Attempting to Hardwire Remote Shutter Release on Sony DSC-P93

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P93 is a lightweight point-and-shoot camera suitable for simple applications. I use it with my portable copy stand for digitizing documents and macro photography.

A remote shutter release would greatly improve photo quality in low-light situations, such as in libraries.  Here is my exploration of the DSC-P93 to discover whether this is possible.  It is not.

The fuzziness of the hand-held photos in this article illustrates the utility of a desktop tripod and remote shutter release.

Case Disassembly

There are five silver screws to remove from the case: one on top, two on the bottom and two inside the battery compartment.

The camera case separates easily.

Remove the black screws to look underneath the circuit board. The right-side screw is beneath tape.

Discharging the Flash Capacitor

For safety, discharge the flash capacitor. The right way is to short it with a 1 KΩ resister. A quick-and-dirty way is to short it with a screwdriver. You would not do this with important electronics.

I knew there would be an exciting spark, but it still startled me. The arc left a chip in the screwdriver. Try to avoid shorting high-voltage capacitors with your fingers.

Schematics

The circuit schematic for the P93 shows pins 9 and 7 as controlling the shutter and focus circuitry. Great, how can we tap into these connections?

No Simple Hardware Solution

Digging deeper into the camera, we see that the ribbon cable is surface mounted to the circuit board and the solder pads are very close together. I would not be able to solder wires to those pads.

Underneath the mode dial is a pressure sensitive switch. It likely connects to the ribbon cable with no solder-able surfaces. There is no point in taking apart this switch block.

Conclusion

The camera is too densely integrated to allow easy modifications. A mechanical solution will be the better approach.