"Seamor" <da-da@pe.net> wrote in message news:vl1ob78c1lhcba@corp.supernews.com...
> I have a question that no one seems to ask.  I guess that's because today's
> photographers don't even know that there was such a thing.
> However, this question will greatly interest us old timers, I'm sure.  What
> ever happened to cable release sockets on cameras?
>
>  I'm all for eliminating useless things and modernizing others, but the
> cable release was one of the most useful things on a camera.  If your hands
> are little unsteady, as mine are, it was always easier for me to steady the
> camera by squeezing the cable release than it was to press the shutter.  If
> the camera you preferred did not have a self-timer, Kodak made a handy
> little gadget that you hooked onto the end of your cable release.  You wound
> it up and it gave you about ten seconds before it would push the cable
> release and trip the shutter.  If you were using your camera on a tripod, it
> was so much easier, and I think more professional, to push the cable release
> than to manually push the shutter release, assuring yourself of absolutely
> no camera movement.
>
> I guess the elimination of the very convenient cable release socket was
> someone's convoluted idea of progress.  I can only hope that that kind of
> progress doesn't kill us all some day soon.


I agree!  But some SLR body-type digitals have them and they have mostly
been replaced with remote control shutter release devices.  The good
ones will even let you hold B for an "instinctive" length of time.

If those options aren't available on your cam then read this for some
cool ideas:

    http://www.steves-digicams.com/nikon_cable.html
    http://www.steves-digicams.com/ckc_bracket.html
    http://www.steves-digicams.com/opticzoom.html



BTW, there were no SR Cable Sockets on instamatics which is what
most of these cheap-o <$400 digitals are designed to replace.