trigger

The Nikon Z9’s ‘Pre-Release’ Feature Makes Lightning Triggers Obsolete

If you’ve ever tried to photograph lightning during the daytime, you know it’s almost impossible. By the time you press the shutter button, it’s gone. That’s why lightning triggers, while no guarantee of success, exist. But the addition of the new “Pre-release” feature in the Nikon Z9 mirrorless camera now makes those triggers obsolete. It guarantees success, as I found out last week.

How to Photograph Mysterious Floating Scrabble Letters

This past month, a student showed me an Instagram post with floating scrabble letters and asked me how it was done. After a few moments of reflection, I decided there was a number of ways to photograph floating letters and it would be a great idea for a student lab. To explore different techniques would be a great lab. The students evaluated the techniques to see which was best for creating floating letters.

How Canon DSLRs Communicate with Speedlites Using Light

Canon DSLRs can trigger Canon Speedlites using the pop-up flash. If you try triggering those same Speedlites with a different camera's flash, it doesn't work, which means that there's actual light-based communication going on between the DSLR and Speedlite. In this 9-minute video, Roger Nieh of Science'n'me explores the technology behind this communication.

How to Build a Simple Sound Trigger for High-Speed Photos With Arduino

Are you stressed? What better way to de-stress is there than to break things while making cool photographs at the same time? You can break anything, from spaghetti to fancy glassware, there is no limit. It will take you about half an hour to build the Arduino circuit and write the code for this sound triggering photographic system.

Review: The MIOPS Smart Trigger Makes High Speed Photography a Snap

I've been doing high speed photography for a while, now but I've doing it manually. After some time you get used to the timing but will still miss some of the shots, and with high speed photography you can't afford to miss that one perfect shot. MIOPS is a $239 smart trigger that helps you nail the shot in high speed photography.

Hands On with the Elinchrom Quadra ELB 400 Portable Lighting System

As photographers, we capture the light around us to preserve moments in time. Sometimes, however, we not only want to contain the light, but also control it. So, when Elinchrom asked us if we wanted to test their powerful ELB 400 portable battery pack and Quadra Pro flash heads, we, of course, said yes. Now, let’s see what we can do with 424 watts of portable power.

These Smartphone Shutter Releases Are Shaped Like Film Rolls and TLR Cameras

Have you ever wished you could remotely control your smartphone’s camera with a trigger remote disguised as a 35mm film canister or a mini twin-lens reflex camera? If so, then your wish has been granted by the Japanese company Gizmon. For a small price, you can pick up one of these cute and colorful gadgets and pair it with your iOS or Android smartphone.

Math and Photography: How to Capture a Pellet Piercing a Water Drop

Water droplets can make for some beautiful high-speed photography, but how do photographers manage to capture such precise moments? And what if you add even more elements to the equation, such as shooting a tiny pellet through the drop as it reaches its peak?

While repetition and luck are one option, a far better approach is to use a clever triggering system called the Camera Axe.

The FlashQ System Shrinks Wireless Flash Triggering Tech for Mirrorless Cameras

When it comes to choosing wireless flash trigger systems, there’s no shortage of options. From PocketWizards to cheap, $20 systems on Amazon and Ebay, there seems to be one for each and every situation and price point. However, despite all of the options, there is one thing that every single one of them has in common: they're all pretty big.

Of course, when shooting in a studio with a DSLR a PocketWizard doesn't seem that beastly. But when you’re wanting to trigger a flash with a small mirrorless camera or compact camera, none of the options out there right now will allow you to do so without making your camera look like the attachment rather than the trigger. That’s where FlashQ comes in.

PocketWizard Plagued by Poor Sales, May Have Laid Off Almost Half Its Staff

We're unfortunately accustomed to bad news in the photo industry. That's not to say there's not great news and exciting new products and a bright future ahead, all of those things are there too, but slumping sales and discontinued products are becoming all-too-common reports.

Case in point: it seems flash trigger king PocketWizard is struggling of late, with reports claiming that the company has had to lay off as many as 20 of its 50 employees due to low sales figures and increasing competition out of China.

The New Triggertrap Redsnap: An Infinitely Expandable Camera Trigger

The Triggertrap name has appeared on PetaPixel many times before: from the very early days of v1 on Kickstarter, to an interview with CEO Haje Kamps, to the release of Triggertrap Mobile and beyond. Now we have another exciting reason to write about Triggertrap, and that reason is called Redsnap.

Redsnap is the evolution of the original Triggertrap V1 that was so successful on Kickstarter, and what it provides that the v1 didn't is infinite expandability through attachable sensors. It is, according to Triggertraps description, "one of the fastest, easiest to use, and most affordable high-speed flash and camera triggers money can buy."

Review: Nero Trigger Replaces Your Slow Shutter Finger for Creative Photography

Bang. Pop. Zip. Zop. Welcome to the review of the Nero Trigger, a lightning, laser and sound sensor that will crank that shutter faster than you can. It also includes a timelapse, HDR and a DIY mode allowing utilization of external sources to trigger the Nero. As their ad copy claims, "Nero Trigger is built to help you shoot high speed photos for the occasions that your shutter finger would not be sufficient."

Triggertrap Introduces New Flash Adapter and Speedy App Update

You may remember Triggertrap from our coverage of it a little over a year ago. The iOS app, which has since made its way to Android as well, acted as a "jack of all trades" camera trigger that offered more than 12 different triggering options.

Several of those options -- such as the sound and motion triggers -- were geared towards high-speed photography, and a new update and flash adapter from the Triggertrap team are primed to take the app's high-speed photo capabilities to the next level.

Affordable Bluetooth Trigger Turns Your iPhone Into a Remote and Intervalometer

Here's another option for DSLR-toting photogs who want to control their gear wirelessly from a distance without spending a fortune. It doesn't have the range of the CamRanger or the ability to send over a live view like, say, the built-in wireless on the Canon 6D; however, it's less than one sixth the price of the first, and you won't have to upgrade your camera to get it.

It's the Satechi Bluetooth Smart Trigger, and it comes in three versions that are compatible with a range of Canon and Nikon DSLRs (plus a couple of Pentax options) for only $45.

Trigger Trap Arrives on Android with New v2 Dongle in Tow

Apple's iPhone and iOS get a lot of media attention, but Google's Android OS is the world's most popular smartphone operating system by a long shot. Given this fact, it makes sense to at least target both markets if you're releasing something that's intended to be widely used. Triggertrap understands this, and today released the Android version of its mobile camera triggering app.

The app is designed to be used with the company's Mobile Dongle, which has also been refreshed. In fact, the new Android app requires the new Dongle, while iPhone users can use either version.

StrikeFinder Lets You Capture Lightning and Fireworks on Your iPhone

There are plenty of light-sensitive triggers on the market, some triggers even use your smartphone, but Ubertronix's new StrikeFinder app is the first mobile app that lets you actually take the pictures with your phone. Instead of designing a trigger app that attaches to an external camera, the StrikeFinder app released earlier today lets everyday iPhone users simply point their phone camera in the direction of say, lightning or fireworks, and the phone does the rest for them.

How to Take Incredible High-Speed Photos of Muzzle Flashes

Here's an interesting video tutorial by Destin of Smarter Every Day that shows how you can capture amazing photos of guns being fired and their muzzle flashes. Here's the "basic" idea: he uses a piezoelectric transducer to convert acoustical energy into an electrical pulse, which he sends through a pulse generator. The pulse from the pulse generator is used to trigger a flash and an high-speed exposure. This allows him to photograph guns at the moment they're fired in the same way many people photograph lightning.