Case #96: Nick Has an Illuminating Flashback
Design News Staff -- Design News, January 7, 2007
Photography enthusiast Nick Pagazani was hindered by the range and fixed location of his camera's flash. Since his camera has no connector for an external flash, he needed a light-activated slave trigger to fire a remote strobe. It had to ignore the pre-flashes used for red-eye correction and fire only on the main flash. His solution: Use a microcontroller to count pulses from a phototransistor and trigger the strobe at a switch-selectable count. Brighten up your shadowy background with this flashy accessory.
Download the build instructions | View Parts List | Post a Comment
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| "Slave Strobe" | ||
|---|---|---|
| Amt | Part Description | Allied Part # |
| 1 | PIC12F629 I/P microcontroller | 383-0287 |
| 2 | 0.1uF capacitor | 613-0513 |
| 2 | 1/4W 1 k Ohm resistor | 832-0537 |
| 1 | 1/4W 4.7 k Ohm resistor | 296-4769 |
| 3 | 1/4W 10 k Ohm resistor | 832-0530 |
| 1 | 1/4W 1 M Ohm resistor | 648-0204 |
| 1 | 2N2222 (or other) general-purpose transistor | 248-1004 |
| 2 | SPST toggle switch | 683-0085 |
| 1 | NTE5457 SCR (see schematic for alternate version) | 935-6236 |
| Additional parts required | ||
| 1 NTE3120 (or similar) Photo Transistor | ||
| 1 3V Lithium Battery and holder | ||
| Nuts and washers for the toggle switches | ||
| Kaiser Flash Shoe Adapter, available at www.bhphotovideo.com | ||
| Photoflash Strobe | ||
| PIC development kit & software to program the PIC: K8048 (kit), Vm111 (assembled), available at www.apogeekits.com — requires RS232 port and cable. USB versions are also available. | ||
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Nick Pagazani's Strobe Trigger is a very useful device with the current crop of digital camera's. So far Kodak has ignored my suggestion to add a a strobe connector to their upscale cameras so that an external flash can be used. What I found most interesting about this gadget is the fact that I built two such devices about 30 YEARS AGO!!! If I can find my old schematic I will send it to you. My recollection is back then I was able to buy the needed parts from Radio Shack.
Kind regards, Ed Moshey
- 2007-26-4 02:20:44 EDT -
Cool project! but what about a pcb version?
- 2007-11-1 04:14:59 EST -
What''''s wrong with txt?
Was it really necessary to give the parts list as an excel file and the program in PDF??? the parts list in excel I can live with, even though it is a pain, but why maek your readers re-type the whole program?
- 2007-11-1 04:13:29 EST -
It probably was fun to use a microcontroller to count to 2, but a cmos flip-flop can do that cheaper and easier. But, everyone knows "too much technology is a good thing".
- 2007-11-1 04:11:50 EST -
Nice job. I had a need for a device like this and found that Sunpak makes one almost like it. It is shaped in the form of a handle that also holds the digital camera as well as the external flash. It goes further by allowing various flash modes as well as selections for number of pre-flashes (In auto-red eye reduction mode, my Pentax fires the strobe twice before firing for the picture). The Sunpak unit goes for $24.95 at B&H. You can search for "Digital camera flash adapter" to find plenty of other outlets.
- 2007-11-1 04:08:27 EST
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