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I want to use my camera with the Iconasys shutter release tables.  I have one of the following tables:

  • Silver series Jewelry, Medium, Large or XL turntable
  • Platinum series Mid (discontinued), Large, Large Mark II, XL, XL Mark II, or XXL


Warning
titleManual Focus Mode Only

When shooting in shutter release mode, the camera should always be in manual focus.

Step-by-step guide

The Iconasys Silver and Platinum series turntables have a shutter release port, which can be used with any camera that supports a shutter release cable.
The shutter release cable should be used when users have a camera that is not supported by Shutter Stream or users want to use the turntable with
a third party software, such as Capture One or Lightroom.  Here are the steps:

  1. The shutter release cable, supported by all Iconasys turntables, is a standard 2.5mm stereo cable with the pin-outs shown below:
     
  2. If your camera uses a 3.5mm cable, you can purchase a 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter, from places such as Amazon.  Here is one example:
    1. Cable Leader: 2.5mm Stereo Male to 3.5mm Stereo Female Adapter
    2. Amazon: 2.5mm Stereo Male to 3.5mm Stereo Female Adapter
  3. If your camera uses a different adapter for the shutter release, please contact your camera manufacturer and ask them about providing you a cable that adapts to the stereo triggering configuration shown above.  They should be able to provide you with the proper cable that converts the shutter, focus and ground signals from their camera to the standard stereo header.
  4. The trigger signals are controlled via an optically-isolated coupler as shown below.

  5. On the Platinum series, the software sends the focus signal first.  This is done by closing the switch between the focus (F) and common (C or ground).  
  6. On the Silver series the focus (F) is grounded as soon as the cable is inserted in the table.
  7. After the focus (F) is grounded, a few milliseconds later that shutter signal (S) is grounded.  
  8. Once the shutter (S) is grounded, and assuming that the focus (F) remains grounded, the camera is supposed to trigger.  
  9. The shutter release operation is ONLY supported inside the turntable controller software.  It is NOT supported by Shutter Stream, because Shutter Stream uses the USB connection to control the camera triggering.
  10. Open up the Turntable Controller and click on the Advanced settings, as shown above.
  11. Check the option to trigger the camera via shutter release before the turntable turns.
  12. To manually test the shutter release, click the "Shutter release" button, as underlined above.

Troubleshooting

If you are running into issues getting your turntable to trigger your camera, here are a few things to check:

Tip
titleShoot in MF

Shoot in manual focus by physically setting the camera lens' switch or the switch on the camera to MF mode.


  1. First, make sure you are shooting in Manual mode and not in Auto-focus mode.  To be certain, change the physical switch on the lens from AF to MF:

    When in auto-focus, the camera is supposed to focus when the focus signal is triggered, but in some cases the internal focus is not fast enough to finish by the time the shutter signal comes and the camera won't fire if the focus is not finished.  To eliminate the need for focus, set the camera to manual and now the camera will only listen to the release command.  When shutting in shutter release mode, the camera should always be in manual focus.
  2. On some Nikon cameras, the MF or AF focus is not on the lens, but on the camera's body itself, as shown:

    For these cases, please flip the camera switch to MF, to make sure you are shooting in manual mode and that focus setting issues do not interfere with the shutter release issues.
  3. If you are using a shutter release extension cable, or a very long shutter release cable, please test without the extension cable first, or with a shutter release cable that is at most 6 feet in length.  We have ran into many issues related with very long cable lengths and weak triggering signals.

    Tip
    titleTest with Short Cables

    For testing and verification that the shutter release works, do not use super long, or extension cord, shutter release cables.  


  4. Based on our experiments, please pay attention to the following:
    1. Even though the shutter (S) is grounded by a physical signal, the actual triggering is a software trigger.  The camera simply issues a software command to the camera to trigger the camera.  This is important to realize, since the shutter release is NOT a hardware synchronization signal.  We have seen cases where the camera was busy and all the shutter release signals were processed together, when the camera became available.
    2. On some Canon cameras, we noticed that if connecting the USB port, in tandem, some cameras may have an issue using the shutter release.  If the desire is to use the shutter release in conjunction with the USB (tethering), the order in which the shutter release cable and the USB cables are connected may matter.  Test your camera without the USB cable first, and using ONLY the shutter release cable.  If this works, then experiment with the order in which the USB (tether) and the shutter release cables are connected to the powered camera. 

Cables which work with our software:

For Sony A7III, the cables from Sony and Amazon weren’t the right ones. This is the cable that works: Kaiser 2S shutter release cord Sony - Kamera Express (kamera-express.nl)

https://www.kamera-express.nl/kaiser-2s-shutter-release-cord-sony?channable=003655696400313232333831383207&gclid=CjwKCAjwgr6TBhAGEiwA3aVuIR7mMdNom1lkdKcjjwSAfcPSrdA9dotz_noRPo_hfFqrjlNXxjf_7hoCgKUQAvD_BwE

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