PhotographyCambase: camera grip and accessory system
Most small to medium size SLR cameras have the option of adding an after-market extension to the bottom of the body. It has a handgrip and a second shutter release in order to hold the camera in a vertical position more comfortably, and batteries to provide extra runtime. The Konica Minolta Dynax/Maxxum 5D isn't one of those, unfortunately. Although I would probably not have bought one anyway, because most of them are fairly expensive. So I thought of something else instead: a sturdy base plate with small sliding rails on it, enabling you to add anything you've also attached the rails to. The rails are trapezoid metal strips of the kind they use in modular system enclosures like these. Both employers I have worked for, utilize them.
As usual, a picture says more than a thousand words. On to the pictures, then.
The base plate:
Attached to the camera:
The control pack:
The 7.2 volts battery pack:
Everything hooked up:
The two packs are made from anti-static transport boxes. They have nice, rounded edges and are about the same width as the camera body and about as deep as the camera's own right hand side grip. The control pack is the main part of this system. I've come up with all kinds of nifty stuff I might cram into it:
- Second shutter release featuring half-press for AF+AE and full press for release
- Input for external battery or light grid power
- Patch-through for external (battery) power so that control pack and camera run from the same power source
- Patch-through for simple wired remote
- Infrared remote control receiver
- Laser line focus assist
- RJ45 Connector for external shutter triggers like an optical switch, audio switch, timer, clock, etc.
- Patch-through from hotshoe to flash sync
- Switched power output (on focus/shutter/flash) for triggering of external events
- Tilt detector for 0° and 90° orientation, indicates if the camera is exactly level by short beeps
As it is now, it only has the top three items, because that's obviously the most important. The rest will probably be very complex, and I might have to resort to using a microcontroller to reduce chip count.
The shutter button has the same "half-press" feature as most camera shutter buttons. I did this by sticking two switches (with differing tactile force) back-to-back with hot melt glue. See below. You can make out a black button, but the much smaller second one is mostly covered by the glue. It sits against a tiny adjustable bolt on a piece of metal rail.
A drawback of a system like this is the little cable mess you soon end up with. For the second shutter release to work, you have to run a small cable to the remote socket on the camera. Same goes for all power connections. Luckily the 5D has both these sockets near its bottom side, so the cables don't interfere with controls or move about. I have thought of running power through the attachment rails, but this doesn't really make it any more convenient, since the camera still has to have the 2 cables. I'm not willing to modify the camera.
A cool thing I discovered is that you can tap off the signals from the shutter release on the camera itself right off the remote connector. This means the laser focus assist I have planned as well as the switched power output (think Ring light) can also be operated from the camera itself. How cool is that!?
...to be continued...
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