Sound activated shutter release?

DaveG

DaveG

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I'd like to take some pics at our local gun club.

Ideally I would like to catch the muzzle flare as the gun goes off.

Is there a sound activated shutter release mechanism I can attach to a canon 20D to allow me to catch the shot?

Thanks
Dave
 
Shouldn`t be to difficult, what comes first, the flash or the bang.
 
I think that your problem will be that light travels faster than sound, so by the time the shutter fired the flash would be all over and gone.

I'd have thought a few goes on high speed drive should capture the muzzle flash without too much trouble?
 
Shotguns or pistols/ rifles?

The reason I ask is that I know shotguns give a very impressive belch of red fire from the barrel, very visible when light levels drop - up to around 3 feet long sometimes, so most impressive from the side, which you should be able to do safely enough. It depends what angles you have in mind.
 
Shutters on cameras are not the fastest thing on earth. The best bet is the use of flash in a dark firing range as long as there is no movement and the camera has shutter open. Who knows you could catch the bullet leaving the gun.
 
Or at 8 fps second you are bound to catch something if you just hold the button down and they do the same :)
 
Why not take the shot somewhere very dark with a 2 second exposure with a pre flash on the background and rifle or do two shots one in the dark then one for the background / foreground and layer them in PS? :cool: might work, then again it might not... :thinking:
 
I tried it trying to shoot a .45 pistol......didn't get one with a 40D at 6fps at 1/250. It is not that easy I can tell you, the muzzle flash is only around for a millisecond and you need to be at EXACTLY the moment to catch. Good luck!!
 
Splog said:
Why not take the shot somewhere very dark with a 2 second exposure with a pre flash on the background and rifle or do two shots one in the dark then one for the background / foreground and layer them in PS? :cool: might work, then again it might not... :thinking:
Click to expand...

You would get the muzzle flash but also the recoil of the gun.
 
Nigey said:
You would get the muzzle flash but also the recoil of the gun.
Click to expand...

You probably wouldn't see much of the gun in the shot and even if you did the exposure would be so short as to freeze the movement! The gun could also be secured so it couldn't move.
 
I've used one on a flash taking a pic of a balloon bursting.
 
Nigey said:
I tried it trying to shoot a .45 pistol......didn't get one with a 40D at 6fps at 1/250. It is not that easy I can tell you, the muzzle flash is only around for a millisecond and you need to be at EXACTLY the moment to catch. Good luck!!
Click to expand...

Agree with Nige that trying to sync everything up precisely will be very difficult, but can be done with the right specialist kit.

But just getting the gun flash should be easy in dark conditions - open shutter, fire gun, close shutter and you can't miss.

To get an image of the gun/mussle in shot, hold gun steady, open shutter and keep it open for long enough to get an image of the gun, fire gun and record the mussle flash, close shutter immediately.

A bit of trial and error on ambient light levels, shutter open time to get the gun image right, coupled to ISO or aperture setting to get the mussle flash right, and you're there.
 
grahamc said:
Or at 8 fps second you are bound to catch something if you just hold the button down and they do the same :)
Click to expand...
Graham - I don't think you are right saying that at 8fps you are bound to capture a bullet. Even the slowest bullets have a muzzle exit velocity of 1000 feet per second...!! You would be extremely lucky to get the bullet in frame, because even at 1000th sec shutter speed, the bullet would have traveled a distance of 1 foot.
 
You're not likely to catch a bullet using camera shutter speeds! Usually shots like these are captured using flash in a dark area and by using lasers to trigger the flash.
 
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