Remote Shutter Control for X Series Cameras

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by Rico Pfirstinger

Talk to Rico (questions & feedback)Rico’s Flickr photosteam

Releasing the shutter of your camera remotely can have several advantages. For once, not touching the camera reduces shake and vibrations, which is especially important at slow shutter speeds. Mounting the camera on a tripod is only half of the solution. Yes, you can use the camera’s self-timer function for hands-free operation, but it’s hard (if not impossible) to catch decisive moments with this method.

Other applications of remote shutter release devices are placing the camera at hard to reach locations or producing a series of well-timed shots for time-lapse or HDR photography. Advanced timing solutions incorporate wireless operation (infrared, radio-controlled, Bluetooth or WLAN), and they can be triggered by certain GPS coordinates or position changes (like taking a shot every 50 meters while moving in a car), by a person stepping in front of the camera (recognizing faces or movement) or by rather exotic stuff like changes in the magnetic field.

Sadly, Fujifilm doesn’t offer a common remote triggering interface in its X series: With the XF1, there’s no option to externally trigger the shutter at all, so all you can do is using the self-timer. The X10, X20, X100, X100S, X-Pro1 and X-E1 offer classic threads for manual screw-in cable releases. The X-S1 and X-E1 feature an option to electronically release the shutter through the so-called RR-80 port (which hides in the Mini-USB port of these cameras, using pins number 4 and 5), and in addition to that, the X-E1 allows the microphone input socket to moonlight as a remote trigger input that is compatible with a substantial range of camera makes and models, offering a large number of options of remote triggering devices that can be used in concert with this camera.

Classic Mechanical Cable Release

Cable releases can perform the same three basic functions as your camera’s shutter button:

  • half-pressing the shutter to establish/lock focus and exposure
  • fully depressing the shutter to take the shot
  • keeping the shutter depressed (and locked) for an extended period of time to take long-time exposures (bulb mode)

Cable releases come in several forms and usually don’t cost much. There’s no need to get a fancy model (unless you like fancy stuff), just make sure it operates smoothly.

As mentioned earlier, cable releases are compatible with the X10, X20, X100, X100S, X-Pro1 and X-E1.

RR-80 Electronic Release

Just because its interface is electronic doesn’t mean that connecting an [shoplink 12241]RR-80[/shoplink] based remote shutter release adds additional functionality beyond  a mechanical cable release. An electronic RR-80 trigger will merely perform the very same three functions:

  • half-pressing the shutter to establish/lock focus and exposure
  • fully depressing the shutter to take the shot
  • keeping the shutter depressed (and locked) for an extended period of time to take long-time exposures (bulb mode)

Beyond that, there’s no communication going on between the camera and the remote: The remote isn’t aware of any camera settings, and the camera isn’t aware what’s set on the remote. Here’s an example of a simple electronic RR-80 trigger that’s available as an accessory from Fujifilm:

There are several RR-80 compatible “no-name” options available, with some of them offering wireless operation or sophisticated interval timers. Here’s an example of an intervalometer…

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X20 firmware update Ver.1.02

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“The phenomenon is fixed that the brightness of the OVF bright frame doesn’t change according to a surrounding brightness in case of ISO 1600 and higher.”

You can download the latest firmware Ver.1.02 here.

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High ISO comparison: Ricoh GR vs Nikon A vs X100S vs Canon G1X

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image courtesy: thenewcamera (via focus-numerique)

Which is the best camera for low light photography between the Ricoh GR, [shoplink 12203]Nikon A[/shoplink], [shoplink 11808 ebay]X100S[/shoplink] and [shoplink 11024]Canon G1 X[/shoplink]? According to thenewcamera you should go for the X100S to get the best results at high ISO. But click here and check this comparison out by yourself. (look for the full size high-ISO samples of these cameras at focus-numerique)

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The Art Of Photography! Fun, Passion and Art… the new blog of Donato Chirulli

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image courtesy: theartofphotography

Donato Chirulli from riflessifotografici started his own blog and the title reveals everything: “The Art Of Photography“. Photography is more than technical talk, pixel peeping and specs… it’s fun, it’s art, it’s passion. And it’s this passion that moved Donato Chirulli to start this blog.

Donato will post on his blog only the shots that he considers his most interesting ones and the best images he found on the web. Later, when the blog has a sufficient numbers of readers, he will choose weekly some shots of the readers that he feels worthy of being published.

Check out Donato’s new blog here.

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Touit roundup: photo.yodobashu’s shooting report + phtographyblog samples

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1) Photographyblog posted 64 images taken with the X-PRO1 + 32mm Touit lens. See the preview here. For the 46 12mm shots click here.

2) photo.yodobashi posted his shots taken with the X-E1 + 32mm Touit lens. See them here and for the 12mm shot click here.

Zeiss Touit 32mm pre-order: USA: Adorama / BHphoto / Uniquephoto / Pictureline / Europe: AmazonDE / ebayUK / PCHstore Brussel

Zeiss Touit 12mm pre-order: USA: Adorama / BHphoto / Uniquephoto / Pictureline / Europe: AmazonDE / ebayUK / PCHstore Brussel

image courtesy: photo.yodobashu

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