Ed Warner’s Mirror device that attaches to the accessory shoe for back of camera IR signals
Toronto. Nearly a half century ago, I modified my Heathkit Mitchell Fotoval enlarger light meter with a built-in timer that used a 555 chip, a tantalum capacitor, and a series of switches and resistors that set the enlarger timing in ever doubling steps – 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, … seconds realizing that you had to double exposure time for the equivalent to a one stop increase in light. I changed my Gralab darkroom timer to add a fuse, relay, and a foot switch outlet plug.
When colour printing came a long, I built an enlarger bench with a built in iron vane (true RMS) AC meter and a variac transformer so I could adjust for vagaries in Montreal’s somewhat erratic power system of the day (pre Hydro Quebec).
Moving to this century, I use a Sony NEX-6 camera which like many of its competitors uses a tiny infra-red sensor on the front so you can trigger the tripod mounted camera as you join the group in front of the camera.
But what if you wanted to take a picture from behind the camera using the hand-held IR transmitter as a cable release? Enter Ed Warner. Ed does it with mirrors! He made me a tiny device that mounts in the camera’s accessory shoe. A couple of mirrors direct the behind camera IR control to the IR receiver on the front of the camera allowing me to take RAW images with their wide range of adjustment in Lightroom.
N.B. An app on my iPod Touch is based on wifi and will let me see through the lens images on my iPod Touch and shoot pictures. Unfortunately only jpegs are allowed, significantly reducing my control in Lightroom.
