iPhone remote control of your EOS camera?

I'm sure you're wondering if your read the right. Well, you did. On-One software (makers of the long running interpolation software "Genuine Fractals") have announced a new app for the iPhone that allows you to wirelessly control your EOS camera. More than that, it allows you to change settings like shutter speed, aperture and ISO and will even WiFi the image back to your phone as soon as you've taken a shot.

Think that's great? Well, it gets better! If you're using a camera with Live View mode, then you can also get wireless live view direct to your iPhone!

I'm beginning to think this is one of the coolest apps I've yet seen or heard of. It's not been approved by Apple for sale in the App Store yet, but I can't see that taking a long time. I for one will be at the head of the queue to pick up a copy.

For more info, take a look at this On-One web page with a video showing the system in use.

If you're an iPhone user, do you think you'll be getting this? If you're not an iPhone user would it tempt you to get one?

Obviously if you don't have an iPhone, this can all be done wirelessly using the WiFi transmitters from Canon to WiFi to a computer.


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New Pocket Wizards

It seems Pocket Wizards have been looking on a Radio Poppers with envy and decided they don't want an upstart moving in on their market. So, they have just announced new products for wireless E-TTL II control of Canon flashguns. 

It seems it's a whole new system for radio flash control with units called the MiniTT1 (transmitter) and FlexTT5 (transceiver). 

Currently it's only for Canon users and it allows wireless control up to 8fps. 

From the Pocket Wizard Website: 

The New Shape of Wireless Freedom

The smallest PocketWizard radio ever, the MiniTT1™ Transmitter locks onto the camera’s hot shoe supporting an on-camera flash with its own hot shoe while working with remote PocketWizard units. Remotes can be one or more PocketWizard FlexTT5™ Transceivers connected to Canon E-TTL II flashes or any PocketWizard Receiver for triggering flash or remote cameras.

The MiniTT1 Transmitter is easy to use; just slide in place and begin to shoot. The new PocketWizard ControlTL™ System interprets the complex E-TTL II data being sent through the camera’s hot shoe and digitally transmits it in a reliable radio signal. Change the flash compensation dial on the camera, and those commands pass seamlessly through the system to your remote flash. Adjust your shutter speed, aperture or ISO and the system corrects for those changes. A ratio command set on the flash or command unit passes through the MiniTT1 to set the remotes. PocketWizard ControlTL radio communication allows you to shoot farther, faster, around corners, through walls even at high noon in bright daylight. Now you can deploy a wireless flash system wherever you want, without infrared limitations, in seconds.

Use the MiniTT1 for standard triggering with any PocketWizard Receiver including the FlexTT5, PlusII or MultiMAX. When used this way with a digital camera, you can take advantage of PocketWizard’s HyperSync Technology that allows up to 1/500th of a second camera sync with many camera/strobe set-ups. HyperSync allows you to advance the timing of your flash trigger so that faster then X-sync speeds can be achieved.
Need more speed? Push your ControlTL system beyond 1/500th and go into FP/High-Speed sync mode automatically. No buttons to press or settings to change other then your shutter speed will give you flash sync all the way to 1/8000th.

A new PocketWizard Utility program is provided to support the MiniTT1 via a USB port. The Utility allows you to configure your channel settings, dial in your HyperSync timing, adjust your sleep-mode timers and update your product to the latest firmware.
The PocketWizard MiniTT1 Transmitter is the start of a new era in wireless trigger control.

AVAILABILITY: For Canon, March 1st. For Nikon, Q2, 2009. US & Canadian Markets. Contact your local Distributor for availability in other markets.

From their just posted Instruction Manual:

ControlTL: PocketWizard’s newest firmware platform taps into the camera’s digital communications
to enable an entirely new level of remote flash capabilities through our proven radio system, beginning with remote TTL for Canon E-TTL II flash systems with Slide-n-Shoot Simplicity.
HyperSync - Achieve better than X-sync with many
cameras and flashes – up to 1/500th second.
FP/High-Speed Sync: Need more speed? Push
beyond 1/500th and go into FP/High-Speed sync mode
automatically. No buttons to press or settings to change
other than your shutter speed will give you flash sync
all the way to 1/8000th.
Power Tracking: When working in E-TTL II, you can
change any of your control settings on your flash or
camera and the system adjusts for those changes.
Eight Frames per second: Never before have you
been able to shoot remote E-TTL II at this speed.
Nothing else comes close.
Low Profile Design: The FlexTT5 lies flat to stay out of
the way and uses a flip-up antenna for additional range
when needed. The MiniTT1, with an internal antenna,
weighs in at 2.3 oz. and is the smallest PocketWizard
ever.

It seems things are hotting up in the wireless flash world. Hit the comments with your thoughts on it all. 

UPDATE: They've also posted a video on youtube showing some of the features. 

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Off camera cord OC-E3 is your friend for wireless flash

It's Tuesday so I needed a photographer to feature, but in lieu of some photographer here's a tale of how even the simplest accessory can be your saviour in times of need.

The humble off camera cord OC-E3 sits on your hotshoe and connects the master flash to the camera. In fact the camera thinks the flash is on the hotshoe so you get all the control but now the flash is off camera and you can move it for better lighting. 

Just yesterday out on a shoot I was trying out some strobist techniques with a Speedlite 580EX II firing in to an umbrella high up on a lighting stand; nine or ten feet high up. The big problem was getting the flash in the umbrella to trigger reliably with the wireless from the on camera flash. Getting the on-camera flash on the end of the OC-E3 and in the hands of a VCA (voice controlled assistant) meant the assistant could hold the master and aim it at the high up Speedlite in the brolly and I could get on with the shooting. I was using the master flash only to trigger the slaved one in the brolly after all. The VCA let on later that he'd seen this kind of trick on Joe McNally's blog some weeks ago so a Nikon trick works on the Canon's too.

Some of you will think; that's a 60cm cable length only on that OC-E3, but remember you can daisy chain them together too for more reach. Another thing is that the older Off Camera Cord 2 also comes up on ebay a lot for little money and they work just as well. If you're handy with a soldering iron you can even remove the short 60cm curly cable and replace it with a longer length of ethernet patch cable. Off camera cord and wireless E-TTL lets me use high speed sync to kill the ambient a little easier than using a dumb trigger like an ebay trigger or pocket wizard.

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WiFi grips gotcha

If you are thinking to get one of the WiFi 'grips' for your Canon EOS camera don't get caught out with this supremely annoying gotcha.

Canon Wireless File Transmitters WFT-E1, WFT-E3 and WFT-E4 need to have a battery installed to work and the battery is not supplied in the box with the WiFi grip.

Yes you read that right, you spend all that money on a WiFi grip only to find you need to put a battery in it. Even better is that the battery in the WiFi grip cannot power the camera and the grip. So if you plan on getting a WFT-E1, WFT-E2 or WFT-E3 don't forget to get the additional battery or else you can have camera operation and no WiFi - OR - WiFi operation and no camera.

WFT-E1 for the older EOS-1D Mark II, EOS-1Ds Mark II, EOS-1D Mark II N, EOS 5D, EOS 20D, EOS 30D needs a BP-511A battery (and charger if you're using an EOS-1D model; double doh!)

WFT-E3
for the EOS 40D and EOS 50D (firmware update to v2.0 needed) needs a BP-511A battery. You can use the charger that comes with the camera to charge this battery

WFT-E4 for the EOS 5D Mark II needs an LP-E6 battery. You can use the charger that comes with the camera to charge this battery. Though since the LP-E6 is new and exclusive to the EOS 5D Mark II they could be in pretty short supply now that EOS 5D Mark IIs seem to be hitting the stores.

Lucky people with an EOS-1D Mark III or EOS-1Ds Mark III and the WFT-E2 sleep safe since the camera does provide power to this one.

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Reuters shoot the Endeavour space shuttle launch

Live from lanch pad 39A

From the Reuters photographers blog on the right side bar here I picked up that they had an article about their coverage of the space shuttle launch. Watch the video to see how Scott Audette from Reuters uses the EOS 40D and EOS 30D with wireless transmitters and a custom transmission system to shoot images of the launch using cameras set out in the field hours before launch.

For Reuters the important thing is that they get the pictures from the cameras and on the Reuters wire service in about 4 minutes. This is a real edge since they can't get back to the cameras for at least two and a half hours after the launch.

Note also that Scott mentions that he's using a custom remote for sound based triggering of the camera that's built by one of Canon USA's pro reps. A guy who used to work for Nikon but joined Canon earlier this year.


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