Nikon 1 AW1 - the little mirrorless that goes where others can't

[Øivind Tøien]

@ Ovind

I am quite aware of this, we are speaking about 1/10´s or 1/50´s of a bar for releasing the shutter with 1N and this is exacly what I said.
If you normally release your shutter you have dead time from your" system", then the system of the camera. But pushing on camera might be 04s, you might need 08s, so your picture will be taken roughly 1s after you wanted to have it. If you now have a system, that is not reliable transporting signals, then it is even worse.
You have to many possibilities to get wrong signals or interferences in the (elastic hydraulic)  line, not foregtting that the outside pressure may vary by 1.5 bars according to the dive deep of the AW. ( The car tubes are protective shield against ouside interferences.)
maybe now it is clearer what i meant

If the fluid inside the tubing has the same density as the surrounding water, one would not have to overcome any pressure due to depth (air is an entirely different matter). Pressure waves/sound travels at 1,524 meters (5,000 feet) per second in open sea water. In something as highly elastic as a human artery, wave transmission speed can as be > 10 m/s depending on blood pressure. It would not take much to make something with 10-100 times that wall stiffness but still fairly flexible. Thus I do not think lag due to pressure wave transmission would be too much of an issue. The problem with my syringe to syringe hydraulic transmission to release the Nikonos IV under the ice was not elasticity of the tubing, but to overcome friction in the rubber piston of the syringes. (I did anyway manage to get a fish in the frame, but guessing correct focus was a problem with the 35mm lens). A better cylinder/actuator would likely remedy that. Anyway in the scenario I envision that would justify that much engineering one would not have too much view of what the camera would be seeing and would have to fire blindly where lag is less of a concern.

Another idea would be a solenoid based actuator, but then one would have the problem of waterproofing the solenoid and electrical cable connections plus the need for enough power to drive it. BTW I wonder if an IR release would have worked well under water at all; water tends to absorb a lot of IR.

[Øivind Tøien]

For the record of the thread: Last week I got myself a WU-1b wireless adapter to play with using a smartphone as remote release for the AW1 (in dry conditions), just to find that it causes the camera to switch into program (P) mode, with no way of adjusting shooting parameters on the phone in the Nikon app (and controls blocked on the camera). Well at least it retained exposure compensation and ISO that was preset on the camera, so I sort of worked for the moon shot I tried. But then with wide open aperture, as it did not know that the camera was on a tripod, and wanted the shutter speed to be 1/1000 sec if possible. Oh well, at $16.50 off ebay it was an inexpensive experiment, and I could sit in the warmth of my cabin fire repeated moon shots with live view on the phone, and with no remaining vibrations from touching the camera. The mechanical remote releases discussed above would be in physical contact with the camera, thus could transfer vibrations to a less sturdy  long lens setup.

The door to the connectors is very exposed when open and could easily be damaged if bumped. Also a lot of caution is needed when inserting the WU-1b connector as it otherwise could scratch the sealing surfaces; the same goes for inserting a USB cable.

[Fons Baerken]

What is the name or typenumber for the rubberjacket to fit the aw1?

[Fons Baerken]

What is the name or typenumber for the rubberjacket to fit the aw1?

http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/acil/bodies/aw1/features06.htm

[John Geerts]

That is called a 'Silicon Jacket'


https://www.ebay.de/itm/Official-NIKON-Silicon-Jacket-CF-N6000KH-for-Nikon-1-AW1-AIRMAIL-with-TRACKING/122632419557?hash=item1c8d7638e5:g:2HYAAOSwNw5ZhXaE

[Fons Baerken]

I ordered one from Japan; didnt know you needed one for the 1 aw1 thought it to be waterproof by itself.

[John Geerts]

I ordered one from Japan; didnt know you needed one for the 1 aw1 thought it to be waterproof by itself.

You don't need it for being waterproof.  It's just extra protection and grip.

[Fons Baerken]

Thank you John

[Øivind Tøien]

On the subject of remote release for the AW1 I had an initial idea besides the hydraulic ones discussed above to use a solenoid. But I eventually decided that it would be too complicated. My purpose is to use it for long lens lucky imaging using AW1 in high speed mode (15-60 raw frames per second), and it does not need to have a precise immediate response, just be able to keep the release pressed for a couple of seconds. However I felt a short cable release would have too high chance of disturbing the rig.

I had the idea of a pneumatic release, using some kind restrained bladder to push the release, but it recently occured to me that I could use parts from a small broken membrane pump head instead. The actual membrane currently used is not the main one, but is rather thin one that apparently functions to provide some kind of moderate windkessel effect. A "knob" was glued to it with epoxy. I did not need to saw the pump head apart but just used the top parts keeping that membrane in place above the valves + a ring that fits around the AW1 release collar, and a generous amount of marine epoxy (with a drop of black resin dye in it). The whole device just snaps into place. The bulb is one of those small ones used for ear cleaning. I initially used silicone tubing for the whole length, but found that elasticity could cause vibrations, so it was replaced with 50cm stiffer rubber tubing and only the last 10cm is more flexible silicone tubing to avoid disturbing the tripod. The transition point is attached high on one of the tripod legs with Velcro).







Retracted:




Actuated:




A quick test on Mars with the 300 PF+TC14E+FT1, repeated series of exposures at 15 FPS. A Bahtinov mask was used for correct focus (not easy on such a "big" object). Out of a total of 135 frames that were centered and cropped with PIPP, 50 were 3x drizzled and stacked with Autostakkert, and further sharpened with wavelets in Registax. (My very first use of these tools so likely not optimal.)



The result is of course a far cry with too few pixels on the object and too few frames (more appropriate would be thousands of frames to choose from), but it looks like at least some surface features are visible.    Compare this to a high quality image from today posted on Cloudy nights: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/730607-mars-september-22-in-good-seeing/

[Erik Lund]

True DIY remote thanks for sharing, looks really great!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks, Erik. It was fun figuring this out. It took quite a few gluing steps. I am a little concerned about the bond between the elastic rubber membrane and the knob in the long run, but so far it looks good. I make sure to retract it when mounting and unmounting. Now just waiting for clear weather and moon up to practice more.

[Jakov Minić]

Øivind that looks fantastic. Looking forward to future results of Mars!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks, Jakov.
I did a test with the AW1 on a spruce top target the other day to see if I could resolve more detail than with the 300mm f/4 PF+TC-14E combination, but TC-14E on my old Tokina 500mm f/8 mirror lens was much worse, and my AF 300mm f/4 ED +TC-301 was not resolving anything more I think (much more blurry, but responded well to sharpening, at the expense of noise). With TC-14E the older 300mm showed a lot of fringing, but strangely it was mostly gone with the TC-301. Of course now I wish I had a TC-20E III to go with the 300 PF...

The 300PF+TC-14E on the AW1 resolved the legs of an insect (Yellowjacket? but looks smaller) in the treetop at 80m distance (100% crop):

[Nasos Kosmas]

Vey nice Mars photo Oivid but for better results  you definitely need to go on telescopes
I also checked 300/4 AfS with kenko 1.4x on Z50 you get more resolved power but you ruin the excellent micro contrast of that lens 

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the kind comment Nasos. I think the telescope route could be a very slippery economic slope. It would then quickly require a dedicated mount beyond the little Skytracker that I currently have, and with limited use compared to using those funds on camera optics. Currently I find part of the joy in astrophotography to see what I maximally can get out of the equipment that I already have. I am curious what considerably more exposures and drizzling (similar principle as pixel shift) together with proper use of the software can do, although I do not expect any miracles there.