If you own a Canon EOS Digital Rebel series camera, you can save a little money by building your own remote shutter release cable with a few spare parts from Radio Shack. Some of the parts, and at least the tools you should have already. If you don’t already have some of these things, you may not save yourself much money by building your own since they are not all that expensive to buy anyways. However, the wireless ones only work from in front of the camera, and the corded one only has a 18″ cord. By building your own, you can make the cord as long as you want. Mine has a cord about 36″ long.
The jack used is a 3/32″ stereo plug with three connections. Called tip, ring, and sleeve. The tip is the top most part of the plug, the ring is the middle section, and the sleeve is the largest part at the back of the plug. When I build mine, other websites that had discussed this mentioned using all three. After trying every combination multiple times, I only found the tip and sleeve to be useful. These websites (I don’t have the links anymore) I have read always talk about using a 350D. I own a 400D, so maybe there is a difference between the two? Regardless, my remote does everything that I want it to the way it is with only two connections.
Parts
Parts that you will need include:
- 1 – 3/32″ or 2.5mm audio jack.
- 1 – cord with two or more wires inside it (such as a stereo cable, I used a network cable)
- 1 – push button
- 1 – Switch (optional)
- 1 – Project Box to house the button and switch
- Drill, Electrical tape, Solder, Soldering iron.
Please excuse my poor attempt at creating a diagram!
Step 1
The first step is to strip off the plastic covering on one end of your wire and solder the wire to the tip and sleeve of your audio jack. If you want to try to make use of the third connection, solder one of the wires to the ring part as well.
Step 2
Next, strip other end of the wire, plug the jack into the camera and touch the wire ends together to make sure it works. Touching the two wires together should cause the camera to focus and shoot as if you had pressed the shutter button. You do not need to change any camera settings for this to work.
Step 3
Once you have confirmed that this is working, drill holes in the box for the push button, switch, and one on the end for the wire to go through.
Step 4
Mount the push button and the switch into the box. Cut two short pieces of wire and solder the leads of the switch to the push button.
Step 5
Feed the end of the wire through the top hole in the box and solder the wires to the push button leads.
Step 6
Wrap electrical tape around the wire on the inside of the box. This keeps from putting tension on the wire and the solder joints if it gets pulled on. Put the box back together and your done!
How to use
The push button is used for regular shooting when the camera is mounted on the tripod. The switch is useful for long exposures. Set the camera on Manual, Set the shutter time to BULB, then flip the switch to on. The shutter will stay open until you turn the switch off. I have taken 20 minute exposures using this method before.
Conclusion
This is a handy little device that is fairly easy to build. If you have some of these parts it can save you some money too. The trickiest part that I found is making sure that the solder joints in the audio jack are well done. This can be difficult (at least for us non-electronic gurus) since the connections are so small.
