When you’re driving for days on the highway, you see some interesting things. If you’re like me, you usually don’t have the time to get your camera out and snap a picture. Especially if it is just a goofy looking car, or an interesting tree or something. This hack will make it really easy to get pictures of sights on the highway by allowing you to snap a picture at the press of a button.First, I sourced some cameras. Wal-mart had a decent selection of really cheap digital cameras for under $30. I bought two 7.1 Megapixel vivitars. Removing them from their packaging and snapping a few sample pics, it became evident that the picture quality wasn’t going to be fantastic. The optics on these things are pretty cheap. It will work fine for this project though.
I began planning all kinds of ways to trigger these. Optimally, they would be always-on for quicker response time. I realized however that all the methods I was thinking of were ridiculously over complicated for this project. All that was really necessary was to extend the power and shutter buttons. I can turn one on and snap a picture in about 3 seconds.
After soldering in some extenders and wiring this to a breakout box, I made simple harnesses for them out of the package they came in and a few small suction cups. This should hold them in place well enough for this trip. I snapped a few example photos around town and the results are acceptable. Nothing amazing, but enough to show someone that school bus full of sad clowns that drove by while they were sleeping.
Filed under: digital cameras hacks
