Camtrapper

Hi, first post here. Looks like most of you all are out of my league in terms of making your own stuff

Long time wildlife photographer, long time trailcam dabbler, first time camera trapper here.... I'm building my first camera trap using Camtraptions stuff.. Wireless V3 PIR sensor, wireless trigger firing twin Nikon SB28 flashes.

None of this Camtraptions stuff has arrived yet (international shipping) but I'm working on making housings, etc... While I obsess on my first set, I can't find an answer to what is probably a dumb question:

My camera body will be a Canon EOS Rebel T7. The wireless trigger sending the flash signal will be mounted in the hot shoe. I've never mixed Nikon flashes with my Canon stuff before.... when I mount an SB 28 directly to the hot shoe and let both the camera and the flash go to sleep mode, a half press of the shutter button does not wake the flash. The shutter snapping wakes the flash, so it won't fire until the second frame. Will the Camtraptions trigger wake the flashes prior to the first frame? or if not, what is the work-around?

Thanks in advance... looking forward to this new frontier of wildlife photography for me....

Hi Randy.......welcome to camtrapper.com

Good question. As you know the hotshoe pin arrangement on the Canon looks different than the Nikon. But, each connector has three connections that we need for camera trapping. 1-Ground, 2-Flash Fire and 3-Flash Wake. The flash fire pin on both brands is in the same location. That's why your Nikon SB-28 fired on the Canon body. On the SB-28, when you trigger the flash by grounding the flash pin, the flash will fire. When the flash goes to sleep then the center pin will wake it on the first trigger and flash on the second. Not ideal for camera trapping. You usually end up with a picture of the animals backside. What needs to happen is, when the camera shutter button is pressed half way down a positive voltage of about 3.5 vdc will exit the camera body hotshoe and connect with the wake pin on the SB-28. The flash will wake and then when the shutter button is pressed all the say down the flash will fire. There are a couple ways to make this happen. One, make a cable that utilizes all three connections. Two, buy a wireless trigger that also utilizes all three connections. I'm not familiar with the Camtraptions equipment, but if you sent them an email I'm sure they could answer your question.

Hope this helps and I hope to see some great images posted here in the future.

Beautiful, that makes a lot of sense, thanks. I believe based on what I'm reading now that the camtraptions trigger/receiver accomplishes this. I'll have to play with it when I have it in hand before I deploy it for the first time. Thank you.

Answering my own question for future searchers... the camtraptions trigger has a setting where it will send a "wake" signal directly to the receivers on the flashes, before sending a "fire" signal to the camera. You set the flash receivers on whatever channel the camera trigger is on +1... so if the trigger is on channel 1, you put the flash trigger at the camera and the flash receivers at the flashes on channel 2. When set correctly, the sensor will detect motion, send a 'wake' signal on channel 2, then send a "fire" signal on channel 1, and the flashes will fire in sync with the first click from the camera. Very cool system.