Remote control of Canon 6D from app

[Astrofriend]

Hi,
I continue to get my Star Adventure to perform better.

One very big problem if you have a camera that you can not tilt the display at, no tiltable display. I have the Canon 6D. It's almost impossible to see the display and do settings when the camera aim upwards to the zenith. I have until now used a very tall tripod, but that is something very big and not so friendly when travel.

Instead of buying a new camera I now test to use an app in my smart phone and used that to see the display in live view from the camera.

I have written a tutorial in an early stage of how I do that:

http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/tutorials/tutorial-canon-remote-control/page01-tutorial-canon-remote-control.html

I will correct and add more information when I get more experience from this.

I'm sure most of you alreday have done this, my concern is, how hot will the camera be. I have bad experience from this from earlier test with live view.

/Lars

Edited October 7, 2018 by Astrofriend

[cletrac1922]

Tks Lars

Will try with my Canon 600D

Not sure has Wi-Fi connectivity

John

[Astrofriend]

Hi John,

I tried to find a list of which Canon cameras that have WiFi built in, not so easy but here are some:

https://global.canon/cca/

https://www.canon-europe.com/cameras/wifi-cameras/

https://cameradecision.com/features/Cheapest-Canon-DSLR-cameras-with-Wifi

I can not see that your camera is in any of the lists, on the other hand my Canon 6D is not there in the list from Canon either, still it have WiFi.

/Lars

[Davey-T]

23 hours ago, cletrac1922 said:

Tks Lars

Will try with my Canon 600D

Not sure has Wi-Fi connectivity

John

The 600d only appears to have wireless flash control using a dedicated Canon flash unit.

Dave

[Astrofriend]

Hi,

If the camera has not built in Wifi there are maybe external wifi controllers from Canon or others. I have briefly read about them but don't have any details.

 

This night I did some astrophotographing and tested the app control over wifi.

It worked much better then I thoght it should do.

The pros:

It didn't drain the camera battery. Then maybe it doesn't increase the camera temperature much either. I check the exif data for the temperature later. As you maybe new most Canon EOS cameras with liveview has a built in temperature sensor.

The focus was easy to do, but it could had been even better.

To my surprise I could look at the photos that had been done even when camera is in action with new exposures. Perfect now I can check that the mount track as it should and focus doesn't change. Earlier I had to interrupt the exposure to see anything on taken photos.

The cons:

I need more zoom in the app when focusing to see the details. Maybe better with a pad, but then I need to bring that one with me too.

 

/Lars

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by Astrofriend

[Astrofriend]

I added one more page to my tutorial how to use the Canon Connect app to control the Canon EOS camera. I found a way to disable the annoying behavier of the camera to do a auto focus on every photo it takes but still have the lens in auto focus mode.

My tutorial:
http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/tutorials/tutorial-canon-remote-control/page01-tutorial-canon-remote-control.html

You find the last on page 4.

I use this when I only have the tripod with me, photographing meteor showers etc.

/Lars