Equipment DIY sound trigger, more glass on black

I was inspired by some shattering glass shots in the Strobist group on flickr recently that had apparently used a cheap DIY sound trigger to capture the action, and decided I wanted a go too, plus I had some free time I wanted to burn. After a couple of weeks and several shouty fits, I have again realised why I gave up on electronics when I left Uni, however I did finally get the blasted thing to work as I wanted it to.

On searching the mighty google for diy sound triggers for flash I found a couple of sites with circuits

http://www.diyphotography.net/universal_sound_and_optical_slave_flash_trigger
and
http://www.hiviz.com/tools/triggers/makeown.htm#st

Now the Hiviz site uses a SCR to trigger the flash which I had never used so went with the DIY photography circuit which I could understand. Plus one bloke had also written up a Parts list from Maplin in the comment section.

However Due to muppetry at Maplins in them sending out wrongly packaged resisters, and not sending one item at all, I then decided to order some more parts from Rapid including a nice slim line box, better mic and enough stuff to make the delay circuit from Hiviz if I wanted to.

I first took the circuit diagram and constructed it in stripboardmagic. Two points about this program, first, although I could install and run this in vista, any attempt to print or save caused it to crash and lose all progress so I had to construct in one go and then screen print to keep my diagrams. Second I could find no IC’s in the parts list so used a two pin blank component for the optocoupler and knew I would have to manually figure that part out.





Components then soldered to board. I broke the copper strips on the back to form a small box to place the IC and jumpered the pin connections I had created for the coupler to where they needed to go.



I the took a slim line remote box from Rapid and drilled 1 hole for a phono lead connection and cut a small rectangular hole for the slim rocker switch.



Drilled a few small holes for a microphone grill in the other end of the box. Attached the circuit to the connections and glued the microphone in place. Please note the appalling soldering.



The box has a nice battery compartment lid in the back to fit the 9v battery easily



Completed trigger


Now to connect the flash to the trigger I took a hama hotshoe adapter with cable and spliced a phone connecter and longer lead in place of the existing pc sync lead.



This trigger works fine for single sounds, like a balloon going pop, but there is no reset delay so if you make more noise you get multiple exposures. Which is why my initial glass shattering pics are rubbish, I had the flash going crazy on every slight tinkle noise as the glass hit the floor. Same problem with water balloons, 1 flash on balloon pop, second flash as water hits floor.

Balloon test 1.



To counter this I constructed the delay trigger from hiviz, I didn’t need the delay between bang and flash I just need the reset delay. Built this on a bread board so I could alter the length of the delay by changing capacitors and resisters as needed and shoved it in another box, with phono connections for input and output. Have realised I don’t yet have any pics of this but will take some soon. After a bit of a headache finally realised the SCR’s I had bought don’t seem to be sensitive enough to trigger my flash, so switched the design to use another optocoupler just like the trigger circuit, and ta-da working combination.

Water balloon test 2



Now I just need to be able to set up the lights in the living room, wear thick shoes and be able to break glasses without the other-half finding out I’ve covered the floor in glass again. More pics when I do, hopefully slightly more arsty than my hand popping balloons

Oh and the pics are taken in the dark with the camera set to bulb mode on remote trigger. so open shutter, pop balloon/ make noise which triggers flash giving you the exposure, close shutter.

 

That is so cool, nice one! I can't wait to see the glass-breaking photos

 

That's pretty cool!

I don't get how you get the popping balloon like that, though. I thought the sound was produced later in the "popping stage".

 

The pop is pretty much instant as a the pin hits, its the fact that light travels quicker than sound that makes you think it happens later, using this you can vary when the flash triggers by moving the microphone closer to the balloon to get near instant pic or move it back a bit to get the explosion slightly later. there's a whole formula if you want to work it out accurately. I just move the microphone till I get it how I want it. The balloon pic had the Mic about 20cm away and the water balloon was about 1m.

 

Very cool stuff!

 

Second test shots, this time with glass and slightly more composed
Sound trigger connected to delay circuit then attached to a Sunpak 26DX flash set to 1/16th power pointed at the white background.

glass smash


glass smash blue liquid


Need to move the microphone back about another meter i think to give the glass more time to shatter. But I ran out of glasses.

Incidently ASDA's smart price wine glasses at about 89p for 4 are flipping tough, first time i tried this one of them took 4 blows with a hammer before breaking, this time I scratched them with a file first. think for next time i will buy some slightly more expensive glasses that should be thinner.

 

Wow, they are spectacular.

 

Good stuff Have fun with it...

 

Neat. That blue shot is fascinating. I love stop frame action thingy shots. Very fun to play around with. Oooh, I SO wish I had this for my gun. Taking a shot of the muzzle/complete gun right at fireing would be so cool. *contemplates building one*

 

This is relevant to my interests. Continue.

 

Yes please do "Smashing" shots mate (yes I know... bad pun)

 

not really, since you have a "shattering" sense of humor. I just wish my wit was as "sharp" as yours. Perhaps I'll have some "flashes" of insight that will allow me to drop a few "shards" of wisdom.


dear god, make it stop

 

Heh, Cracking Puns old chap.

And AWESOME pictures, Whisperwolf. I've always loved these sorts of things.

 

Fantastic! what a good thread this is!

 

This thread is made of win.
You have been repped

 

Of course I'll first have to "hammer" in the "breaking" news that some puns like wine get better with (reader) age. Of course I'll need to be "crystal clear" that I may be a bit fast on the "trigger" as I may be moving a bit off the glass topic.

 

Yay the blue liquid shot hit number 4 on Flickr's explore list, views on it jumped by quite a bit

 

Congrats, those are really impressive.

 

a few more glass shots, been trying to take them on a black background, not as easy for me as the white. used two flashguns through an ebay radio trigger set up, attaching the transmitter to the sound trigger.
Hope you like.

glass on black



glass on black shatter



glass on black shatter 2



aftermath

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^