Remote control for the camera: what is needed and how to choose | Articles | Photo, video, optics

For cre­ative pho­to shoots and the imple­men­ta­tion of non-stan­dard ideas, you need dif­fer­ent equip­ment. For exam­ple, gel col­or fil­ters, smoke machines and remote con­trols to con­trol the cam­era from a dis­tance. Let’s talk about the lat­ter today. What are the remote con­trols (RC) for cam­eras and how to choose the right one, told in this mate­r­i­al.

All prices are cur­rent at the time of writ­ing.

With the help of such a gad­get, it is easy to con­trol the cam­era even at a great dis­tance. Pho­to: rus-buy.ru

When you need remote con­trol
infrared remote con­trol
Wired cam­era remote con­trol
Cam­era radio remote con­trol
Com­bined mod­els
How to choose a remote con­trol for the cam­era

When you need remote control

Usu­al­ly the pho­tog­ra­ph­er is near the cam­era and remote­ly con­trols oth­er equip­ment. For exam­ple, flash­es. But some­times remote shoot­ing may be nec­es­sary. For exam­ple, in such cas­es:

- self-por­trait – if a pho­tog­ra­ph­er needs to take his own por­trait, he can use dif­fer­ent meth­ods. For exam­ple, take a self­ie. Or set up a delayed shoot­ing, run to the right place and have time to take a beau­ti­ful pose. Or you can just take the remote to con­trol the cam­era. It is enough to con­nect it, take the desired posi­tion and press the but­ton;

- shoot­ing from a tri­pod. What is a tri­pod for? To fix the cam­era and avoid a blur­ry pic­ture. But some­times a small touch is enough to ruin the pic­ture. And you can spoil the frame by press­ing the shut­ter but­ton. You can avoid this with the remote con­trol;

- long shoot­ing. For a long time, “hand-held” or from a tri­pod, they shoot wildlife, star tracks. Such shoot­ings last for sev­er­al hours. All this time, stand­ing next to the tri­pod is not very con­ve­nient. There­fore, locat­ed near­by, you can con­trol your cam­era using the remote con­trol;

- covert pho­tog­ra­phy. For exam­ple, when you shoot a very shy mod­el. One pho­tog­ra­ph­er can be dis­tract­ing — talk­ing, ask­ing to pose, etc. At this time, the oth­er, using the remote con­trol, will catch inter­est­ing shots. It is also impor­tant to use this method when shoot­ing objects that can be eas­i­ly fright­ened away. For exam­ple, birds;

- when the posi­tion of the cam­era makes it impos­si­ble to take a pic­ture oth­er­wise. For exam­ple, if the cam­era is sus­pend­ed very high, and it is impos­si­ble to reach it, or this will vio­late your idea. In this case, the eas­i­est way is to use the remote con­trol.

Using the remote con­trol, you can: shoot at a great dis­tance from the cam­era (up to 100 m), take pho­tos at a spec­i­fied inter­val, with a time delay, at a slow shut­ter speed. Pho­to: tripchit.com

infrared remote control

A very pop­u­lar cat­e­go­ry. The devices are easy to man­age. Works like a TV remote con­trol. It is enough to press one but­ton, and the infrared sig­nal will go to the con­nect­ed cam­era. Impor­tant: The device will not work if there is no infrared sig­nal receiv­er on the cam­era. Whether he is or not, you can find out in the instruc­tions.

Advan­tages of infrared remotes for cam­eras:

• low price (up to 3,000 rubles);
• ease of use;
• there are remotes even for old and cheap cam­eras.

The dis­ad­van­tage is that it may not work from the side or from behind. It all depends on how and where the sig­nal receiv­er is locat­ed on the cam­era.

Mod­el exam­ples:

- Fuji­mi FJ-RC6U — a ver­sa­tile and cheap mod­el (550 rubles). Com­pat­i­ble with Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pen­tax, Olym­pus cam­eras that have an infrared receiv­er;

– Godox IR‑N for Nikon is a sim­ple option for 990 rubles. Com­pat­i­ble with many Nikon cam­eras

– Canon RC‑6 is a sim­i­lar device for cam­eras of anoth­er brand. The price is high­er — 2,195 rubles, but the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion is iden­ti­cal. Just press the but­ton to con­trol the cam­era. Works at a dis­tance of 5 meters.

Infrared remotes are small and easy to oper­ate. But you can’t work with them at a great dis­tance and most often the cam­era can only receive a sig­nal from the front. Pho­to: viplist.fun

Wired camera remote control

Oth­er­wise, it is called “cable”. Like the pre­vi­ous ones, such mod­els have only 1 but­ton. With it, you can acti­vate the shut­ter release of the cam­era (when ful­ly pressed). Half press acti­vates aut­o­fo­cus. Anoth­er detail of such a remote con­trol is a but­ton lock. With it, you can fix the but­ton in the pressed posi­tion. What for? For exam­ple, you decide to use the Bulb mode to shoot at slow shut­ter speeds (more than 30 sec­onds). It’s hard to keep the but­ton pressed all the time. But the remote will fix the pressed but­ton. Today you can choose a gad­get for any require­ments.

There are dif­fer­ent mod­els:

- no timer. For exam­ple: Fuji­mi FJ SR-FF for Fuji­film cam­eras or JJC for Sony;

- with a timer. What is it for? To pro­gram the cam­era for inter­val oper­a­tion. For exam­ple, you can set a delay between shots of a few sec­onds. This option is need­ed, for exam­ple, when shoot­ing wildlife. Mod­el exam­ples: Fal­con Eyes FAP-TR2N, Fuji­mi FJMC‑C for Canon and Godox ITR-N1 (for Nikon).

The remote con­trol cable is the sim­plest remote con­trol. Its draw­back is that the pho­tog­ra­ph­er is lim­it­ed by the length of the wire. And he has to stand at a short dis­tance from the cam­era. Pho­to: mikalsenon.net

Camera radio remote control

The main advan­tage of such mod­els is that they work at a dis­tance of up to 100 meters. In all oth­er respects it is sim­i­lar to oth­er remotes. The kit comes with the receiv­er itself, which is installed in the cam­era con­nec­tor, and the sig­nal trans­mit­ter.

He stays with the pho­tog­ra­ph­er. An impor­tant advan­tage of this type of device is that the sig­nal is trans­mit­ted with­out inter­rup­tion, even if there are obsta­cles between you and the cam­era. Of course, we are not talk­ing about a wall, but about racks, chairs, wires, etc. There­fore, if you are film­ing (for exam­ple, bride’s prepa­ra­tions) in a small room, you can use such a remote con­trol.

Because:

• you will not be tied to the cam­era (as with a cable);
• you will not be lim­it­ed by the side from which you need to direct the remote con­trol (as is the case with an IR device);
• objects placed in the room will not be a hin­drance.

Mod­el exam­ples:

– Pix­el Oppi­las RW-221 for Canon. With the help of such a remote con­trol, con­tin­u­ous and sin­gle shoot­ing is pos­si­ble, a delay (using a timer) for 4 sec­onds. The device is used when shoot­ing self-por­traits, objects at a great dis­tance (up to 100 meters), macro pho­tog­ra­phy, astropho­tog­ra­phy. The price of such a remote con­trol for the cam­era is 2,500 rubles;

– YouPro VT‑2 for Sony is a sim­ple mod­el that works at a dis­tance of 100 meters and is con­trolled by one but­ton. Price from 2 400 rubles.

The radio remote con­trol is a mod­el that has many advan­tages. Among the dis­ad­van­tages: high price and bulk­i­ness. Pho­to: foto-meloch.ru

Combined models

This is a sep­a­rate cat­e­go­ry of remotes for cam­eras. These are hybrids of radio-con­trolled and wired remotes. The kit includes a trans­mit­ter and receiv­er (as in a radio remote con­trol) + there is a cable. Need­ed to con­nect to the cam­era.

An exam­ple is Phot­tix (14455) Pla­to 2.4GHz for Nikon. The price of the device is 6,240 rubles. A hybrid gad­get that can oper­ate at a dis­tance of up to 100 meters. There are many modes of oper­a­tion:

• sin­gle descent;
• a series of shots (5 pieces);
• 2 sec­ond delay before shut­ter release;
• bulb.

How to choose a remote control for the camera

A cam­era with a remote con­trol is a con­ve­nient and nec­es­sary com­bi­na­tion. With its help, there are more oppor­tu­ni­ties to take a cool and unusu­al pic­ture. If you need a remote con­trol for your cam­era, choos­ing the right one is easy. It is enough to decide on a bud­get and a goal.

• If you need to shoot from very long dis­tances, then the radio remote con­trol is an excel­lent choice. But its price is high­er than that of infrared and wired coun­ter­parts.
• Do you plan to shoot por­traits, shots with shut­ter speeds up to 30 sec­onds? You can take an infrared remote con­trol (RC).
• Wired mod­els do not require an addi­tion­al pow­er source. But it is impor­tant to make sure that the cam­era has the right con­nec­tor.

Anoth­er point worth pay­ing atten­tion to is the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of the remote con­trol with the cam­era. Many brands pro­duce mod­els that are com­pat­i­ble only with their cam­eras. But there are also uni­ver­sal devices. For exam­ple, from Chi­nese brands. Usu­al­ly their cam­era remotes are a lit­tle cheap­er, but less reli­able and durable. But you can find uni­ver­sal mod­els from well-known com­pa­nies. For exam­ple, Fuji­mi FJ-RC6U.

We hope that our mate­r­i­al helped you fig­ure out what cam­era remote con­trols are and how to choose the right one.