Control your old film camera with a Raspberry Pi
Using Raspberry Pi to control motors, LEDs, digital cameras, and other sorts of modern peripherals is nothing new. However, you can also make the tiny computer work with the technology of yesteryear. My recent Raspberry Pi-related project is a case in point.
Although I have a decent DSLR camera, I shoot film most of the time. One of my favorite film SLR cameras is an almost 30-year-old Nikon F-501 that I bought cheaply on the web. In addition to the kit lens, the camera included an MC-12B remote trigger. Out of curiosity, I disassembled the trigger and found it to be a rather simple device that simply closes the circuit between two pins in the camera's remote trigger connector. Rummaging through a box of old computery stuff, I also discovered an old USB GPS receiver, so I thought it would be fun to spend a weekend on a project that makes Raspberry Pi trigger the Nikon F-501 SLR camera and record geographic coordinates to a file.
Although this project might seem somewhat limited in scope (after all, probably not very many Raspberry Pi users shoot with film SLR cameras), it demonstrates a number of useful techniques. Among other things, it shows how to create a simple transistor switch and use Python scripts to control it. You'll also learn how to make a USB GPS receiver work with Raspberry Pi, as well as acquire geographic coordinates and save them in a text file.
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