Take Hands-Free Roadtrip Photos with a Pair of Hacked Cameras

Snapping a photograph while driving isn’t the smartest, safest, or easiest thing to do. How then should one go about snapping pictures of the interesting things you drive past without breaking the law or putting people at risk?

Caleb Kraft of Hack a Day has one possible solution: remote-controlled cameras that attach to the side windows of a car.

Kraft snagged a couple cheap digital cameras from Wal-mart (two 7.1-megapixel Vivitars for $30) and soldered some wires to the guts to extend the power and shutter buttons.

With the power and shutter accessible through buttons near his steering wheel and the cameras attached to the windows, Kraft found that he could snap a photo of either side of the car in roughly 3 seconds — sufficient time for capturing things that appear on the horizon.

Here’s a walkthrough video he made showing how he put together the rig:

The resulting image quality obviously depends on the cameras you choose to use. Better cameras, fancier mounts, and actual shutter releases would allow you to decrease the amount of hacking necessary and increase the quality of the photos.

Head on over to Kraft’s blog post for more details on the project and additional photos of/by the rig:

Never miss a roadside photo-op with an easy camera hack [Hack a Day]


Image credits: Photographs and video by Caleb Kraft/Hack a Day

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