Control camera shutter with arduino

I was looking at some tutorials for making some time lapse type of projects with the arduino. But you most likely always need an expensive camera that has a jack to plug in our arduino board with the shutter data.

For those of us with simple point and click cameras don't fret! I have a new idea that would work very well if built right so here it is.

The basis of this project relies on a servo! First you make a stand and harness system for your servo and camera. Basically you want the servo to have a little rod on one of it's rotors. Then you program the servo to turn a certain number of degrees which in turn pushes down the little rod and clicks the shutter. And after that you program it to come back up the same number of degrees and delay it for a certain amount of time.

So there you go! I am hoping to try this out some time and tell me what you think of the idea! or maybe even easier ways of doing this task!

Don't see why it shouldn't work, if it can't be done electrical do it mechanical!

Easier: do not invent it yourself, always search the net:

If the camera is a cheap canon camera have a look at CHDK CHDK Wiki | Fandom. Otherwise have a look here http://www.instructables.com/id/Time-lapse-add-on-to-a-Rollei-digicam/. And if you do not dare to open it, then finally look her: http://www.instructables.com/id/electromechanical-time-lapse-trigger/.

Udo

I recently posted code which uses generic PTP commands to trigger digital camera via USB -> http://www.circuitsathome.com/camera-control/generic-ptp-control-of-digital-cameras It should work with any Nikon including cheap S-series ones. You'll need one of my USB host shields for this to work.