I was rummaging through my dry cabinet the other day, and came across an old Nikon remote control in the dark recesses of the cabinet. I had bought the Nikon Modulite ML-2 ages ago, and had set it aside after I had upgraded from my old F70 film body. The cameras that I used since -- the F80 and subsequently the D70s -- both lacked the 2-pin accessory port that the F70 has, which was needed to connect the ML-2 receiver to the camera body.
Since I got the Fuji S5 -- which is essentially a D200 with a Fuji sensor, and has a 10-pin accessory port -- I thought it was time to dust off the old remote control set. To my horror, I found that I had left batteries in the units from when I last used them, more than 10 years ago. The batteries had corroded, and I feared that the transmitter and receiver were kaput. Fortunately, some vigorous rubbing and fresh batteries coaxed the units back to life. If only all problems in life can be solved by vigorous rubbing.
Next, I needed a 10-pin to 2-pin adapter: Nikon’s MC-25. I called a few shops, and my search began to take on the complexion of a wild goose chase, as the shops either did not know what I was talking about or did not have the connector in stock. No fear, however, as in the Internet age almost anything can be found on-line. I saw that Shashinki.com -- a Malaysian on-line retailer that I use and would recommend -- had the connector listed on their website, but that they would have to order the item from Nikon, which means a 2 to 4 week wait. Ebay to the rescue, and I had the connector in my grubby little hands about a week later.
I had an idea that I wanted to try out: a long exposure of a rider on a trail at night, with the trail illuminated by the bicycle’s headlights. I wanted to combine the long exposure with a rear curtain flash, so that the flash would provide a frozen image of the rider, with the headlight trailing behind.
Where does the remote release come in? Well, when I first bought the ML-2 all those years ago, the idea was that I would get a model who would not complain at being asked to ride a section of trail over and over again until I got an acceptable photo -- i.e. myself. Pat has been an obliging and long suffering model, but I had the feeling that asking someone to ride a section of trail 20 times, in the dark, would test the limits of friendship.
The ML-2 is a manly man’s remote release: taking 8 AA batteries (yes, 8, thank god for rechargeables) -- four each in the receiver and the transmitter. Amazingly, it has an advertised range of 100 metres, making it the most powderful of all Nikon remotes. Unfortunately, because it uses infrared, the receiver placement is limited to line-of-sight applications. (I tried remotely triggering my S5 with Pocket Wizards, which uses radio waves, but failed. I must be doing something wrong.)
Testing the set-up at home, I found out that:
(a) it is possible to effect rear curtain sync with Pocket Wizards (which was a pleasant surprise);
(b) with the pop-up flash up, the Fuji S5 (and I would imagine most other Nikon bodies) shuts off the circuitry to the PC sync port; and
(c) the ML-2 will inadvertently trigger a flash attached to a SU-4 optical slave, so I decided to trigger the remote flash via Pocket Wizards, which in turn were triggered by camera, which was triggered by the ML-2 remote.
The next step was to take a photo in the field, as proof of concept. The first evening went swimmingly, until I came home and discovered that all the photos were out of focus! I had set the camera to manual focus, and set the 10.5mm fisheye lens to what I thought was the hyperfocal distance. Well evidently not. In my defence, it was almost impossible to focus in almost total darkness.
Take two. Much better this time, the results below. I’ll have to explore different compositions in the coming weeks.
Hantu basikal on a basikal hantu. 10.5mm fisheye, ISO100, 8 seconds at f4. SB28 at 1/8th power or thereabouts, camera right, triggered via Pocket Wizards.
Before.
