Camera
Remote
Control

wireless, no moving parts - take pictures automatically!
devices to remotely control camera shutters for remote photography.

:: help ::
(or jump to gentled serial help)

Whilst most customers have no problems, there is the odd occasion when everything doesn't go to plan. I apologies if you find this page tiresome, but I've tried to cover as many "gotcha's" as possible, please  read on...

Camera ready?
The smoke coloured LED on the gentled needs to point at the receiver on the camera, normally on the front face as shown on the RED arrow on the Pentax 550 example. If directly facing the LED it can be 500mm away, however if at an acute angle that distance will drop to under 100mm.

Most cameras normally have the Remote sensor switched off, so you need to read the manual about activating it. Many cameras have it as part of the Timer and Shutter control, and on the Pentax 550 this is controlled by the button shown by the GREEN arrow.

My final embarrassing camera issue. Check that the camera's memory card has space for more images. The gentled definitely won't take a picture if the memory card is full (with Pentax models, the red flashing IR indicator also doesn't work, which makes you think the IR isn't working, when it's the memory card that's full!)

Servo ready?
Is the receiver powered on, are you using the correct channel, is the connector in the right way round, and repeat all those for the transmitter? I have made all these mistakes myself so don't worry! A good way to start is with a standard system and a servo. The servo should move 90 degrees for full joy-stick motion.

If you have bought one, first replace the joy-stick with the joy-switch, the servo should move about 90 degrees when you press the switch, now replace the servo with the gentled and see what happens? 

If you think the problem is with the servo control then try to activate the camera by shorting the blue wire to the black wire whilst applying 5V to the red wire. If that works then the problem is with the servo, not the camera and gentled.

View the IR Signal...
Finally, you can check that the IR LED is glowing, even though you cannot "see" the light. Your digital camera can see it, as most have some residual IR sensitivity. 

First take a standard remote control (TV, video etc) and point it at your digital camera, view the picture through the cameras viewer on the back. If possible set the camera to MACRO. When you press a button on the remote you should see the LED go gray on the screen. Different cameras have different sensitivities so the LED will have different brightness. Now point the gentled at the camera and monitor it in the same way. You should see the gentled glow, although a little fainter, as it is less powerful than a standard remote control.

Olympus Cameras...
Olympus have implemented a very strange system for their IR signals, which isn't documented very well. Cameras originally designed for the RM-1 remote can actually receive two different signals, but you can't swap between them unless you use the RM-1 remote to do this swap. This means that in some cases the original the gentled didn't work, unless you had a RM-1 and followed a "learning" procedure when you first activated the gentled. The CURRENT version, TYPE023, of  the gentled has solved this problem, and is easier to use. Also newer cameras shipping with RM-2 remotes also appear to work without this behaviour. Looks like both Olympus and gentled have fixed the problem!

Another Olympus issue is on the older RC-200 remote. It appears that the cameras that use this remote have a much less sensitive sensor. This is compensated by a much more powerful signal from the RC-200 remote normally. With gentled the you need to place the device within 70mm (3") of the sensor on the camera. Most gentled applications will work fine like this as the sensor is normally placed close to the front of the camera.

Panasonic Camcorders...
Problems have been reported with some Panasonic Camcorders (other cameras may suffer this problem) which cause intermittent operation of START/STOP and judder in the ZOOM. The problems were also present in the remote that came with the camera and were root-caused to the camera having 2 IR ports (front and rear) and the signals being received by both together. The problem is solved by placing the gentled with this in mind or taping over one of the camera sensors.

Help about gentled serial?

The gentled serial has a handshaking protocol with the camera. If the system doesn't work follow these instructions:

1. Switch-on the camera, make sure the LCD display is set to ON.
   (You do not NEED to have the LCD on when using gentled, however to perform this diagnostic test you will need to be able to view the display)

2. Switch-on the gentled, power it from a RC receiver or direct to RED and BLACK, voltage between 3 and 5.5 Volts. At this stage we are not interested in the RC or blue wire interface.

3. Connect the gentled to the camera. 

4. On connection the camera LCD display will go blank, this indicates the camera has recognised the insertion of the cable.

5. About 5-6 seconds after connection the display will come back on, this indicates that communication has been established between the camera and the gentled and you are ready to take pictures. If the display doesn't come on then either the camera isn't connected properly to the gentled or the power supply to the gentled isn't correct. 

6. Short the BLUE wire to the BLACK and a picture will be taken.

Only once this far should you try to use the yellow servo pulse route, and consider there to be problems with the RC receiver and transmitter set-up. For these issues follow the instructions above called Servo Ready? for the gentled IR.

If the camera is in sleep mode, the first trigger from gentled will re-establish communication with the camera, subsequent triggers will take pictures. This is similar behaviour to gentled ir.

Generally it will take up to 10 seconds for gentled to establish communication with the camera. Generally these longer connection times will happen if the gentled is disconnected from the camera whilst triggering the camera, or the camera or gentled is powered down or disconnected once communication is established. In all cases communication will be re-established automatically, although it may take several seconds and an additional trigger will need to be sent for full control to be restored. In one or two extreme circumstances (Camera incorrectly set [e.g. to PLAY] or memory card full) it will take 20seconds for communication to be re-established, however with no memory or the camera is PLAY] your barking up the wrong tree to take a picture :-).

Do's and Dont's:
Do set the camera to sleep mode after 30seconds of non activity. This saves batteries and resets the camera in the unlikely event that communication is interrupted. Whilst these errors are recoverable automatically, I recommend this as a wise precaution. Don't use RAW mode. If it takes longer than 20seconds to write the picture to memory then the device will time-out, and loose communication. 20seconds was chosen as it seemed like an inordinate length of time anyway, and it had to be less than the minimum sleep-timeout on the cameras (usually 30 seconds).

Finally, one last point for 8700 users. If the power to gentled is removed and returned after the device is communicating with the camera, then there is a 50% chance that communication will be lost until the camera goes into sleep mode. Restoring the power to gentled whilst the camera thinks communication is established isn't recommended, however as already mentioned keeping the sleep timer on 30seconds allows recovery, and saves batteries.

Note:
These instructions have been tested on a Nikon 885, 4300, 4500, 5000, 5400, 5700 and 8700. I believe other Nikon cameras will behave similarly.

Still got a problem?
If you still have a problem, drop us an e-mail...

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