Comment by busyant
3 years ago
I made a "laser-beam-break" camera trigger for my Nikon D750, which I use to capture images of hummingbirds at my feeder.
Instead of paying $125 for this ... (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1337050-REG/pluto_tri...)
I decided to build one using an Arduino. I probably spent more than $125 on the project, but I ended up buying a lot of hobbyist electronics parts, soldering gun, etc.
I learned a bit about what Arduino can do, learned some baby electronics.
And I have some nice pics of hummingbirds.
https://flickr.com/photos/184781347@N05/52648636091/in/datep...
https://flickr.com/photos/184781347@N05/52325370300/in/datep...
The knowledge and experience you gain from those types of projects could pay for itself several times over in the future.
Reminds me of when I was getting into woodworking and my wife wanted a new coffee table.
Why would we go buy coffee table when I could build it in a month and have it cost 3 times as much?
The story is priceless though, and I love handmade stuff.
Not nearly as cool, but related. I've been using yolo to pull bird frames from a GoPro left running by the bird feeder.
Impressive shots! Very nice project.