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Time Lapse on the Canon Rebel XT 350D

Time-Lapse photography

Here is a device that could work for time lapse.
http://www.pclix.com/pages/pclix_main.html

I have no affiliation with this company and do not own one but have wanted to experiment with time-lapse and came across this in another thread.
Anybody use one of these?
The previous poster referenced a device that costs $202
This one costs $140 + you need to buy a cable $20-$40
Here is another time-lapse photog.
http://www.tkcinematography.com/home.html (click on time-lapse)
 
If I understand the original idea correctly, you want to use an iPod to control a Rebel. I would not send ANY signal into the camera from anything personally. There are three connections coming out of the XT. All you have to do is connect the common and one of the others to trigger a function. One is half press the other is full. So if this is going to work (and I guess it could) I would think you would need a very small relay hooked between the 2 wires that trigger the full press. I am not sure if there is enough power to run a very small relay or not, but you could measure the output from the 'pod and see that you have. If you can find a relay at Radio Shack small enough to be powered by that signal, you could hook the output from the pod to the coil side of it, and then use the switching side of the relay to trigger the camera.
I am not sure if you can power the relay or not, but if you wire it correctly, you would not be sending any signals into the camera. I would be very afraid of that.
 
Seems like a great DIY project

brent319 said:
If I understand the original idea correctly, you want to use an iPod to control a Rebel. I would not send ANY signal into the camera from anything personally. There are three connections coming out of the XT. All you have to do is connect the common and one of the others to trigger a function. One is half press the other is full. So if this is going to work (and I guess it could) I would think you would need a very small relay hooked between the 2 wires that trigger the full press. I am not sure if there is enough power to run a very small relay or not, but you could measure the output from the 'pod and see that you have. If you can find a relay at Radio Shack small enough to be powered by that signal, you could hook the output from the pod to the coil side of it, and then use the switching side of the relay to trigger the camera.
I am not sure if you can power the relay or not, but if you wire it correctly, you would not be sending any signals into the camera. I would be very afraid of that.
Click to expand...

I would just use batteries to power the time circuit, which would trigger the relay(s) to close the required contacts. Using an iPod is in overkill imho, I'd simply use a potentiometer to set the time.
Seems like an interesting project, I'm sure it can be done for less than 140$ though ... ;) My Pentax K100D uses the same system (I think) since my wired remote also works with my wife's Canon 450D. I just might give this a try :)
 
What a wonderful tip! Regrettably, I gave up and bought the Pclix before I heard about the TI-83 trick; I've got one myself, and I can't wait to try this out! If it works I'll probably sell my Pclix, to tell you the truth.

Thanks so much!
 
gnd said:
I would just use batteries to power the time circuit, which would trigger the relay(s) to close the required contacts. Using an iPod is in overkill imho, I'd simply use a potentiometer to set the time.
Click to expand...
What time circuit would you use to trigger the relays? What is the pot hooked up to?
I am reading up on the PICAXE chip and hope to eventually build a circuit to do that very thing. There are simpler circuits using the 555 chip, but I kind of want to get into the PICAXE use because it can do many other things including wireless remotes, light sensing triggers, audio triggers.
 
Transitors

I was very disappointed to discover that the Xti didn't have an intervolometer built-in. My EOS Rebel film camera even has that function.

Has anyone checked to see if there is a firmware update to add this functionality?

You could run it from an ipod or other audio device, by using a transistor or a couple of transistors if you want both focus and shutter.
A transistor has 3 leads. Two of them will be bridged (electrically connected) when voltage is applied to the third lead.

The audio signal could be attached to that third lead, when there is enough voltage the connection will be bridged and cause the camera to take a picture. Of course you'll want to use a program or other device to produce an audio signal that is similar to a square wave.
 
flinch13 said:
I got the cable today, and, unsurprisingly, my experiment failed. When an audio cable is plugged in, my XT just takes picture after picture, regardless of whether music is playing or not. It's just completing the circuit I guess.. oh well.

In any event, I'd love a cheap intervolometer. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could make this work? It's probably a long shot, but I figure anyone reading this forum could probably use one; it'd be a cool thing to do.
Click to expand...

I was searching for timelapse stuff for my 350D and found this.
Was thinking about using PC to trigger the shutter with kinda complex circuit but your idea of using an audio just click!

I think your experiment failed because your ipod always produce a current which short circuit the shutter.

I think adding a Optocoupler-triac should work. Just connect your Ipod to pins 1-2. Pin 4-6 to shutter jack;-)
http://www.isocom.com/moc3023.html
Pls try this and let me know

Cheers
Q
 
ChrisBrightwell said:
Also ... be careful with how much you trip the shutter. The Rebel XT shutter, for example, is rated to last something like 40,000 actuations. That's less than 30 minutes at one click per second.

Running 10,000+ shutter actuations in series will almost certainly have a hugely negative impact on the shutter's durability.
Click to expand...
Datasheet please?


JNB said:
Um, I think your calculator needs new batteries. 40K actuations at 1/sec is 11 hours, 6 minutes. 30 minutes gets one to 1,800 actuations. ;)
Click to expand...
How do EITHER of these calculations matter? I know wedding & portrait photographers that usually do 1500-2000 pictures per session (there's a couple people that shoot 4k but I think they don't know what they are doing, ;)) All of them do multiple sessions a week, sometimes more. So lets say a minimum of 25 sessions a year, average of 60 and maximum of 100. (and yes some still use rebel's)

So we are talking a minimum of 1500*25=37.5k, average of 2000*60=120k, and max of 4000*100=400k actuations per year. Most photographers I know upgrade cameras every 2-3 years, so We're looking at 75,000 to 1.2mil actuations just from the first owner of the camera if they are a even a semi pro. That's before they sell it on ebay :) That's ~333 hours of stop action video.
 
quyda said:
I was searching for timelapse stuff for my 350D and found this.
Was thinking about using PC to trigger the shutter with kinda complex circuit but your idea of using an audio just click!

I think your experiment failed because your ipod always produce a current which short circuit the shutter.

I think adding a Optocoupler-triac should work. Just connect your Ipod to pins 1-2. Pin 4-6 to shutter jack;-)
http://www.isocom.com/moc3023.html
Pls try this and let me know

Cheers
Q
Click to expand...

ah ha! a fellow engineer perhaps? I was already thinking of building something similar with resistors to stop it from completing the circuit and transistors with a gate opening only at a peak matching the audio, I just forgot how audio signals would need to be measure though (could just look at the oscope of course.) But This solution looks perfect! I'm going to see if mouser has them in stock and report back.

The only downside is that You have to have an external device besides your cable. The whole idea is kinda just to do it with a cable and / or a jack and your ipad.

Why? Well, I don't think the rest of you on the thread are really 'getting' it. First, if you don't know what an intervalometer is then you may want to wiki them, how they are used, and their application to photography. Then look at the ti calculator intervalometer mod (which i was looking at just before I googled with the same idea as the op. haha)

Once you have that foundation down, then it will allow you to see why we would want it, and why carrying around an external device would be silly if you can just use your ipod/iphone, which you have on you ALL the time anyway.

Honestly Flinch, this forum is not a very technical one. I do component level repairs on macs all the time and when I come here asking for advice on locations of thermal resistors on the laptop mobos i'm confronted with blank stares followed by, 'Is it under warrant?' or 'Take it to apple', LOL. No offense to anyone here, it's just not a hacker community :)

Anyway, while thinking of ways to trigger this, such as left and right audio switching or gating the signal, i realized that if the iphone's and ipods can communicate digital data via the headphone jack to things like www.square.com then it should be easy-peasy to write an iphone / android app that triggers the shutter like the TI intervalometer. Low and behold, (and sadly for my sake) it's already been done.

http://davemmett.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/best-iphone-app-for-photogaphers/
 
Hi,
This seems like a complicated and expensive endeavour for a time lapse project. Unless, you're only doing it for the challenge, which is cool too.

However, I think the easiest and cheapest way to make a time lapse video is with a Nikon. They have several cameras that have the software built in. You can do it as expensive as you like or as cheap as you like.

As far as I know, the following D-SLRs from Nikon have the software built-in...

D200, D300, D700, D3

The following point-and-shoots have the software built in...

Coolpix S500, Coolpix S220.

The S500 has been discontinued for some time. However, the S220 was only recently discontinued but you can get the S220 for under $100. You'll also need the associated AC adapter for it which runs about $30 at J&R or B&H.

I"ve been making time-lapse videos from still images for several years now and I'v used both a D200 and the S500 to make them. I started with the D200 but then realised that after processing and then uploading to the Internet, that the image quality wasn't that good. I was also worried about the wear and tear on the camera. I then started to use the S500 to make them and the image quality did not suffer so I continued with it.

You can see some of my work here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifindoubt/sets/72157605804496225/

My S500 has been in continuous operation since November 2009. I've got it setup to take a photo every 30 minutes. Here is the result of that project thus far...

http://garry.cc/blog/2010/06/11/ordinary/
 
Cool info, but shameless plug? I don't know... Obviously it's complicated to anyone that doesn't understand circuitry, but where do you think ideas for the really good interface apps on the iphone come from??

Expensive? How? a 1 dollar chip and a 1 dollar cable? or are you talking about a ti-8x and 6 lines of code? I mean I guess I could sell my 350D and buy your nikkon, but i think the point is to work with what i have and not be tied to a particular camera.
 
flinch13 said:
In any event, I'd love a cheap intervolometer. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could make this work? It's probably a long shot, but I figure anyone reading this forum could probably use one; it'd be a cool thing to do.
Click to expand...

Here's a couple I've seen (but never tried) over the years - I keep meaning to give it a try...

This one is available as a kit you build yourself:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Intervalometer-for-Canon-and-Nikon-cameras/

This one uses an Arduino microcontroller (and might well be overkill for most):
http://timmsuess.com/intervaluino/

And this one seems very simple indeed:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Time-Lapse-Intervalometer-for-SLRs-with-555-timer-/

Hopefully some of these can give you pointers to what you'll need to get your time lapse started!

Mark
 
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