Building a Contact Trigger for Your Flash

A video tutorial on how to build a contact trigger for your flash. This will let you do high-speed flash photography of interesting things like balloons bursting, lightbulbs exploding, etc.

Music sourced from royalty-free music collection on the Internet Archive - http://www.archive.org/details/A_Warm_Place_CC

A projectile (like a BB from a BB gun) goes through the two layers of foil, mashing them together and closing the circuit, which fires the flash. The BB continues on to go through a balloon or other such thing. The camera is left on a long shutter speed (say 1 to 5 seconds) and the flash exposes the action as it happens.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• flash
• photography
• speed
• tutorial
• strobist
• technology

[twinsouls]

what game is this music from?

[sirmontag]

It's "hjihjihji", by Paza. I found it under Creative Commons licensed music, in the chiptunes category. I don't recall exactly where I found it, but googling should find it fairly quick.

[Omen7nemo]

But how does this thing trigger your camera???

I am a noob I know.

[sirmontag]

You set your camera for a long exposure, basically just to keep the shutter open long enough to give you time to trigger the flash. It only works in little to no light though (daylight would cause over-exposure, for example).

[peya88]

cant make it work on my cheap flashgun CY -20 CHANGYIN

[akaast]

works great!

[recwap]

DIY arduino based open source advanced photo camera control

CPU 16Mhz Atmega 328

84x48 graphic LCD with backlight

IR & Wire Photo camera trigger

2x Wire Flash Trigger

onboard light/sound sensor or 2x external sensor

2x digital IN/OUT

timelapes function

onboard RTC clock

You can find the project on facebook, if you search APCC

[smokinblu1]

@OgreProgrammer my problem is, I shoot throught the foil, the flash would go off but as the flash goes off the bb still hasent hit the balloon, so I just get a photo of a balloon :( I place the foil about 6 inches from the balloon... These last days I havent ha time to try to put the foil aftr the balloon, but this week I will try n let u knoe how it goes. If u have n e other ieas please o let me know

[OgreProgrammer]

@smokinblu1 Oh yeah, a gas cylinder pellet gun is going to be much faster than a pump action.

I have an idea. Why dont you shoot through a few extra layers of foil to slow it down? It probably wont take much because a soda can will stop a bb.

[smokinblu1]

@OgreProgrammer check out my result: flickr (dot) com/photos/1ofgodsson/

[smokinblu1]

@OgreProgrammer I did that :) I put the foil about 6-8 inches from the balloon so its just out of the frame of the picture and shoot the balloon, only 3 times was the bb fast enought to go through the foil and pot the balloon on time to get that nice balloon shape water (actually only 1 I got ti the other times I got a whole balloon+ spalh of water). I will try puttin the foil after the balloon and see how that works. I will also try using pump up rifle bb gun instead of a gas hand pellet gun.

[OgreProgrammer]

@smokinblu1 You have to adjust the distance between the foil and the gun. If the BB isnt fast enough, put the foil between the gun and the balloon rather than on the other side.

You might have to try quite a lot, but moving the gun and the foil to different distances from the balloon will help you find that sweet spot.

[smokinblu1]

@hardvvood nope, you put this in front of the item you want to take a picture of then u shoot throught it. U need a dark room,set up ur ballon or what ever u want to shoot, put this contact trigger in front of it set you camera to f4 ( or what u prefer) for 4 seconds, set of the camera ( i put 5 sec timer so I can set my slef up to shoot therough contact trigger then when I hear the shutter click open I shoot :) its not soo easy I gto 3 pics out of 20-25 tries. keep trying till u get it