Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Please share your experience. Have you tried firing Einsteins with your Canon under the control of the most-used Android camera control program "DSLRController"? (Canon only, and not all bodies)

I tried this for the first time yesterday in a small-product set up. A Buff "CST" trigger was up on a Canon 5Dmk3. Usual tethering is through a PC laptop and have never encountered a lack of synchronization.

No flash with the ASUS tablet running DSLRController. This software uses LiveView to draw off the sensor view so I have to set LiveView->Silent Shoot->Disable. That would be required for flash sync even if I was shooting without the tethered connection. I don't like having issues in front of a client and luckily this was a client for whom this wasn't a hassle.

I have to set up again and try something I shot with successful Einstein flash sync before I had the triggers, so one of the heads was attached by sync cord to the camera body. Both shoots were using manual focus lenses, the sync cord event was a 17mm TSE, and the small-product tabletop was the 90mm TSE. (Should not be a factor but best to lay out the details.)

I have a Cyber Commander and perhaps should test that as the trigger. But either from lack of experience of settings or some other issue this CC does not seem to reliably fire my strobes when in the shoe, but usually does so when acting as a hand-held trigger/meter. (All trigger gear bought used.)

Thanks, in advance, for any experience you can share, especially if you made it work as described!

jonathan7007

Have you done a direct A/B comparison where you get triggering without the remote, then apply the remote and try the same number of shots?

While we are certainly looking for reliable triggering, the first step would actually be to look at the transmitter. Whenever a shutter actuation is performed, the LED on the transmitter should blink red. If it does not blink red, then either the battery is dead, or the CST did not get a signal to fire. If the LED blinks with the no-remote set up, then the battery is fine, narrowing the problem down to the CST did not get a signal to fire.

If the LED does blink reliably, but the lights do not fire (or do not fire reliably) when using the remote (but they do without the remote), there may be an interference problem going on. In this case, try changing the frequency of the Cyber Sync system. I would suggest by 5 steps or more, just to be safe.

Thanks for your quick response.

During the shoot I would disconnect the android tablet and shoot (still in LiveMode) with the shutter button because that would allow the flash to fire. In other words, the CST trigger worked just fine without the timing(?) difference inserted(?) by the tablet and DSLRController software.

Guesses on my part!

The CST's test button worked, too.

So the A/B I need to do first sets up Einstein heads triggered by a camera PC cord while showing me the sensor view. I believe that was successful before, but since the dslrController software is rapidly updated (a good thing) I should not assume that it will work that way again.

I am hoping someone else working with the same combo would spot this thread. Would rather skip the PC cord and learn a trick to do so.

Again thanks.

jonathan7007

I had the similar problem. It didnt like me shooting in Live View. I did a search on google for the problem and found that I needed to turn something off (I think it was silent mode shooting) and that fixed my problem with tethering my tablet with DSLR Controller and the Buff triggers. I'm at work so I dont have the solution right here.

Thanks... I believe I had made that change when tethered, I know that it's necessary and the programmer warns us at the onset of a session. I have to get my gear out and devote some time to double checking everything if you were able to make it work.

I shot tethered to EOS Utility the other day for interiors and although the Win7 laptop is bigger it's easier to manipulate the settings and the view is big and clean. I feel more confident in evaluation of the sharpness of the file viewing on the laptop. Faster display of the shot image, of course. It appears there is no way to generate a histogram, though, from the shot as taken with Canon's software. A glaring error for them. I will have to try Lightroom's watched folder together with EOS Utility again. Have done but takes practice to jump around between programs.

For those reading this who have not tried dSLR Controller, go for it. (You have to have a Canon and not all bodies are built/programmed to be able to use the SW.) It's something like $8 and it is always being improved. The 1Ds3 has an older programing language that precludes full use of its capabilities but the core of the solution is there. 5D2 and 5D3 all good. The video shooters love it, too.

Maybe we can go over your settings too. Mine comes up with an error when I first open it although I just click ok and it gets me in. I'll post what the specific error is when I get home later. It bothers me when I see that and it tells me to check one of the functions in the menu of the camera but I can't find that function, it seems like a 5dmk2 function not a mk3 one.

PM?

Probably not interesting to very many here but very interesting to me. Thanks for sharing your experience and let's see how to make this work. Clients love the screen display of any kind. Please PM me.

jonathan7007