My client is importing these champagne bottle poppers. He wanted to capture the explosion of confetti as the air cartridge in the bottle is pierced when you twist the bottom of the bottle. It happens with a fairly violent explosion and considerable noise. It occurs so fast that you could not react fast enough to press the shutter on the camera and capture with any precision the spray of confetti. I needed to create a trigger device to fire my strobe lights with a certain amount of repeatability. I first tried to find something for rent here in Phoenix. All the regular photo resources really could not help. I turned to everyone's best friend- Google. I searched for infrared photo trigger, laser trigger, sound photo trigger. I found many devices that were available for purchase ranging from about $175 to almost $2000. After checking out all the devices, I did some further searching for hi speed photography and found blogs of photographers who do this kind of work. Several had built their own devices from parts supplied by several companies. Since I do like to build "stuff", this is the route I took. I ordered a kit from HiViz.com. For the grand sum of $18 plus shipping via USPS I had everything I needed in 3 days. After one or two false starts in building the breadboard circuit I was able to make it work. The results are repeatable and dependable. I will add some features to this crude device such as enclosing everything in a case, adding an on/off switch, plug in cables and connectors for the LED transmitter and receiver and an external potentiometer to adjust the sensitivity of the photogate.
Here are some shots of the set up. I was warned that the confetti goes everywhere. You will notice the black plastic garbage bag suspended on the left in an attempt to keep the mess in the studio to a minimum!! If you have any questions about this shot or would like me to create something "special" for you please contact me. Enjoy.
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