How To: This Clever DIY Contraption Lets You Capture Exploding Balloons Without a High-Speed Trigger

There are some pretty incredible camera techniques out there, but the biggest problem that amateur photographers run into is that they don't have the equipment to try them. You can still get some great shots, but there are some things that are really hard to do if you don't have the money to drop on expensive lenses and accessories.

That's what makes this technique created by Oriol Domingo so cool—it lets you capture a water balloon exploding without paying for a high-speed trigger. All you need is an old shutter cable, two sewing needles, and a hot glue gun.

To make the trigger, Domingo cut his shutter cable and made a circuit between the shutter and ground cables by welding each one to a needle and hot gluing them to a long piece of plastic.

This way, whenever the needles touch the surface of the balloon, they also touch each other, completing the circuit and triggering the shutter.

He rigged the setup so that a water balloon hangs on a string under the mounted trigger, and when the lever is released, the needles break the balloon and activate the shutter.

Check out the video to see the setup in action.

It doesn't look too difficult to build, and the results are definitely impressive.

Check out Domingo's tutorial for more details and photos of the process. You can find more of his work over on his Flickr stream.