• 1x Atmega 168 or smaller chip with Arduino bootloader preprogrammed (the code compiled is only 4k)
• 1x 28-pin IC socket (so that you can use chip for other projects latter)
• 1x 16MhZ ceramic resonator
• 1x 16×2 lcd display, HD44780 compatible
• 1x 7805 5V voltage regulator
• 4x micro buttons
• 1x SFH615 optocouppler
• 2x 3mm led diodes (green for power and yellow for activity)
• 4x 220R resistors, 1x 10K resistor and 1x 1K resistor
• 2x trim potentiometers (4K7 and 10K)
• 3x male headers(6-pin, 3-pin and 2-pin)
• 3x ceramic capacitators(0.1 uF, 1uF, 10uF)
• 1x 3.5 mm female jack for connection to laser

Now this post wouldn’t be complete without Eagle schematic and board files. You can download them on the following link: Trigger schematics (396).

I don’t have schematics of the laser side because it’s simple. I’m leading 3 wires with 3.5mm audio cable, analog in, gnd and vcc(+5V). In the laser box I have laser which is connected directly to the vcc and gnd, one foto resistor that is giving to high value to analog in so I have one resistor before it connected to gnd.

So we have:

• GND wire is connected to laser gnd wire and to one side of let’s say 2M resistor which other side is connected to one leg of photo resistor
• VCC wire is connected to laser vcc wire
• Analog in wire connected to other leg of the photo resistor

It depends on which photo resistor you are using how big resistor value before it you have to use. Arduino is capable of reading analog in until value of 1024 and that’s reason why the big resistor value is needed, so you are testing which one do you need until the value of direct laser beam to the photo resistor is under 1024, mine is about 920.

The soldering was OK with only few places to be fixed because of strong acid mix, but nothing special.

Here are some pictures of the finished trigger.

P.S. This is final and last prototype of the version 1. The next one will be better, without trimpots, with 3-4 keys, lot of menus and few outputs instead of one.

Stay tuned!!

• removed triggering 3.5mm female connector, instead I have 3-pin connectors to connect wires on one or two flashes
• added 6 pin programming header so that I can program Atmega chip without removing it from the board every time
• added 3 pin jumper header for power selection (usb/external)

Here are two pictures of a fresh etched board, not perfect on the corners because of bad mixing of the acid but good enough for the first attempt.

P.S. Updated schema coming soon.

And here it is, description, schematics, video and sample pictures.

The idea has already been seen on the Internet. Arduino is controlling photo resistor on which laser beam is pointed. When resistance changes itself because of the drop that is cutting beam then Arduino is triggering Nikon camera after the amount of time specified with one trim capacitor which can be between 0 and 1023, but I have divided it with 2 so that I have better control of the delay. All information is displayed on 2×16 LCD display. Also to be able to take picture of drops colliding it’s necessary that speed of the drops be 10 drops/sec so I have implemented one button for that with proper code behind it.

I have also 4 buttons and 2 led diodes on the board. Buttons that I have are reset for resetting of the electronics, debug that is switching debug mode on and off, drops that is designed to count drops per second and ready button that is used when I’m taking pictures so that when drops are falling fast I don’t trigger camera every time when they are going down. Led diodes that I’m using are green for power and yellow for visual notification when the trigger is trigged.

Here is the final schematics that I’m using right now.

Nikon-Arduino trigger schema

For simplified solution with cables I’m using standard audio cables with 3.5mm stereo jacks on both sides, so I can use same cables for other purposes as well. I have also modified Nikon cable remote so that it has 3.5mm female stereo jack built in for simple use with trigger and without it.

Modified Nikon cable release

Here are few pictures of the whole setup.

Nikon Trigger

Of course code behind is in this NikonFastTrigger.pde (343) file available for download.

Simple instructions.

1. when the program is loaded it will display Ready on the second line
2. when drop breaks laser beam then instead of Ready on display will be Busy until you press Ready button
3. offten because I have laser box about 1m above the surface delay is needed between 150-220 ms

For drops counter I’m doing like this.

1. switch to drops counter with drops button
2. then I try to create drops stream with about 1 drop per second with help of the normal digital watch and by changing delay I set Arduino to recognize that as 1drop/sec
3. now the only thing left is to configure drops stream to 10 drops/second for colliding watterdrops

Here are couple of pictures captured with this setup and pictures of colliding drops are to come.

And here is the video from YouTube.

This brings me to the problem that I have lot of folders with lot of images without any order. This has begun to frustrate me, so I started to write program that will sort them based on exif in respective folders, but one night while reading DPreview forum I have founded link to one program that can do exactly what I want on the way I want.

The program is called DIM or Digital Image Mover. It’s exactly what it’s name says, image mover from one place to another. It doesn’t do anything more, just move/copy images from one place to another in the respective folders that are created by the date template that you provide.

Program is written in Java so it works on all platforms that have support for JRE – Java Runtime Enviroment and so far I have tested it on Mac OS and Windows without any problems.

It has support for all major raw files (NEF, CR2, CRW), jpeg, tiff, png and so on.

Here is a link to the site of the Alan Light who is author of the program, where you can find the latest version (4.0 at the moment), download it and send donation to author of the program.

You can view them by clicking on page Gallery on right side or here.