Helicon Remote

[ChrisR]

To be clear, this is the focus shifting program, not the image-combining stacker.

I've been trying to get HR to work with a Canon 80D.
Methods are:

1) by wire from Android phone
2) By wire from Windows
3) By wifi from Android phone
4) I'm not sure if it should be possible, by wifi from a laptop. I haven't been successful. Helicon haven't answered.

I have been using the Helicon Remote forum for guidance.

I've found the Instructions lacking. One is for example asked for a mysterious Name, or Address, or given no apparent next step when "nothing happens".
You find yourself discovering something buried in FAQs which would stop anyone getting the program to work.

Having spent a small number of hours over a couple of weeks, I've stopped trying.

It's fussy. EG you have to have a specific Autofocus mode set in specifically Live View focusing, or nothing happens. There's no error message.
If you have used Canon software to communicate with any camera before, HR won't work, period.
Their advice is to Uninstall (not simply stop) any other camera-connecting software including from Canon.
There's no instruction that covers this properly, you only find out when you have trouble.

By Wifi from Android, I can't get the software to communicate with the 80D camera at all. The phone connects to the Canon, but HF doesn't work, or it presents a mismatch to the camera which rejects it.

Using a cable from a laptop, it "works" but the focus is much too slow while checking through the scene. So much so that I found it impractical. You can focus a lens from near to far in several "large" button press steps, but it still takes a matter of minutes, each way. You need to do that to set the stop and start positions, and check the stepping.
They say make the steps larger - but then you'd get banding. 20 seconds would still be too slow.

Canon software is fast - but it doesn't shoot you a stack.

The Canon 80D apparently presented something new in the protocols, which required significant work at Helicon and a new release of the software. (EOS Remote can't be used, they replaced it with Canon Connect.)
I hope they treat the 80D implementation as a work in progress, and sort it out.
I'm not confident abouth the need to remove Canon software though.
Away from a network, since the Canon software (EG Canon Connect) works, I wouldn't want to remove it.

It feels like you can't drive down the street unless you get everyone else's car towed away first

I'd be intrested tyo hear if anyone else has had different experiences with it. I may have done something wrong - no way to be sure.

[nathanm]

I have used it a fair bit and it works well for me. I have always used it by wire on a Windows computer.

If I have a different tethering program (DLSR Remote Pro, Capture One) on the same computer it can't be up at the same time because they fight for camera control.

[ChrisR]

What camera is that, Nathan?

[ray_parkhurst]

HR works perfectly for me on my Canon's. I mostly use a T2i, sometimes an old XS. Have you used it with older bodies, and are just having the issue with the 80D?

[nathanm]

I have used HR with successive generations of Canon 5D: 5D, 5D II, 5D III and 5D SR. I generally use it with the 100 mm macro, or the 50 mm macro, and rarely with other lenses.

I tried to use HR with the PhaseOne XF, which supposedly is supported but that didn't work, probably because the PhaseOne firmware had changed between what HR had worked with and my camera. But the PhaseOne has a built in feature that is similar to what HR does (you set near and far and if the lens is autofocus, it uses the autofocus motors to collect a stack for you), so I didn't push this.

The only awkward thing is that I generally use a tethering program to get the exposure right, then I switch to HR to do the stack. That requires shutting down the other tethering program as mentioned above. I have tried setting exposure etc in HR but it is more clumsy at that.