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Triggering a small P&S via RF KeyFob

Hi Chieh,

I found your website extremely informative. I wonder if the following is something you can/want to do. Here is some background:

I want to mount a small and light consumer P&S digital camera on a kite (kiteboarding kite). The camera can weight up to about 200 grams. It needs to be able to:

1. Be triggered by the rider himself (me) via RF (not Infra Red or cable) by a switch somehow taped or otherwise connected to my wetsuit. Needless to say, the switch needs to be water proof.
2. The "Switch" needs to be the size of a KeyFob, but preferably a bit easier to trigger (an actual toggle-switch may be better).
3. Ideally, I want the camera to snap images every 0.5 seconds until the toggle is switched to off.
4. The camera will be about 10-20ft from the rider (up the kite lines).
5. We cannot let the camera "go to sleep" because the idea is that the rider will be able to "switch it on" at any time during the session (of course, until the SD card is full or the battery goes dead).
6. Ideally, the camera should deliver at least 6 megapixels. But the more the better.

That's basically it. I doubt this is a monumental task, and after reading some of your material, it sounds like you can do this in your sleep. :)

Any input will be very much appreciated (by the way, I have no technical knowledge to even begin to tackle this myself).

Thanks a million,

Boaz

PS - I have attached a picture of me that was taken by a professional photographer from the water. Imagine a camera mounted up the kitelines (about where the lines are crossing), looking down at the action.

Oh, also, the kite lines are extremely tight and can easily carry the 200 grams weight.

Boaz
Sat, 25 Nov 2006 11:37:48 -0800

Not to sure if you have come across these sites yet but do a search for "kite aerial photography" or KAP there is a lot of good pre-made electronics for this sort of thing. In my opinion your best bet would to get a camera with a small size and one of the water covers that you could squeeze a gentLED into the case as well (DiCAPac). Then get the biggest memory card you can afford. Aside from waterproofing keeping the camera steady would probably be even more difficult than normal KAP-ing but if you set the shutter speed high and are willing to sort through the many blurry pictures I'd suspect that you'd find a few quality keepers. I'm also not entirely sure how you would go about attatching a rig to a 4+ lined sail but I'd suspect that you'd know better than me how to accomplish that.

KAPshop has the most variety of stuff of the sites that I've seen, there is a US online site too but I can't seem to find it at the moment. I'm just getting starting in KAP myself so I'm not an expert but I've been doing a lot of reading so if you have any questions feel free to shoot me a message. Good luck!

mattyfu
Sun, 04 Mar 2007 20:29:42 -0800

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