The Arnosync Takes On Spot Photographs Of Flying Insects

It is not easy to photograph flying insects. Actually it is twice as not easy an anything else.

Firstly, if you are doing it really up close with a macro tube, and still want a sharp photo, you need to pin-point your (frantically flying) subject inside the Depth Of Field which can be a few mm wide. Secondly, if you want to increase the Depth Of Field, you close down the aperture and then you need more light, and need to sync a strobe.

Sounds pretty hard, right? Not if you have an ArnoSync.

The ArnoSync built by Flickr member Frans Eggermont is a flying insects photography rig, which houses an Olympus XZ-1 or D50, two (modified) strobes and a Laser sensor. With the Olympus it syncs up to 1/1600. Neat right? That’s not all.

Here is the smart part, the camera is set on bulb mode in a dark environment, and when an insect crosses the beams, the strobes pop and capture a perfectly sharp moth or bee or small butterfly. Or anything that is moving too fast to otherwise capture.

If this is not enough, Frans also made a DIY shutter that provides an override over the bulb mode of the camera. It is made from a 40GB old hard-drive. And yes, there are hard-drive to shutter conversion instructions on this link. The entire rig circuitry is on this link.

[ArnoSync Mobile with Olympus XZ-1 via DIYP Flickr pool]