Remote focusing, mirror lockup

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noel
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Joined: 25.01.2013 17:39

Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by noel »

Is it possible to remotelty focus using Helicon? I would prefer not to have to touch the camera to change focus, likewise, I would like to remotely lockup the mirror without touching the camera. Can I do this with Helicon, as well as select the number of focus points I want to take?
Thank you for your help.
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

Yes, you can do this with Helicon Remote program. Please note that only Canon cameras support remote MLU mode, we have not yet managed to make it work for Nikon cameras.
noel
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by noel »

Thank you so much. Now I'm just waiting for the iPhone setup to be released, and I will do the entire package.
Anybody have any kind of time line on the release?
Thank you again.
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

We plan to release iPad version in a couple of months. But please do not forget, that you will need proxy device anyway (see http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconremote.html#ios)
Annicola
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Annicola »

I am a little confused here. If we are using live view for remote focussing, surely the mirror is already locked up?
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

Yes, of course. Live view means the mirror is up.
Annicola
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Annicola »

But now I find it doesn't mean the mirror is locked up. I have been searching to check this with the Nikon D7000 and D800. Apparently the mirror stays down unless you are in video mode. I could not understand why you can see the shot in the viewfinder between each shot with helicon remote, and this explains it.

On my old Olympus film cameras, there was a switch to lock the mirror up, you could take a number of shots, and then put the mirror down manually when you are finished. There is no equivalent on digital cameras where everything is controlled electronically.

I want to be able to take a number of shots for stacking quickly - before the insect moves, or the flower blows in the wind. Surely this should be possible on a camera that can fire several shots per second?
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

Do you have Preferences -> Shooting -> Disable live view during shooting set to "Yes" in Remote (default is "No")? If not - mirror should stay up with D800 (not sure about D7000, we don't have one). If it goes down between shots, it must be some camera body setting that controls it.

Remote cannot shoot several frames per second during exposure or focus bracketing. It is only possible for continuous shooting (no bracketing then).
Annicola
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Annicola »

The setting is "no".

With the D800 the mirror stays up, with the D7000 the mirror goes down between each shot.

This morning with the D800, I asked it to disable live view when the stack has been shot, but this did not happen.

I tried to change the lens correction from 1 to 0.8, but it changed it to 8.0 (tried twice then gave up)
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

Then it seems that D800 was the first camera where Nikon realized there's no need to flip the mirror every shot.

Are you sure D800 didn't turn LV off when you've set that option? It should turn LV off, take a shot and turn LV back on immediately.

Are we talking about Android version? There was such a bug with DOF calculator, but I believe we've fixed it a while ago. However, I have just installed the current Android version from the market, and it doesn't want to accept a custom correction factor at all. This doesn't happen in the new version we're currently working on. We're hoping to release it soon, but we could give you our current APK file.
Didix
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Joined: 29.12.2009 12:52

Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Didix »

Does anybody know, how the D7100 does behave?

-Didix
Didix
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Didix »

Hi Stas

After feedback in the DSLR-forum about the D7100 I just verified with my D7000 (autonomous, without HR):
The mirror stays up when I take a shot in LV!

When I use HR the mirror goes down between two shots od a stack.
I used a long exposition time and got the following analysis when shooting a stack:

1. mirror is up
2. shutter shutters (*)
3. image transfers
4. mirror goes down
5. mirror goes up again.

Please correct me if I am wrong ..

Why do you make step 4 & 5?

-Didix

(*) Yes, one can actually feel the shaking of the camera from the shutter, although the shaking from the raising mirror is much stronger.
You can easily try this by using the D7000 with the IR-RC and set it to mirror up and using en exposition time of 2s. Once with LV, once without.
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

We do not make steps 4 and 5, that's the problem. The camera does it and we have no way to tell it not to. More precisely, it does 4 and 5 is just us turning LV on again. It's a bug / shortcoming in the firmware: shooting command automatically turns LV off after the shot is taken. With D800 / D4 this is no longer the case. I'd speculate that all later cameras (D600 / D7100 / D5200) got the new firmware and don't suffer this, but don't know for sure.
Didix
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Didix »

Well, when I operate my camera manually in LV (no HR connected), it is not doing step 4 and 5 either.
When I connect HR, it is doing it.
So something is telling it to do.

I would expect (from my far away point of view) two possible reasons:
A) HR is disabling LV after step 3 and than enables it again -- OR
B) The SDK is doing this by itself.

Let's hope it's case A - this would make a lot of us happier :-)

-Didix
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: Remote focusing, mirror lockup

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

Like I said, we don't do it. It's the firmware, i. e. the camera itself. Remote control normal operation are different modes, and the camera only turns LV off automatically in remote control mode, for whatever reasons. If you connect D800 you'll see that it no longer happens, and the code is exactly the same, so it's not us.
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