Remote shutter & 5D MK II HELP !!!!

I have a SMDV RFN3- Rx and it has the N style plug that goes in the side of the 5D MKII but it will not trigger the shutter. I set the camera to bulb mode and turn the device on. There's a blue light on the receiver and a light on the transmitter and it's interrupted when I press the remote shutter button. It won't trigger the shutter.

I've looked on You tube man can find them being sold but no directions. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is far more a WAG than it is anything else.

I was reading another thread on remotes some time over the past several days, and one guy mentioned in passing that the remote they were talking about didn't work if focus was set to the back button. I don't know if he meant he couldn't focus from the remote, or if he couldn't trigger the shutter.

The N3 connector's very fussy. Your remote may not be making good contact when inserted. Try wiggling it down in there. This can be a problem with third-party remotes since they have to make their own N3, and some get the depth wrong. Not saying it's the issue in your case, but some people have shaved a very little bit of the plastic off the tip of the N3 plug to get a better fit/contact.

Interesting I'm surprised you can't find more on the remote shutter. Looks like a fairly easy trigger, but I'm flying in the dark with no directions.

Thank you much in advance for your replies

How about a link to the one you got? Radio remotes pretty straight-forward as long as both transmitter and receiver are set to the same channel. Most receivers I've seen also have a button that lets them function as a wired release. Tried pushing that? But like I said, the problem's usually that the plug's not making contact with the pins in the camera's N3 socket.

Took the unit back out. Made sure the plug and the pins were in the right direction. Made sure the transmitter was set to bulb...rodger that....camera bulb setting yep. Wiggle plug notta zip nothing. The connections on this one appear to be right on the edge

I thought it was supposed to be the N3+ connector

400dabuser wrote in post #14068123
I thought it was supposed to be the N3+ connector

You got me now ...it fits in the connection I have. Need to find if this is the correct model for a 5D MKII

If it says it's for an N3 connector, it should function correctly. However, as I said before, the N3 connector is a Canon proprietary connector. Any third-party makers are trying to approximate it, and may not get it right in all cases. That leaves you trouble-shooting it. Does your release have a separate button on the receiver? If it does, try using that to trip the camera. And make sure that AF is set to the shutter button as RandyS said. If you use CF to separate AF from the shutter button, expect problems with a remote.

Sorry guys....had sopme pressing issues. Yes it is the N3 connector and it was set to buld and you can see the light showing the remote is triggering the slave, but doesn't trigger the camera. I did not change the camera settings though...something about a/f settings. Maybe that's it?

Is the lens set to manual focus? The camera won't fire if it can't confirm focus. If you've covered this ground already then ignore me, but you have to eliminate the obvious, and lack of focus is the first thing that will stop it from shooting.
edit: my point about setting the lens to manual focus is that when the lens is set to manual focus the camera will fire regardless of whether it has focus confirmation.

Ok so I went back at the remote. remote plugged in and trigger light shows it working. Lens set to MF and nothing. Then I started wiggling the plug and the camera tripped? If I press it in it may fire the shutter 2-3 time. At one point I switched the remote connected to the camera out of bulb function.......then it triggered a few times and stopped working.

My conclusion is that the SMDV remote trigger connector maybe bad? So tomorrow I'll head to Calumet and get a Canon one.


Thanks again for your replies

Just an FYI, I've been using the Vivitar unit from Amazon and it's been pretty reliable. The only issues I've had are how it will misbehave when the battery gets a bit low. It will trip the shutter and not release it, so it just keeps firing until you unplug it. That's when you know it's time to replace the battery.
http://www.amazon.com …TF8&qid=1333908​265&sr=8-3

Scatterbrained wrote in post #14230650
Just an FYI, I've been using the Vivitar unit from Amazon and it's been pretty reliable. The only issues I've had are how it will misbehave when the battery gets a bit low. It will trip the shutter and not release it, so it just keeps firing until you unplug it. That's when you know it's time to replace the battery.
http://www.amazon.com …TF8&qid=1333908​265&sr=8-3

Interesting because when I did get it to shoot, it would shoot off like 5-10 pics. I thought I checked that battery....weird things is when you bush on the connector at the camera it fires it???