olympus, which is a real pity, because I don't have the same range of lenses for the Canon
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Seen in my recent comments. (?)
But on the bright side, there's a very large range of EF lenses out there... ;-) (of course that might be considered a drawback too - too many choices)
i saw this within your comments on a 400d group topic...just had to take a closer look, i realy like the idea of having a seperate focus button instead of my wired remotes halfway button.
...nice work ( sorry about the finger )
What a simple design! I think I will try to build my own timer circuit for long timed exposures. Did you see any predesigned circuits for that?
And it fits nicely in your hand so that your index finger is on the shutter (red button) and thumb on the focus (black button). :)
Of course the focus button doesn't work right now, since there's an internal wire break (that'll teach me not to use the multimeter before soldering!). I'll fix it at a later date.
Where did you find the small project box? I was looking for one of those at Radio Shack but all they had was big dorky ones...
$2.98 at Dick Smiths (the Aussie equiv. to Radio Shack).
It fits nicely in my hand but has a couple of extra cable whole in the front which (once I've resoldered it with unbroken wire) I'll need to silicon up to prevent things getting in it.
Hi, Fairly sure I showed you mine at the Flickr meetup in November but I added it to my site anyway.
Wired remote for 400D
That you did Maz. I've not had a lot of need for it yet, but it's handy to have.
I do believe there is a remote out there that has a built in timer. It's rather expensive (around $200) but it can be set for time lapse, open shutter, etc up to 99 hours.
Any chance you'd have a "how to" on the remote you made so that those of us who aren't really knowledgable about that stuff might attempt our own?
The howto I followed is here: www.peeters.com/300d.html
It assumes you know how to solder (I know enough to know which end not to touch ;)
It's really one of the simplest little circuits around, the fiddly bit is soldering it all together (the contacts on the 2.5mm plug are the worst).
Soldering I can do. I just don't want to attach the wrong wire somewhere and fry anything! LOL. Thanks for the link.
The Hacking Digital Cameras free chapter has a set of detailed ways to go about various digital cameras including compacts. Needs a fair bit of soldering experience & self-confidence some of this though.
Thanks for the link Mark. My soldering skills are not really that good, I'm sure they'd improve with practice but whether I'd burn the house down before then is debatable ;-)
I made one of these remotes earlier this year and they work brilliantly. I already had some tiny switches at work from a sample pack so it only cost a few quid!
The thought of it made some people scowl at work but a crude timer remote could be made by using a 555 circuit. They're not the best solution, but can be made to delay then fire a pulse or even to fire a pulse at regular intervals. If you want accuracy, buy the Canon remote or build your own based on a PIC, but for simplicity a 555 is a handy thing. A while back, I managed to find quite a few sites telling you how. (For those that are really keen, check out Wikipedia - there's some links on that page.)
good links and advice from all. now i have something I need to go try....
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