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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