If you have spent some time as a photographer, you will be sure looking for new opportunities to take better pictures. In most cases, you will end up considering new lenses, lights, reflectors etc. Let me tell you a secret. The best gadget to buy for new photography skills is a camera trigger. A camera trigger is a gadget that triggers your camera automatically either on different events or programmed scenarios. But what is the best camera trigger in the market today?
An ideal camera trigger should be able to detect sound and light. This will make it a perfect solution for high speed photography. You can, for example, take pictures of popping balloons by triggering the camera when the noise of the balloon is detected. This will happen so fast, that you may never do it with human reflexes. If you would call such an activity, popping balloon photography then you cannot think of it without a high speed camera trigger.
The camera trigger must also be able to trigger both the camera and flash. If you have been into high speed photography, you should know that it is not easy. High speed photography would normally require high speed cameras, but this is not the case if you own a camera trigger. Regular cameras have shutter lag and they cannot capture high speed photos, but you can do a simple trick. You can trigger the flash in a dark environment, where the camera is in the bulb mode with an open shutter. Then you can trigger the flash to freeze the moment and this will make you capture a high speed image with your everyday equipment. You can use the same trick for water drop photography as well. When the water splashes, it makes a perfect moment to freeze. You can do that again by using the camera trigger.
Time Lapse Movie
Most of the time, the capabilities of a camera trigger are not limited to high speed photography. You can also use it for different purposes like taking time lapse pictures. Time lapse videos are made of pictures that are taken sequentially and they are brought together to create a time-lapse video. The time-lapse video process has two parts: taking the pictures and then turning them into a video. The latter one is the easier part. You can use the software to create the video, but taking the pictures is not so fun. You will need a well-designed camera trigger to take the time lapse pictures automatically.
The camera trigger must be able to take the time lapse pictures automatically per the settings you have adjusted. Don’t forget that this can be a time-consuming process. So your camera trigger would better have a long battery life. Also, for time-lapse photography it is important that the camera trigger can operate as a standalone device to perform all actions without requiring your smart phone or something else. It will be a great advantage if the camera trigger can do long exposure as well.
Long exposure or adaptive exposure (also known as Bulb Ramping) may be required if the light will change through the process. Long exposure capability may come handy for single pictures as well. Some cameras do not allow to keep set the exposure higher than 30 seconds. If you own such a camera, you can use the long exposure feature of your camera to keep the shutter longer than standard settings.
Lightning Photography
We have said that a camera trigger must be able to detect light and sound. Can you name something that is bright and loud? Yes, it is a lightning. If your camera trigger can detect the light, it has everything you need for lightning photography. Lightning photography is great if you like spending time outdoors for photography, but it can be quite difficult if you don’t use a lightning trigger. A lightning trigger is nothing other than a camera trigger that can detect lightning. When the lightning strikes, the light level changes dramatically for a very short time. It usually lasts less than a second so you have very little time to release the shutter. This is when a lightning trigger makes the difference. The lightning trigger can detect the change in the light level automatically and then it will trigger the camera instantly. This is the perfect solution to capture this great event of nature.
Please do not forget that lightning photography can be dangerous. So if you are out in the nature to capture lightning photos with your camera, lightning trigger and other equipment consider safety. Never stay on the open field when the lightning strikes and try not to get too close to it.
Water Drop Photography
If you are not very much into outdoors and lightning photography, then you can also try something else which is less dangerous but still too much fun. It is water drop photography. I can hear you saying “How can we deal with water drop photography if a water drop does not make any light or sound”. Good question, but we have the perfect answer. A perfect camera trigger that can detect light for lightning photography, can also detect a laser beam. Why would you need a laser beam for water drop photography? It is simple. A laser beam is a clever solution to detect the water drop.
When the water drop falls into the glass, it will cut the laser beam. The camera trigger will detect that the laser beam is broken and it will trigger the camera. There is one trick. We don’t know when the drop is going to hit the water, so we need to add some delay. This is really crucial. If you want to use a camera trigger for water drop photography, it must have the delay feature. By setting the delay value, you can decide when to trigger the camera. The delay parameter must be given in milliseconds because this is the only of being precise.
Smartphone Controllable Wireless Camera Remote
A successful camera trigger may also implement many other features that do not depend on sensors. For example, it will be very convenient if you could use your camera trigger as a camera remote. This way you could trigger your camera from distance without touching your camera. This may have several benefits. First of all, you can avoid the camera shake there will be movement as you release the shutter. The second one is that you don’t need to go back and forth to your camera if you are staying away from it.
Popping Balloon Photography
Have you ever tried to take the picture of a balloon? Yeah, I can hear that taking the picture of a balloon laying on a table is easy. How can you do that as the balloon is popping? Yes, it is a new branch of photography. Popping balloon photography is fun and very easy to try. You don’t need expensive material to try. You can buy a bunch of balloons for less than a buck. You just need to inflate them.
You can use air as usual but the real fun begins when you fill the balloon with a liquid. The water in the balloon will make a big splash when the balloon pops. Popping balloon photography can let you make very creative images like having a solid water hat on your head. This is one of the most liked examples of popping balloon photography. The idea is very simple. First, you need a balloon that you can shape around your head. We all know this type of balloons. Then just fill it with water. Again you need to work in a dark room as the camera trigger will trigger the flashes to avoid shutter lag.
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Take impossible photos by turning your camera into a high-speed capture device!
Once you are ready, you can open the shutter of the camera in the bulb mode. Then a friend of you needs to pop the balloon with a needle. Once the balloon pops, it will make a sound. The camera trigger will detect the sound of the popping balloon and trigger the flash. With some persistence and trials, I am sure you can create very good samples of the popping balloon photography. You can play with the delay settings of your camera trigger to change the picture, but don’t forget that you will get wet every time you try again.
So, if you want to try popping balloon photography without too much hassle, you will need a camera trigger that you can get consistent results with. We tried to explain the best ways of high speed photography with a camera trigger. Features like time-lapse photography and long exposure make the camera trigger even better. If you are going to buy a camera trigger soon, make sure that it has all these features. Other than these modes, we are sure that you would want to try popping balloon photography and water drop photography as well. So, you shouldn’t be buying separate equipment for all those modes.
The best trigger is the one, which can combine all of them into a single unit.
