ehh.. homemade bird snapper

Muineach

This is to do with birds and sitting around, read on it'll become clear.

Well where do I start, yesterday I spent about 2 hours watching for birds on 1 perch, got feck all see below.


Then I got to thinking there has to be a better way that sitting around all day,
so I decided to make my own trigger for my camera, one that would work automatically, while I was off doing some PS duty
Here she is

The trigger is made of

• 1 empty pack of butter
• some duct tape
• headphone socket(ancient set of headphones)
• bell wire (cheap 5m=1e)
• wire joiner/soldering iron (most people have them already, 10 joiners for 2e)

So it's more or less free.
The photo above is me testing it outside, the tub is a small medicine tub I had a and I filled it with sugar until it was 10 grams, if it touches anywhere on the lid, it will trigger the camera. I went for 10g as the smallest birds around me all weight 13g+ based on the little book I have of them. Then I covered it in some food, set it all up and went off to watch stargate, went back and got these photo's. I know the photo's are "bad" but I didn;t try to hide anything, just a first trial to see if it would work.
I had the camera set to manually focus just a little in from of the bird, but hey, it was the first time
How to make is shown below(short)



and here's the results




How to make:
This just a quick run through, if you want more let me know.
To make wire one set of wire over the top of the lid, cut the base out of the tub and run one wire over that, add in a bit of duct tape to hold them in positions. Run one vertically and another horizontally so they will touch each other (strip the cable off the wires that you attach to the plastic).
Then tape one end of the base to the lid, so its flappy, then cut the headphones (ears off), cut the wires and strip them so you should have 3/4 cables, plug this into the camera and start touching the wires off each other, eventually you'll find that 2 of them will trigger a focus and snap.
Then connect each of these wires to the 2 cables you have at the lid of the butter, then when the 2 lids are pushed down it will trigger your camera to "snap".

City-Exile

The idea is great, but you'll never get nice pictures, due to all the rubbish in the shot.
Any way of hiding the trigger & using less obvious bread?

Muineach

ah yea, this was just a first one off test, i made no effort to hide anything, i just fecked the seed/bread out to see would it work :P
I was aiming for using this at night time, set it up with a flash then when something comes to eat some food I photo them, more for documentary purposes than anything else.

templeathea

I think they are very impressive results. Do some birds really only weigh 13g?

Thats amazingly light.

Kilree

It's a great idea but how did you connect the trigger into the camera?

rahtkennades

Excellent work Muineach! We did something similar years ago with a manual film slr and some levers.... ah the good oul'..:rolleyes:

In the meantime, if you're interested in getting all fancy you could probably adapt it to autofocus for you too. Have a look at this for details on the correct pins to use.

Muineach

I have a book "Birds of Britain and Europe" by Collins Nature Group, this little guy was a coal tit and average weigh was 9gm, hehe i checked 10g would work but I never checked how little it would take to trigger it :P
10g is about 2 tablespoons of sugar, which is feck all.

Muineach

rahtkennades wrote: »

Excellent work Muineach! We did something similar years ago with a manual film slr and some levers.... ah the good oul'..:rolleyes:

In the meantime, if you're interested in getting all fancy you could probably adapt it to autofocus for you too. Have a look at this for details on the correct pins to use.

yea I made one earlier in the year, then got a few 3m cables to extend them (attachment), I just kept this simple, for now.

I've also tried another one for using with fox/dog/cat/badger etc., you leave food on a plate, trigger when feed is removed, works fine by hand, needs to be tweaked. The thing is I'm not sure if a fox or a badger is hanging around, just some markings etc seem more for a badger than a fox, this is one way to find out :rolleyes:

So what you see as a big mess on the screen, ignore that, it was just my first test to see if it works, that can be tidied right up and it doesn't have to be that size/shape etc., imagine proto 0.5

Muineach

Kilree wrote: »

It's a great idea but how did you connect the trigger into the camera?

The trigger is a standard 2.5mm (submini) stereo socket, small socket on headphones or as I did use the standard socket with a 2.5mm adapter (2e-maplins), that plugs into a socket just above where the usb connection is on the camera (canon), this site has it all, if you try it and your stuck let me know, easy to do if you've done one before.

rahtkennades

Muineach wrote: »

yea I made one earlier in the year, then got a few 3m cables to extend them (attachment), I just kept this simple, for now. ...

Ah, so it must have been you that posted those links in the first place

The larger animal one sounds pretty cool too. Could you use some kind of pull-to-close switch made with a clip or something, and tie the bait with some string? That way you'd have to have a clear intent to remove the bait before the camera would work?