I’ve messed around with time lapse a few times with my Nikon D40 and D70, but it usually means being tethered to a laptop (PC) and using Nikon’s expensive Nikon Camera Control Pro software. It works for in house set ups, but what if you want to do something in the field?

I spent some time yesterday and today trying to find an inexpensive intervalometer to trigger my camera’s shutter. Most cost $160 (or more!) which really made me think I would consider a lightly used Nikon body with this function built in if I could sell my D70. The biggest problem is most of these devices required pc-sync connections on the cameras to work. Both the D40 & D70 lack this, and rely on a small IR port for remote shutter release. Then it hit me.

Some time ago I purchased an Asus A626 mobile pc to help me keep track of my life. Among other things it contains an IR port for communication. It took me a little while this morning to track down a solution, but I finally found it. I downloaded the trial of TV remote controller 5.7 from pdawin.com. Now, I’m not entirely sure why anyone would use their PDA/Mobile PC to change the channels, etc on their tvs, but hey lets exploit it!

What set this apart (beside the $14 price) was this software could learn any remote code, and has a timer setting. After quickly running through the learn sequence using my ML-L3 remote and programing it to a custom function I tried the timer function setting it to activate the virtual button as quickly as every 15 seconds and I was soon firing both D40 & D70 at the same time!

Now granted, if you factor the cost of the A626 it’s a fairly expensive set up, however if you already have a Mobile PC, or PDA with an IR port and can find the right software to do this, you just found an inexpensive and light way to do time-lapse in the field.