Remote control (wired) for Canon EOS (d)SLRs

After reading lots of articles on the Internet about how to build a wired remote control compatible with Canon's RC-60, I've decided to build my own.

Below you have the schematics for the remote control: the schematics and the principle of operation are very simple, even for people without a degree in electronics. It's just two push button switches and possibly a third one for bulb mode (not drawn, neither built yet. Will update this post later when I add that function to my remote).

And the mandatory picture of the built remote control

It's not very fancy, I could have spent more time and money on materials to build it, it just works.

The principle of operation is rather simple: connect the remote to your EOS camera (I've built it in a way that I can use a wire as long as I want, within cable-lenght limits – which I don't really know at this time, I've built a 3 mts cable); press the "Meter & focus" button (blue one on the diagram, black one on the built unit) to have the camera auto-focus and evaluate exposure settings; finally press the "Take picture" button (red one in both the diagram and the built unit) to take the photo. If you build the bulb switch option, instead of pressing the "Take picture" button, you just flip the bulb switch and then flip it back when you want to finish exposure (within bulb-mode exposure time limits).

The materials used are: a 2.5mm stereo plug, two push-button switches, stereo-headphones-like wire, and an used 35mm film canister as the remote control's housing. Add to that a 3.5mm stereo plug and jack to be able to use a wire as long as you wish for the remote and a bit of solder and patience, and you are set. The tools are pliers, a cutter, a 6.5mm drill (the actual diameter you need depends on the push-button switches you have) and a soldering iron.

I've seen some IR remote control circuits for Nikon's D70 digital SLR, I'd love to know if there are some circuit(s) available for Canon's SLR to replace Canon's RC-1 and RC-5… if you know of something like that, please let me know.

Flickr Photos, Starting To Discover Its Fun

What a nice site Flickr is!

You can upload your photos there for the world to see! You can also set privacy options so only family and/or friends can see the photos, and also licensing options among restricted copyright and a variety of Creative Commons licenses.

Photography is fun, and flickr is a fun site to use and browse, and a perfect way to share your photos.

You can visit my photo page on flickr, in case you are wondering how bad my pictures are… needless to say, you are welcomed to leave comments on them too.

Black and White Digital Photography

Following Camille’s article on B&W photography, I wanted to share with you some thoughts.

Digital B&W cameras have a louzy algorithm to shot in B&W, so it’s always better to shot in colour and then apply the method described there, or manual methods which involve colour desaturation, channel mixing, etc. to get a decent B&W picture.

However, after doing some tests, I’ve found out that, if possible, it’s best to shoot RAW in order to convert to B&W afterwards. Here’s why: JPEG compression artifacts are more visible in B&W photos. Yes, JPEG compression artifacts show up very clearly in B&W photos in the form of a discrete degradé (that is, a degradé that is not continuous, it jumps from one tone to the other in big steps), mostly in areas of light colour.

Shooting RAW and converting to a non-lossy format (like PPM, TIFF…), compressed or not, and then performing B&W conversion, is the best way to achieve higher quality B&W pictures.

If you don’t have the possibility to shoot RAW (for example, you own a point&shoot digicam), try to take your shots with the minimum level of compression, meaning maximum image quality and also maximum file size, in order to reduce compression artifacts.

I still have to test B&W picture printing in photographic paper at a lab (the ideal test would be to compare the same, or at least similar, B&W shots from film and digital).