Heath Robinson vs Rube Goldberg

Or how I learned to love photography.

Old photographers will remember the sorts of things that we did in the darkroom to produce the special effects. Weeks spent gathering equipment, chemicals, containers, tanks, agitators...months spent sealing the space against the ingress of light - while letting the most aggressive of the poisonous fumes escape...hours spent trying to get the negatives to register accurately in the gate of the enlarger or he paper to register accurately on the easel. Then the clean up afterwards. Scrubbing the stains out of the bathtub before the wife discovers them...

Now we just download a plug-in app and click the mouse. All over in a second and no scrubbing. All the fun has evaporated.

Well, no, it hasn't. Not by a long way. We now have the wireless link and the WiFi and the iPhone  and the hot spot and all the other horrors of modern electronics. In the interests of saving the lives of copper miners by reducing the amount of cables that are needed, I have prepared a plan for the best selfie ever.

1. PocketWizard transmitter in pocket firing a...

2. Camera with a transmitter firing...

3. Several speedlights wirelessly, in full TTL, with frosting and sprinkles, while the camera is...

4. Recording the image on the WiFi card that sends the image off to the computer that...

5. Sends the image automatically to Facebook, Twitter, and Google who then pass it on to...

6. ASIO, NSA, the FBI, the KGB, Mossad, M.I.5, and Julian Assange while simultaneously...

7. Sending it to the Epson 3000 printer that whirs away while...

8. It goes to the cloud where it then rains down on your iPad, and iPhone.

All this within a fraction of a second. No smells, no stains. The bathtub is pristine. Your bank account has a hole in it but that is the price of progress. Cheer up - with on-line banking you don't even have to go to the local branch. You can stay at home and press the shutter release a second time.

The first shot will cost you $ 8900 but the second brings it down to $ 4450... a snip!

Wireless, Cordless, Or Radio? Olympus Owners Take Note.

If you are fussy about it you can call it wireless - if you are easier call it radio. The thing will be the same in any case - control of your Olympus camera at a distance, with no cord in between.

If you are using an E-P3 or E-P4 or the OM-D you might need to shoot from a concealed position or away from the camera while it is on a tripod. Both the Hahnel Giga T Pro and the Hahnel Combi T will do this - they quote a range of 100 metres on the packaging. Attach the receiver to the hot shoe, plug the control cable from it to the side of the camera, and press the go button.

Why two different controllers? The blue box contains the one to use if you want the additional facility of firing a flash gun at a distance. You reverse the connection - transmitter on the camera and receiver under the flash and away you go.

The yellow packaging has the clever timer and interval controller in the trigger - but it doesn't do the flash thing. Use this one if you are going to do star trail photos or speeded up pictures of flowers blooming.

If you are going to insist on using the Nikon, Canon, or Pentax systems you can also get these products. But this posting is just for Olympus users and we won't mention that, okay?