In need for a highly customizable trigger system to tell the story of nocturnal wildlife I designed and build my own system: IRCamTrap. The system is modular and quickly set up. In the following I will present its advantages.
Controller
The control box receives the trigger signal and wakes up the flashes and fires them after an optional delay for letting them fully recharge. The camera can be triggered once or multiple times to shoot a sequence of images. Also the length of the camera signal can be changed to fire multiple flashes.
The controller can be equipped with two different transmitter. One can send e.g. daily sms reports in a predetermined intervall with the number of captured images and the battery status.
The other transmitter module can upload small JPG previews to a server to monitor the camera trap from afar. That’s more efficient for remote areas to check and make sure everything’s working fine.
Set-up
Depending on the subject we can use different types of sensors to motion trigger the camera: IR (light beam) and PIR (radiant heat based).
IR sensors can be used for precise triggering when passing a specific point. Another advantage is in bright sunny condition. PIR sensors are nice when observing a wider range and detecting smaller and taller animals.
3 sensors can be combined when necessary e.g when in hish-speed mode for very fast animals.
Multiple cameras can be triggered simultaneously.
Lights
Camera flashes can be be daisy-chained in any order. In the current version we are using a wired connection due to the lowest power consumption possible. Connected with a multi connector cable the system can be easily set up in multiple ways. The standard cable can be used to connect all flashes as well as light beams and motion detectors (PIR). This ensures maximum flexibility in the field. Flashes are powered by separate rechargeable batteries with 24Wh.
Features
Up to 2 ir light barriers
Multiple pir (wireless)
Interval shooting
Multi sequence shooting
Flash wake up setting
High-speed trigger mode
Video and photo release mode
Gsm -> daily sms report
Optional 3G/lte -> Upload previews
Aux output for additional light etc.
Adjustable time slot settings
Daisy chain all components
Several combinations of the sensors for precise shooting
IRCamTrap
