Can I Use a Disposable Camera Flash for Water Drop Photography?

[noagname]

Ok so last year I went way over my head and tried to build this http://makezine.com/04/strobe/" . Which ended up being a huge failure, now I want to try doing something simpler.

I went to CVS and they handed me 12 disposable camera's then which I figured out that if apply 5 volts to a pin and ground another pin the flash will go off. I also have a Nikon D80, and I love to take photos of water drops. From here I need your help, what circuit would be able to sense a water drop either by sound or light and trigger the flash. Most of the sound sensitive circuits I found were meant for louder sounds. I have also found how to's on makezine and instructables. Their is also http://www.hiviz.com/

Can you guys give me some advice of where I should go. Would using the Hot shoe help?

Here is a photo I took by hand, I had to take a lot of photos get this just this on
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1706399/DSC_0540%20copy.jpg"

 

[berkeman]

Ok so last year I went way over my head and tried to build this http://makezine.com/04/strobe/" . Which ended up being a huge failure, now I want to try doing something simpler.

I went to CVS and they handed me 12 disposable camera's then which I figured out that if apply 5 volts to a pin and ground another pin the flash will go off. I also have a Nikon D80, and I love to take photos of water drops. From here I need your help, what circuit would be able to sense a water drop either by sound or light and trigger the flash. Most of the sound sensitive circuits I found were meant for louder sounds. I have also found how to's on makezine and instructables. Their is also http://www.hiviz.com/

Can you guys give me some advice of where I should go. Would using the Hot shoe help?

Here is a photo I took by hand, I had to take a lot of photos get this just this on
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1706399/DSC_0540%20copy.jpg"

To sense a water drop passing a point, use a laser pointer aimed at a photosensor. As the drop passes through the beam, it will cause a blip in the photosensor output. If you don't want to keep taking pictures of red water drops, you can use an IR laser or IR LED setup instead.