Chapter

1: Remotely controlling your camera

Why?
There are plenty of simple remote controls on the market and plenty of ways to trigger your camera from a distance. The cheaper remotes use infrared beams to trigger your cameras shutter; more expensive remotes, such as ones made by PocketWizard, can fire your camera from a distance of over 1600 feet (500 meters). The problem with these solutions is that you are forced to trigger your camera blindly (you cannot see through the viewfinder), nor can you change your cameras settings. Ive used the PocketWizard solution for years by setting my camera on a tripod with the widest lens in my arsenal, setting the shooting mode to Aperture Priority and keeping my fingers crossed that at least a few shots would be good enough for my clients. Most likely I would still be shooting in the same manner even today if I did not damage my PocketWizard pre-trigger cable (a cable that keeps your camera awake for remote shooting) the night before I was supposed to photograph a 400-guest wedding. The church where the ceremony was to take place was enormous, with a long isle leading from the doors to the altar. This particular church had a policy that forced photographers and videographers to stay at the back of the isle throughout the entire ceremony; even with a 300 mm lens I would not have been able to get good shots. To make the long story short, I desperately needed a remote-controlled camera positioned behind the altar; unfortunately, I had no way of triggering my camera from afar. The solution I came up with was both simple and complex and Ive used variations of this solution to cover numerous events.

Solution One: Networked Laptops.

Equipment 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Two laptops with wireless network capabilities USB cable with type B connector Ethernet (network) cable Wireless router Remote capture software for your camera brand/model a. EOS Utility for Canon (distributed by Canon for free) b. Capture NX (Nikon Capture) c. Breeze Systems NKRemote for Nikon 6. Remote desktop software a. Remote desktop for Windows b. Chicken of the VNC for MacOS

 Goals At the end of this tutorial you should be able to: 1. Create a temporary wireless network in order for the two laptops to communicate. From now on, well refer to the laptop that is connected directly to your camera as the SERVER and the laptop used to remotely control the camera via the wireless network and remote desktop connection as the CLIENT. 2. Configure remote desktop settings on the SERVER laptop. 3. Obtain IP address from the SERVER laptop. 4. Install remote capture software on the SERVER laptop and connect that laptop to your camera via USB cable. 5. Use remote desktop software on the CLIENT laptop to connect to the SERVER laptop in order to control your camera. Configuring Wireless Network For my setup I used a Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router; thats just a router that I happened to have at home. However, any wireless router will do the trick. You will need to have your routers documentation on-hand to lookup the factory default admin password. 1. On the back of your router you will find a number of Ethernet ports that look like this:

2. One of the ports will be separate from the rest and will be marked as Internet or WAN (WAN stands for Wide-Area Network). 3. Plug in Ethernet (network) cable in any of the ports NOT marked as Internet or WAN 4. Plug in the other end of the Ethernet (network) cable into the Ethernet port of your laptop. 5. On your laptop, open a web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, Safari, Google Chrome) 6. In the address/URL bar of your browser, type in http://192.168.1.1 and hit Enter 7. You will see a login screen asking you for user name and password. You will have to refer to your routers documentation for the default login credentials. 8. Login to the router administration tool. The following screenshots and instructions are specific to Linksys routers, but the concepts and ideas will work for any modern router simply refer to your routers documentation for specific instructions. 9. In the router administration tool, locate Wireless tab. 10. Click on Basic Settings tab.

11. You can leave all settings at default, but I would recommend renaming your wireless network to something that is easy to remember. In my case, I named it DmitriyPhoto.

12. Click Save 13. Click on Wireless Security tab 14. If you have experience with setting up wireless networks, or if you are simply worried about someone hacking your temporary network while you are using it to control a remote camera, then by all means, enable security and set up access passwords. For the purposes of this tutorial, well leave wireless security disabled.

15. Dont forget to click Save. Connecting Laptops to Wireless Network

This will be the shortest section in this tutorial. Connecting to your newly-setup wireless network is no different than connecting to a wireless network in your home or a coffee shop. If you dont know how to connect your laptop to a Wi-Fi network, you should not be reading this tutorial. Obtaining IP Address of Your SERVER laptop An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a 12-character address that your computer is assigned when it is connected to a network. Without this address your computer will not be able to communicate with other computers on your network or on the Internet. If you are interested, read more about IP addresses on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address). In order for this setup to work, you need to know the IP address of your SERVER laptop. Once your SERVER laptop is connected to the newly-created wireless network, you need to follow the steps below to obtain its IP address. Obtaining IP Address on Microsoft Windows computers: The simplest and fastest way to obtain the IP address on a Windows computer is to use the Command Prompt. 1. Go to Start Programs Accessories Command Prompt 2. When Command Prompt window launches, type in ipconfig

3. Hit Enter on your keyboard 4. A lot of text will appear on your screen. Find a line that reads IPv4 Address..: and copy a number that looks like 123.456.789.123 - make sure to copy the entire number, including periods between sections. Obtaining IP Address on Mac OS computers: 1. Go to Applications Terminal 2. When Terminal window launches, type in ifconfig a

3. Hit Enter on your keyboard 4. Find your laptops IP address:

Configuring Remote Desktop Software on your SERVER Windows laptop

If you are using Windows on both laptops, you can use Microsoft Remote Desktop (already comes with Windows). In order to enable remote desktop access, you will need to: 1. 2. 3. 4. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties Click on Remote Settings Select Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop Click OK

 Configuring your SERVER MacOS laptop for VNC/Remote Desktop Access 1. Go to Applications System Preferences

2. Click on Sharing

3. In Sharing settings, check Remote Login and Remote Management options

4. Click Computer Settings

5. Check VNC viewers may control screen with password: 6. Type in desired password

7. Click OK. Now your SERVER Mac laptop can share its screen and control with other computers.

Installing Chicken of the VNC on Mac Download Chicken of the VNC from http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/ and install it on your CLIENT Mac laptop (drag the .app file into your Applications folder). Installing remote capture software Install remote capture software for your camera brand/model on the SERVER laptop 1. EOS Utility for Canon (distributed by Canon for free, should be on a CD that came with your camera) 2. Capture NX / Nikon Capture (http://www.capturenx.com/en/index.html) 3. Breeze Systems DSLR remote capture products for Nikon and Canon (http://www.breezesys.com/NKRemote/index.htm) Putting it all together At this point, you should have: 1. Wireless router setup and configured 2. Remote desktop access configured on your SERVER laptop 3. Both SERVER and CLIENT laptop connected to your ad-hoc wireless network 4. Canon or Nikon remote control (camera control) software installed on your SERVER laptop 5. Have IP address of your server laptop written down on a piece of paper Lets hook it all up: 1. Connect your camera to the server laptop with a USB cable and launch your remote capture software. Screenshots below are from Canon EOS Utility.

1. Test remote capture make sure that you can trigger your camera and change your cameras settings from your SERVER laptop (the laptop that your camera is directly connected to). 2. From the CLIENT laptop a. if you are using Microsoft Windows: i. Go to Start Programs Accessories Remote Desktop Connection ii. Enter IP address of your SERVER laptop into Computer: field

iii. Click Connect b. If you are using Mac OS X i. Start Chicken of the VNC (Applications Chickent of the VNC) ii. In the Host: field, type in the IP address of your SERVER laptop and provide the password that you set up in the previous section (while setting up remote

desktop access on your SERVER Mac).

iii. Make sure that Fullscreen display option is checked and click Connect 3. After a few seconds you should see your SERVER laptop screen on your CLIENT laptop and should be able to control your SERVER laptop, remote capture software and your camera from far away. Congratulations! You can now remotely control your camera using two laptops.

Solution 2: A Laptop And A Mobile Device

A much, much shorter tutorial Lugging two laptops is not always the best option, especially if you cannot be stationary throughout the entire photoshoot; if you need to be somewhat more mobile, you can also use any Android smart phone, iPhone, iPad or Android tablet combined with one laptop to achieve the same result as the two laptop setup. You will still need to follow instructions for setting an ad hoc wireless network and for configuring your SERVER laptop. Up until I purchased an Apple iPad 3, I have always preferred using the two laptop setup since it is a lot easier to see what you are shooting on a big screen. Using iPads beautiful high resolution screen alleviated the need for second laptop. Here are a few solutions for using mobile devices in conjunction with a laptop and a wireless network to control your camera. 1. Splashtop remote desktop (http://www.splashtop.com/remote). This is by far my favorite approach. Splashtop is a cross-platform mobile app (it works on Android and on iOS devices) that offers remote desktop connectivity/control between a computer and a mobile device. You will need to install Splashtop streamer application on your SERVER laptop and Splashtop Remote

Desktop app on your mobile device. Configuration is dead easy and Splashtop website provides excellent instructions. 2. LogMeIn remote desktop (https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/). This solution works almost exactly like Splashtop. Ive used both quite a bit and I prefer Splashtop because it also allows you to stream music from your desktop to your mobile device. 3. DSLR Camera Remote Pro ($19.99) and DSLR Camera Remote HD ($49.99) (http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/dslr-camera-remote/). This software is great as it provides both the remote capture capabilities and remote connection capabilities. Unfortunately it only works on iOS if you have an iPhone or an iPad, this solution works pretty well when it works. Unfortunately, the software is pretty buggy. Even with my firewalls turned off, my iPad could not connect to my MacBook Pro most of the time. To make matters even worse, onOne Softwares customer support never returned any of my emails. Oh, and you would still need to set up a wireless network in order for your SERVER laptop to communicate with your mobile iOS device.