Squirrel photo trap with a Sony Alpha and a Raspberry Pi

Any Sony Alpha since the NEX-5R has a Wifi remote control feature. You can run a script on almost any Wifi-enabled computer (like a Raspberry Pi or a laptop) to connect to this remote control feature, detect squirrels and trigger photos automatically.

[ThereOughtaBe]

Warning: On newer models (a6400 or a7iii owards) a few things seem to have changed and the script is not working there. On older models, make sure that the in-camera remote control app is up to date.

[elliotmarks]

Amazing! Exactly what I was looking for! Just set this up in a VM on my home server, and now I can take pictures of birds in my birdbath and hummingbirds at the feeder. I can't believe this isn't a built in feature!

[MockerysUC]

Sometimes youtube suggests some great content creators like yourself! Just found your channel and it's already a favorite!

[ryanmalin]

You are great at electronics and 3d modeling! Enjoying the channel. Subscribed!

[WagnerDeQueiroz]

Who is crazy to put a dislike here? This are a awesome project

[adriandaenzer]

actually, a very similar and easy way to do it would be to compare the jpeg file size of the images. if more content is sharp, the file size increases significantly, thus you could use this measure as trigger. jpeg compression also uses fancy transformations to reduce the file size, so maybe it is fundamentally the same thing, just from a different output :D

[paulmaier]

I love squirrels. 😍 Maybe if they get used to the shutter and visit you more often you could stream the live video.

[patvdleer]

Awesome usage of the sharpness, with the Canon EOS series you can control them via USB and use them "as a webcam" for viewing.

[caldera]

You could also trigger the alpha cameras through a wired remote
They just plug into the cameras usb port and pull some pin low or high, thats it
One could either make their own usb/gpio to usb cable, or mod an existing wired remote of amazon
That would remove the wifi problem and simplify the whole setup

[Dlorn]

Coole Ideen und Videos, aber wohnst du zufällig in einem Sägewerk? Soviel Staub auf deinen Gerätschaften, der GameBoy hat mich schon geschafft! ;-)

[DanPandrea]

Mate, you can't be a spy in Great Britain. Nice video though :D

[LoQiiHD]

Hi, I'm a beginner in HTTP REST API and I was wondering how to do the "Step 2. Use SSDP to discover the camera (Device Discovery)" for accessing camera functions from my computer. Indeed, with only your code, it tells me that the requests (r = requests.post(camaddress, json=payload)) access is denied by the local computer. Could you please help me? I would love to reproduce this kind of trap with my SONY alpha6400! :D