[Leica] Using an IR camera trigger can be fun

[rdcb37 at dodo.com.au (Rick Dykstra)]

I made up an infra red camera trigger system for my R8s a while back.  
Got the first two films back the other day.  What fun!

I'd found a place where gangs of birds were taking turns splashing in a 
puddle on top of a large boulder.  Bewdy.  I set up R8 with 100 AME and 
hooked up all the wires and sensors, with a 100m cable to an on/off 
switch and also a 100 m cable to an R8 electronic cable release.  These 
controls were positioned in a blind from which I was shooting 
honeyeaters.

Some interesting things happened when I wasn't looking it seems.  I got 
lots of pics of a cockatoo dipping his beak in the water again and 
again.  But also many of the little birds, sometimes just part of them. 
  :-(   I got a picture of an empty puddle as a bowerbird tried to steal 
one of the sensors!

As you can imagine, the hit rate is not very high.  Most of the birds 
were not perfectly in the focal plane when they broke the beam, and 
there was more motion blur than I expected (using 1/60th and 1/125th) 
so I'll have to bump up the speed.  The shot I'm hoping to get is of a 
blue wren, in the middle of the puddle, splashing water, head focussed, 
wings blurred, with drops of water in the air caught in the flash.  
Yeah right.  I got close with a yellow robin.

While it was fun to see the trigger go off as a bird hopped into the 
right part of the puddle I would have got better pics shooting from a 
blind set up next to the rock.  Still, it was good to use all the gear. 
  Certainly impressed a few picnickers.  :-|

Rick.