Helicon Remote - optimal tethered shooting solution for Canon and Nikon cameras

Helicon Remote allows you to tether your Canon or Nikon DSLR camera to a computer or a mobile device and automates focus (DoF) bracketing, exposure bracketing (HDR), and time lapse photography. It can even combine all these methods together! 

 

Please have a look at the main use cases of Helicon Remote and choose which ones will fit the best into your usual workflow:

1. Tethered capture of images and video - shoot remotely to automate the whole process, control all the camera settings remotely even in the most awkward camera position and view angle, minimize camera shaking and make perfectly sharp and precise shots.

2. Focus bracketing - set up your camera, tether it to your computer or telephone, adjust the camera settings and let it make a series of shots with focus shifting from shot to shot to be stacked into a fully-focused image.

3. Exposure bracketing - take a series of shots with different exposure for further merging into a high dynamic range (HDR) image.

4. Time lapse - adjust the settings and let your camera make series of shots with the set time interval and see how your object is being changing over time.

5. Burst shooting - control high-speed shooting from your computer or telephone - set the number of shots or just press the Start and Stop buttons.

6. Burst focus bracketing - set the camera on macro rails and combine burst shooting mode with focus bracketing to get a series of incrementally focused images made with minimum time interval.

 

Helicon Remote allows to use any combination of focus, exposure bracketing and time lapse shooting.

Helicon Remote also allows wi-fi tethered shooting. Helicon Remote for iOS connects to a camera only via Wi-Fi. Please check the list of supported wi-fi cameras here.

Another very useful feature of Helicon Remote for mobile devices is geotagging - travel around and make the shots, meanwhile info on your current GPS coordinates and shooting direction will be included to the image metadata.

Helicon Remote can also control StackShot, Wemacro macro rails and Trinamic stepper motors, devices typically used for focus (DoF) bracketing in macro, extreme macro and micro photography.

Helicon Remote – Features

Tethered Shooting of Images and Video and Remote Camera Settings Control

With Helicon Remote you can remotely capture and view full-resolution JPEG/RAW images to check their focus and exposure. You can also view and capture video. This functionality is perfect for macro photography, when your camera is often in an awkward location and you want to avoid camera shakes caused by pressing the buttons.

With Helicon Remote you can change most camera settings: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, flash mode, flash compensation, white balance, color temperature, image format, exposure compensation, and drive/shooting mode.

Focus Bracketing (EDoF)

Helicon Remote automates focus bracketing. You set the nearest and the farthest points of the object that you want to have in focus, and the program does all the rest, calculating the depth of field in one shot at the current settings and how many shots need to be taken.

Helicon Remote facilitates precise focusing: you just click or tap on the Live View to focus the lens. The focused area is then highlighted so that you can preview the DoF with the current settings and make incremental focusing steps.

Exposure Bracketing (HDR)

With Helicon Remote you can combine exposure bracketing (HDR) and focus bracketing (DoF). This allows you to create images with HDR and an extended depth of field.

You can set up to 15 exposure steps, which is more than most cameras allow, and as many focusing steps as needed.

Helicon Remote is able to capture extra long exposures - up to 32 min with the cameras that support this feature: all Canon cameras, Nikon D600 / D800 / D4 / D7100 / D5200 and later Nikon cameras.

Time Lapse

Time-lapse photography is photography over time, i.e., when you set your camera to take shots automatically every few seconds, minutes, or hours.

Why would you do this? If your object is changing over time you may want to capture its different stages and then combine the shots into a fascinating movie.

With Helicon Remote, you can combine time-lapse photography with focus and exposure bracketing.

For example, you could capture a flower bud opening, a piece of fruit ripening, traffic on a busy street over the length of a day—or whatever suits your fancy.

Burst shooting

All the supported cameras can shoot in burst mode, i.e. make series of shots in very quick succession. It might be especially useful for shooting objects in motion. Helicon Remote allows to control the camera in burst shooting mode remotely - either to set the number of shots in the series or to press the start and stop buttons, depending on your camera model.

It's not only handy to position the camera and to do all the adjustments remotely from your laptop, tablet or phone, but also it allows to keep the camera completely still, avoiding shaking of camera from pressing the shutter release button.

Burst focus bracketing using StackShot macro rails

Helicon Remote is now able to use burst/serial shooting mode of the camera for continuous high speed shooting together with continuous movement of the camera on the StackShot rails.

Helicon Remote automatically adjusts camera speed to match cameras shooting speed and current DOF.

Hyperfocal distance calculator

This feature of Helicon Remote allows to automatically calculate not only the hyperfocal distance for the current lens and shooting conditions, i.e. to define the distance beyond which all the objects are acceptably sharp, but also to find out the depth of field at this hyperfocal and at any specified distance.

Hyperfocal calculator is very easy to work with - it defines the aperture, the focal length and the circle of confusion automatically and immediately calculates the results.