Hall of Records

A collection of thoughts by John Abella

Quaketronics Hi-Speed Photography Kit

I got a Quaketronics Version 4 setup for my birthday, and though it’s a hectic time of year, I had a chance to wire it up and get it setup for a few test shots.

The kit uses either a microphone or a light sensor to trigger a remote flash.   By taking a long exposure photo in the dark and precisely controlling when the flash fires, you can get some interesting results.

Make Magazine had an article about it and has a free PDF available here.

The kit uses a regular Kodak disposable camera for the flash assembly, and has instructions on how to modify it to work as a remote slave.  The work is simple and fast, and the kit is usable (and comes with a battery and all required cables) in no time.

After some preliminary tweaking, we were able to capture a few interesting photos — the ‘balloon pop’ that everyone tries first.

Hi-Speed Flash Trigger - Balloon

The initial settings were actually too fast, and the ‘pop’ hadn’t happened yet.   All I had with me was a point and shoot and a few white balloons, this was purely a test to make sure things worked.   I’m already planning the next few shots with it with a better background and my real camera.   I’ll probably get to it between Christmas and New Years.

There’s a Flickr group that has a lot of photos taken using this kit.