IR control from USB?
Gene is looking for a scriptable USB-IR controller – “So far I have not been able to find such an animal. I bought the first generation of Robosapian. The robot from wowwe toys. It comes with a real crazy remote control. You have to press many keys in certain combinations to make the robot do anything. If I could program a dynamic IR device with the codes and then create scripts.. It would be possible for me to make my robot do all kinds of neat things. Also I am into doing time lapse videos. That is where you setup a camera and let it run for about an hour.. I throw the video into my computer and use the editing software to speed things up. That is fine.. But I have an Olympus 8mp digital SLR camera. It also has an IR control out. A programmable IR device as I described above would really help me out with my camera. I could setup a high resolution picture every 15 seconds using a laptop on location replacing the IR controller. This would produce a very high quality time lapse once I put it in my editing software.” I think the USB-UIRT might be a good start, any other suggestions for Gene? Link.
Trevor writes “Here’s a site related to the recent Make: 04 article on how to take high speed photographs. It is maintained by my High Speed Imaging teacher and has a bunch of circuits you can build for high speed photography, such as sound triggers and delays.” 
I was just making one of these when MAKE pal Steve sent this in! – “Well, as you may know I like to shoot a timelapse video now and then… I’ve been using an earlier version of this iSight tripod mount for about a year, so today I thought I’d share the new and improved version: It consists of a couple of pieces of hardwood braced at a 90 degree angle… I have one piece of wood with two holes in it (the mounting plate), and then a piece of wood that is 90 degrees to the mounting plate for the iSight bracket to grab on to, and then two triangles (with the corners cut off)… “ 
Walt writes ” Here’s the the making of an optical illusions photograph – This is a look at an optical illusion photo, then a look at the same scene from another angle exposing how the illusion was created.” Like many optical illusions created to be photographed this one only looks complete when shot from one specific angle. Anyone can digitally manipulate an image but few have the creative mind and patience needed to stage such an illusion… 
“One of the oldest camera forms is the Pin-hole, or “natural” camera. The pinhole camera was mentioned as early as Leonardo DaVinci in his Codex Atlanticus and Manuscript D. The term Camera Obscura or “dark room” was first used by Johannes Kepler who used the term to describe a dark room or box with a small hole used by artists to draw landscapes, it wasn’t until the 1850’s that the first photographic pinhole image was created.” Here’s how to make one for you digital camera. Thanks Greg! 
“One of the cooler lighting effects that we have left over from the 90’s era fashion photography is the use of Ring Flash as a primary light source. Ring flashes are often used in either fashion photography or in macro photography where the ring of light helps to eliminate shadows. When used in fashion or generally people photography it has the effect of creating a flat but almost iridescent lighting quality with a ‘halo’ effect around the subject. Cool yes, cheap? No. Flashes designed for macro photography generally will set you back about $400, while ring flashes for medium format and intended for fashion photography cost well over $1000!…Well fortunately, building your own ring flash is a fairly easy project with results that can easily rival professional ring flash assemblies for only a fraction of the price.” 
John writes “Stereo From the Air – I just finished a short tutorial on how to take 3D stereo photographs from on board of an airplane and thought I’d share it with you guys. It’s a fun little project for when you’re pretty much bored out of your skull and stuck in a tiny seat at 33,000 feet.” 
