Hi everyone,

A question came to mind while thinking about a few shooting situations.

Do any of you use a way to remotely trigger a camera or start video recording underwater?

I’ve found myself wishing I had something like that a few times, especially for cameras left on the bottom or when trying not to get too close to shy subjects.

Just wondering if this is something people actually do in practice, and if so, what systems are being used.

Thanks!

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Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Phil Rudin

Remote control has been a core technique for my UWP of salmon for over two decades. There are many pix showing set-ups on my web site at: https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/n-mnzBPB They are in chronological order with newer ones first.

They show Seacam housings most of which are set up to use the Seacam remote control. https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/n-mnzBPB/i-ChFJBmw/A shows a set-up placed on the ground. In this pic you can see the bulkhead near the bottom of the housing where the remote is plugged in as well as the remote control “stick” at the other end of a 10-meter long cable, my standard length for remote control. The button on this stick works just like the shutter release button on a camera body (at least for Canon and Nikon, the brands I have used).

A light touch on the release button wakes up the camera (if the camera is asleep) and turns on the autofocus (AF). A further push triggers the camera. As the AF technology has improved over the previous two decades I have had to adjust the timing between the first touch and the triggering to allow the camera to focus. I often took a full second way back when, following advice given by Chuck Westfall, the late Canon tech rep, on the net. Here is one example: https://digitaljournalist.org/issue0506/tech-tips.html This is not the one I recall reading which may have been on DPR or Photo.net. Regardless, it is important to finesse the AF system a bit especially if one is using a more computational type of AF such as auto-area which is what I use with Canon. Nikon came out with a similar mode starting with the D4 generation. The many shots on my website suggests this works.

There are other makes of remote control besides Seacam. I have used the Aquatica remote with the Nikon D1x which I installed by disconnecting one of the N5 bulkheads from the hotshoe fitting and installing a cord with a fitting for the Nikon 10-pin socket on the camera. The Aquatica remote uses Ikelite cords that connect with the N5 bulkhead as opposed to the S6 bulkhead used by Seacam. The Aquatica release does not separate the wake-up-AF-on and the trigger functions; it is just a simple switch so I connected two of the three wires on the inside of the housing (that goes to the camera) and only used AF priority. Nonetheless the first shot in a series was typically OOF when using the Aquatica release. It might be better for video but I have zero experience with that.

Reef also makes a release. See: https://reefphoto.com/products/zen_remote_release_handle. It is a bit cheaper than the Seacam and uses Ikelite cords. I have not only not used it I not even seen one in person. Hopefully someone will provide you with some info on this.

The Nikonos RS had a remote control as well. I modified mine to work with the D1X because I could separate AF-on from triggering. The RS release is a piece of junk compared to the Seacam one. I will leave it at that.

Cheers!

Tom

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Tom Kline