Regarding Camera Wireless Flash Trigger

sakibnaz wrote:

Thanks Richard B99 and sirhawkeye64.

I checked the Camtrapper and its one of the features I like to implement i.e. Motion Sensor based Trigger.

I know there are available low cost Wireless Trigger available but my project have some specific needs where I want to implement Flash Control (both Manual and TTL).

However, past days I have more study on TTL and now my understanding is much concrete. Like to introduce some more qus please:

-1. So far I found TTL is SPI communication so I think by reverse engineering its possible to decode the SPI data. But in case of Canon E-TTL and Nikon I-TTL if I am able to decode the control signals then is it permitted to implement in commercial product like Yongnuo or PocketWizard doing?

Interesting you found TTL uses SPI.  I’ve no doubt it is a serial protocol but have no means of analyzing it and have not found a definition of it anywhere.  If you have access to a suitable protocol analyzer you may have more luck.

To the question, I don’t know if it permitted but I suspect reverse engineering the interface isn’t illegal under patent/copyright protections.  I don’t believe Canon or Nikon will license or share their protocols.  But the independent lens manufacturers and electronic mfrs have been reverse engineering for years so, draw your own conclusions from that.

-2. My aim is to make both Transmitter (Tx) and Receiver (Rx) device where Tx will consist of some Sensors to trigger DSLR shutter in different conditions. In my Tx device I am already implementing Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) for some other features but will it be good to use BLE for the Flash Communication i.e. adding BLE in Rx as well? Not sure if its the best RF. As for Flash I need to trigger it very fast when Camera Shutter is clicked so delay (wireless transmission latency) needs to be min as possible.

Sorry, you are beyond where my electronics and data networking experience finishes!  But I can say that the range of these 2.4GHz transmitters is pretty good (around 100m) and so Is roughly around the same as BLE.  Not sure how BLE protocols work in terms of establishing and maintaining handshake connections.  As a user, it always seems pretty slow - I suspect it’s quite a chatty protocol.  The rf devices seem very quick but I don’t think they maintain a networked connection at all.  If the receiver hears a fire signal on its frequency it does.  Transmitter doesn’t care or know if anyone is listening.  That’s simple and fast as there are no network overheads in the manual mode triggers; plus, these simple devices aren’t mucking about trying to do several things at once and waiting for stuff on queues.

Thanks again.

Regards.