Digital switch for your camera

This is a very easy instructable to build a digital switch for your camera in order to take photos with your microcontrollers.

What you need:

1 x PNP transistor (bc547)
2 x 2K2 Ohm resistance
4 x hole female pins

Step 1 The Schematic

The schematic is simple, you have 4 pins, Camera +/- and Control +/-

Attach your camera cable to Camera +/-
Attach your controller circuit output digital to Control +/-

When Control goes HIGH, Camera pins will be closed, with only a voltage drop of 0.2V, so it will take a photo.

When Control goes LOW, the resistance will be pulling-down to 0V and Camera pins will be open.

This time i've connected both grounds, because the application requires it. Both must be 0V in order to work. If they are not the same, you can have different voltages on each ground and strange things can happen.

Note: This circuit can be greatly improved, but i wanted it to be very cheap/easy/small, and the matter is it just works with my camera (canon 350D).
Those cameras usualy have 2 buttons, 1 for focussing and 1 for taking the shot. I short-circuited both in my cable.

Comments

[jwells5]

im sorry im kind of noobish to this... what exactly does this do?

[cyberoidx]

Ha. I was looking for this on the internet. Was going to use some IC. But this will do. Gonna Mix it with zigbee to make a wireless remote for the Canon 1000D (Which doesn't have a wireless camera)

[Phil B]

I just found this. You wrote that you used a PNP transistor, but the schematic shows an NPN transistor and is biased for an NPN transistor. Did I miss something? Thanks.

[luhe98922]

bc547 IS an NPN transistor, u r correct. and it IS used as a NPN in the schematic, so it probably is just a typo...

[ramohero]

what if my camera emits rf signal for extra external flashs to recieve and flash at the same time with camera , how we can the above idea be utilized ?

[scopevisions]

i would love to see how is actually connected to the camera trigger do you have any photo? and this can be modify as an external trigger with a switch? nice macro !

[awdark]

Wow how nice. Any idea how much voltage is needed to trigger it? I could have saved $3 on the relay I bought if I found this earlier! I used it with a sound sensor but it doesn't quite provide the effect I wanted, perhaps a relay is too slow for my ideas. Do you know what the trigger voltage is supposed to be? I read the schematic page and most of my questions were answered woo go reading haha

[Xellers]

Excellent instructable, +1. Please post a different schematic for this device. Your's is good, but slightly hard for me to read. Try using Eagle CAD, It'll take a few minutes.

[guyfrom7up]

That's pretty cool, I guess But I will give you plus 1 because I love seeing people use prefboards/PCB and stuff like transistors.