My Times With The Canon TC-80N3
I've been doing night shooting for some time now. I purchased a Canon Remote Timer shutter release, the TC-80N3. This is a very nice piece of equipment, though I understand that you can get (much) cheaper clones nowadays. I like the TC-80N3 quite a bit, since I don't like to touch the camera during long exposures.
Then I started playing with HDR shooting (not always garish!). The TC-80N3 allows HDR night exposures without ever touching the camera, which allows for excellent alignment of frames. I could set the remote's Long Exposure for 1 second, take the shot, set the remote for 2 seconds, shoot, set it for 4 seconds... and so on. It is great for night HDR shooting.
I ran into a couple of scenes that showed a limitation of the TC-80N3: I couldn't set the shutter speed for less than 1 second. I had to touch the camera if the HDR series spanned that 1-second mark - for instance, if the scene decreed that the shutter speeds had to be 4 seconds, 2sec, 1sec, 1/2-sec, and finally 1/4-sec. In a situation like this, I had to manually change the camera settings for the last 2 shots. This caused some alignment issues, since touching the camera invariably meant that I'd knock it slightly out of position. The short shots only captured the small, bright lights, but they easily showed alignment issues. This was in the days of CS2 and Photomatix 2, neither of which allowed good alignment of frames. I had to manually align frames in the stack, which was not easy.
This played absolute havoc with the idea of doing HDR panoramics, another thing I enjoy.
Researching A Solution
So I began to long for a device that would remotely control the camera, much like Breeze System's PSRemote or DSLR Remote Pro packages. I like to travel light, so I didn't want to carry a laptop around - and I didn't want to pay for a laptop just to take pictures. (I also didn't want to be displaying a laptop in the back alleys of Boston, either.) Breeze's software is a perfect solution, but a very expensive, cumbersome one for me.
But there was nothing else, so I gave up the search.
Recently I got hooked on HDR photography. I got the bug. So I started researching again. Little "netbooks" could be had for a few hundred bucks. They were small. I started debating. I started looking for even-smaller netbooks, which were quite expensive. I found tiny devices, like smartphones, but none of them ran the OS that Breeze requires.
I found a couple home-brew devices, one using an Arduino (http://newyorkpanorama.com …photography-with-arduino/
) and one using a Nintendo DS (http://panocamera.com/blog/?p=26). But neither are commercial products, and I can't build them myself, so they are out off my list of possible solutions. They'll probably be available sometime in the future, but I have no patience, so I kept searching.
Last week I stumbled upon a post here that mentioned something called a Promote Control device. I did some research. It was exactly what I wanted. Exactly.
But it was $300! Plus another $15 for shutter release cable. Ouch! (By the way, the shutter release cable isn't necessary, but it is very, very beneficial to own).
So I researched some more, and debated. A few hours later I showed the Promote Control web page to a coworker. We had been both researching and discussing small laptops for the last week, so he knew exactly what it was. I mentioned the seemingly expensive price tag of this Promote Control, and he said: "It's cheaper than a laptop, and a heck of a lot smaller. It's EXACTLY what you've been looking for!"
I ordered the Promote Control five minutes later, from Adorama. For some reason they don't have the N3 cables, but I found one shipped directly from Amazon (who doesn't carry the Promote itself - go figure).
What The Heck Is A Promote Control, Anyway?
The Promote Control is an advanced remote shutter release system for Canon and Nikon cameras. It allows four modes of control:
One Shot
Acts like a standard remote shutter. Press the button and it takes a picture. The Promote allows you to take a picture using the current settings set on your camera, or you can dial in a specific exposure time in hours, minutes, and seconds. Note that you can not specify sub-second exposures, like 1/125th.
Manual Hold
Hold the button down, it holds the shutter open. Let go of the button, the shutter closes.
Time Lapse
Take a preset number of photos, separated by a specified interval. The exposure can be set in hours, minutes, and seconds (again, no sub-second settings), or you can set the camera with the desired settings. You can set the number of frames to shoot - up to 999 by the looks of the menu. The interval can be set in the same way - but note that you can't set anything less than 1 second for an interval. It would be nice to set an interval of 0, which would be great for astrophotography and stacking images. You can set a delay, in second, before the sequence starts.
High Dynamic Range
Take a specified number of photos, incrementing the shutter speed for each, in order to capture the full dynamic range of the scene rather than the limited dynamic range that the camera can capture in a single frame.
For those of you who aren't used to HDR, this allows you to take, for example, 5 photos set 2 stops apart in order to capture all the details in a scene where the dynamic range exceeds the capabilities of the camera. The images can then be merged into a single image that captures all of the details in the highlights and shadows.
Wikipedia article: High dynamic range imaging
POTN Post: HDR : Tutorial And Information Links
This mode is where the Promote Control really shows its abilities. It's the most interesting mode to me, since it absolutely crushes the TC-80N3's limitations with HDR.
For this mode, you set the desired middle exposure, the EV step, and the total number of shots to take. The Promote figures out the correct settings for all the other shots, and steps through them automatically, without any delay. You can set the EV step in 1/3 EV increments, and you can set the number of shots to any odd number from 3 to 45. Yes, 45 shots set 1/3 EV apart! Wow.
Some Neat Tricks
The Promote Control can be configured to engage mirror lock-up, whether you have it enabled on the camera or not. (As long as the camera can do MLU, of course.)
The delay between locking the mirror and taking the picture can be set from 1 to 20 seconds. You have to go into Setup to set this delay, but MLU can be enabled or disabled from any of the mode settings screens.
It can focus for you. Yep, it has a Focus button on the front that works like the shutter button. Press the Focu button and the lens does its AF thing. Pressing the Focus button and holding it is just like holding the camera's shutter button down halfway. Alas, this doesn't work with back-button focus - which isn't a big deal for me, since I wouldn't want this feature for night and HDR shots. But it could be an issue for someone. This problem, however, is easy to fix - just set your camera to have auto-focus control on the shutter button (i.e.; the factory default) and it works perfectly.
You can set really long shutter speeds - up to hours.
The Promote Control Unit
The Promote Control unit can be seen here: http://www.promotesystems.com/products/Promote-Control.html. I'm not going to post any shots of it, since I don't really think it's necessary.
The control unit is a bit larger than a deck of cards - about 1.5 times as thick, and about an inch longer. It measures 4.9 x 2.6 x 1.1 in (125 x 65 x 27 mm for metric-minded). It can easily fit into a shirt pocket, and weighs about 6 ounces with batteries. Extremely portable.
It comes with a thin wrist strap, a special USB cable, and a very nice carrying case that is too small to hold the manual or both cables.
AA batteries are included.
The unit is very-well constructed. This is a fine piece of work, really. There are four input connectors on the front (AC power, USB cable, shutter cable, and "accessory" whatever that might be) and they are covered with rubber-like material to help seal them from the elements. The battery cover door is lined with a rubber seal for the same reason. I'm not sure if the screen has similar protection, but it looks like it would do a fine job of protection against mist and spray and such. All of the buttons are raised "squishy" buttons, so they're also protected.
The unit has a wide plastic "loop" that can be used to hold the included wrist strap.
Another reviewer on another site (http://www.hdrlabs.com …YaBB.pl?num=1247806902/14 and http://www.panoguide.com/forums/commercial/6520/) commented that the unit needs a way to attach it to a tripod. His solution can be seen in either of the links above, and I'm sure that I will do something similar. From those links, it seems like Promote is going to do something about this. Until then, it's a simple problem to solve.
The carrying case is fairly nice, other than its size. It's made from a fairly stiff material, so it's not going to provide a lot of shock protection but will help. It zippers about 3/4 of the way around, so it flips open and lies flat. There's a wide rubber "belt" to hold the unit in, and a mesh pocket on the other side. I have no idea what this mesh pocket is supposed to hold - the manual doesn't fit, and the case won't close if you put a cable in it. This unit really requires 2 cables - it would be really, really nice if the case held the unit and both cables.
Using The Promote Control
It does everything it says it does - as long as you purchase the shutter cable. And that's not a knock against them - they can't provide a cable for every single camera it supports. I'm just trying to let you know that you really want one.
It does everything it says it does, easily. I only had to reach for the manual once, to figure out why my shutter cable wasn't working. That's when I found out how to get into the Setup menu (press both Mode and Start) since you have to enable it. The other menus and extremely easy to use and understand and change. OK, here's your other usage guideline - on the 4-way controller on the front of the unit, press the left button to cycle through items to change. The center button confirms the setting. You no longer need to read the manual.
A Major Problem
OK, my Promote Control is not perfect.
The major glitch first - the battery compartment in my unit did not have one of the strips of metal that connects the batteries in series. That is, only one end of each of the batteries make electrical contact with the unit, and that doesn't make a full electrical connection between the two batteries. I popped in the batteries, and they fell right out. They did not make full electrical contact with the unit, and - of course - the unit wouldn't turn on.
Needless to say, at 8 PM on a Friday night - with a dawn shoot planned - my unit was useless. Scream this aloud: "ARGH!"
I got around this easily - I taped a piece of wire to connect the 2 batteries together and make the necessary connection. But I was fairly PO'd for a while. This is just pathetic quality control at its worst. This is not good.
But I'm not worried about it, either. From reading the web, and finding a discussion of another user's problem, I think they'll fix my problem right-quick. If not, I can return it to Adorama and get another one - it's only 2 days old, and came defective. Stuff happens. I got over it.
But I'm still not happy with their quality control, and I'll be speaking to them in a curt tone of voice.
A Minor Problem
When I got my unit powered up, I went right into HDR mode. But it would not take a picture if the exposure was greater than 10 seconds. I set up a string of 3 shot at 5s, 10s, and 20s. It would not take the 20s shot, and gave me an error message. I spent almost an hour trying to get this to work.
Well, it turns out that I was the problem, not the unit. Somehow I didn't plug the shutter cable release into the unit in all the way. Three times. I finally saw it dangling out, and once I plugged in completely everything worked perfectly.
Right now, I have to say this was my fault. User error.
Then again, I plugged this cable in 3 times, and 3 times it wasn't plugged in enough t work properly. Was it really me, a bumbling fool who couldn't plug a silly stereo jack in correctly? Yes, it probably was me. But I'm going to keep an eye on this one.
The Other Problems
So far, none.
There are a few things I wish this did, or did better, but it works as advertised.
Pros
Works as advertised.
Does it all very well, and easily.
Excellent construction!
Cons
None for my needs. But read below since you may see something that is a Con for your needs.
Possible Improvements
For Time Lapse mode, it would be very nice to be able to set an interval of 0, so that it takes the next shot immediately. I can see this being of great importance to astrophotographers who wish to take many exposures and stack them. The forced 1-second delay may cause dashes instead of clean star steaks.
You can set the exposure time for Time Lapse and One Shot modes, but only in 1-second intervals. It would be very nice if this unit could set sub-second shutter speeds, like 1/250th. The real frustrating thing is that these shutter speeds are available for the middle exposure used in HDR mode.
I really wish the carrying case were a little bigger. Although I said earlier that it isn't big enough to hold both cables, I was able to squish them both in. JUST barely. And this isn't an exercise that I'd want to do at night in the field. Funny, I think this is my biggest complaint.
(Promote, if you're listening: Don't make the case thicker, make it wider! Then the cables could be folded and placed under the rubber strap so they're held in place, too. Besides, I hate thick things in my camera bag. Thinner is better. And don't make it hold the manual. It's easy enough to use - you won't need the manual in the field.)
The Focus button only seems to work if the camera is not using back-button focus. A LOT of us HDR and night shooters use back-button focus because that means the focus point will never change during a sequence or while taking shots to test exposure. Granted, this is a minor thing, and the camera can be set back to the factory default setting. And, personally, I doubt that I would ever use the Focus button.
A way to hold this onto a tripod would be good. Again, this is minor. It's too easy to solve in many ways, and Promote does include a carrying strap so you can at least hang it on the tripod.
Once you start a series of shots you can't stop it unless you turn the camera off. Even the TC-80N3 has a start/stop button, and you can cancel a sequence at any time.
Back to my cable user error problem. I think there's a possibility that the cable connections could be better. Or maybe it was just me. Again, I'll keep an eye on this.
Once again to my cable user error: It would be nice if the unit could detect that the shutter cable wasn't available, and give a clear error. Instead, I got things like "Manual exposure mode could not be set" and "Error setting exposure time". The manual listed these errors, but implied that the camera was not compatible with the attempted setting. Looking back, that was less-than-helpful, and frustrating.
Final Words
In a nutshell, this is an excellent unit. It works wonderfully, is very well-constructed, and does what I've wanted to quite some time.
Yes, it's expensive at $300. But there's nothing else like it, it works well, and the next solution (a laptop) is at least twice the price and 5 to 10 times the size and weight. I like small things like this Promote Control, since I like to travel light.
In a nutshell, I highly recommend this product.
(Note that I have absolutely nothing to do with Promote Systems. They've never heard of me - well, they will tomorrow when they read my email about the battery connection issue. This review is just my way of giving back to the community, with the hope of introducing this very neat device to someone, or helping someone make the decision to purchase one, or not.)
Promote Systems Website
You can read their web page about this device here: Promote Control from Promote Systems
Purchasing
The unit can be purchased from Adorama, or directly from Promote. The price is the same. Note that Adorama does not - at the time of this writing - carry the shutter cables, so you might want to purchase both from Promote. I got my cable from Amazon.
Promote Systems has a "Dealers" listing on their website which does not list any dealers at this time. (The least they could do is list Adorama - hint hint.)
Note: Many, if not most, of the cool features listed in this review require the purchase of the optional shutter release cable. If you're interested in a Promote Control then you want this cable. Trust me. You have to get one specific to your camera, so it's not included and must be purchased separately.
(I don't have anything to do with Amazon or Adorama, either.)
