Camera Silencer?

S_V wrote:

I’m currently working on a DIY “camera trap” using a Canon EOS M3 running the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK).

Well that's very cool!  I didn't notice that CHDK supports that camera.  I use CHDK on a fleet of Canon PowerShots, but I used ML on my EOS M.

... Now I’m trying to come up with a simple and cheap solution to silence the camera. I don’t need it to be completely silent, just enough to muffle the shutter sound enough not to scare the birds. I don’t want to spend much money, change cameras or spend a lot of time building an elaborate solution.

I’m wondering about wrapping a towel around the camera and lens (securing it with tape) to muffle the sound and/or perhaps using some spare pieces of styrofoam to line a cardboard box that could be placed over the camera. Has anyone ever tried something like this before?

Can someone suggest a simple solution?

A towel seems like a good thing to try.

Styrofoam doesn't absorb sound -- you'd want something more spongy, and it's easy to imagine a cardboard box actually amplifying the sound. Speaking of amplifying vibrations, if you have the camera mounted on something that could vibrate, just making a "deader" mount might make a difference (e.g., some aluminum tripods will resonate). However, if the sound is coming from the camera and not being amplified by its mount, perhaps the trick is not to quiet it, but to deflect the sound away -- I wouldn't be surprised if a single piece of cardboard with the lens poking through would bounce most of the sound backwards, away from the winged subjects....