CameraCrazy

Well firstly, I should apologize to the Canon, Pentax and any other non-Nikon users. This tip is described for Nikons (in particular, the D70, since I shoot that), however although I don’t have specific instructions for other brands of cameras, I imagine that the setup would likely be very similar. So give it a shot no matter what camera you have!

I’m not really sure how practical or useful it is. So I consider this more of an interesting tidbit that can be experimented with. The Nikon D70 has a hidden motion sensor trigger (also called trap focusing). The shutter is triggered when there is movement at the focus target or if something comes into the focus target. Here is how you do it:

Set your camera to AF-S (auto-focus ‘AF’ single shot ‘S’), now set the auto-focus lock to on. By doing this the camera is now set to auto-focus. Now if you hold the shutter button all the way down, the camera is forced to wait for a subject to move into your focus area and once the camera senses something has entered the area, it immediately focuses and triggers. If you set the camera to manual or move the focus ring this can trick the camera into thinking something entered the focus area and it will trigger.

I haven’t had a lot of time to play with trap focusing using this method so I’m not sure how fast or accurate it can get. It could potentially be useful for capturing lightning (provided the camera can react fast enough and the lightning bolt lasts long enough, but it could also be good for capturing fast moving objects like birds.