Calling All Agents: Kilometers Long Remote Camera Shutter Trigger

While this is not the first shutter release cable project that was featured here (we had a vanilla shutter release cable and a mouse one before) it is definitely the first to feature a walkie-talkie, and the first to beat the 3 meters range.

As a kid I was fascinated by walkie-talkies. Mind you this was way before the days of twitting-via-your-iPhone-while-getting-your-kids-picture-in-mail-and-SMSing-your-boss-that-you-are-going-to-miss-the-meeting-cause-your-stuck-in-traffic days.

The mere concept that I can talk to a friend hundreds of meters away… And do it with a Spiderman looking device…

Now, would it be nice if the same distant magic could apply to triggering your camera? Sure, you can do this with a pair of pocket wizards, but not for that distance and not for this price. Marco Jetti pulled this off. Read on for the full story.

Marco Jetti needed a gizmo to take photographs of animals. And he wanted to do his while he was not around. Go figure them nature photographers.

So Marco, who is not an engineer, created this simple scheme for triggering a camera using your PTT walkie talkie.

I am not an electronic wizard, but any board that has less than 10 components looks easy-to-make to me.

There is only one thing keeping this design from hitting a full “10” perfect score, the fact that it has half a second lag from pressing the remote trigger till the camera actually fires.