Helicon Soft Forum

Hi,
I have a Canon EOS 5D SR and a Sigma 180 1:2.8 Apo Macro and tried your software before I want to buy it but it seems the stepping of the focus does not work correctly.
It steppend the first 2-3 times, then the stepping noise of the lens sounds different. Before it was a slight click and now it is a weak thud and it won't change the focus anymore. I can try from scratch several times and it sometimes does 10-12 steps and then it won't work anymore and suddenly it does another 2 steps and doesn't work anymore. It doesn't matter if towards the camera or to infinity. I had one the luck to step from near to far the amount I wanted, but that was pure luck.
I once set the near focus and then stepped all the way to the far focus and saved that but it didn't step to near anymore so I could start the recording.
This is really strange as I never had issues with the lens and it seems as if the stepper motor is not excited enough to make a step, but batteries are all full, I put it to full focus range and set it to AF.
Is there anything I have to set in the Camera to make it work?

Right now I cannot really get anything useful out of the software to be worth a purchase. So I would be happy if you could help me get it to work properly.

Thanks,
Boris

Hi Boris,

The Sigma lenses are notorious for some of the models not working with remote control, but usually it just doesn't work at all, while in your case it sort of works sometimes. This is certainly not a software issue, so if there is something that could help, it's the camera body settings and the lens settings.
1. The range switch definitely must be set to full. On top of that, try turning the optical stabilizer off.
2. Make sure the most basic single-shot autofocus mode is selected in the camera body settings (no servo/continuous/tracking/face detect/AI/etc.). Note: you must unplug the camera from your computer, turn live view on, and only then check the AF settings because most of the new Canon cameras have separate AF settings for live view and non-live operation. Helicon Remote shoots in live view so you should check the AF mode for live view.
3. I know I said this is not software-related, but now that I think about it, you should also go to Helicon Remote preferences - Canon, and increase the pause between focus steps. Set it 500 ms, perhaps even 1 second just to be certain it's sufficiently long for sure. Focus adjustment will become slower, but slow and correct is better than fast and unusable.

Hi Catherine,

That's not good, I only have that one Sigma Macro lens. It is strange that it is behaving this way. Because you can hear it click but it doesn't step and it is a slightly different noise when it steps. As if for some reason the threshold was not reached to step it, almost like there was too little power supplied to the focusing motor.

The only thing I had to change was the single-shot mode. The rest was already set.
It didn't work either.
It stepped again like 4-7 times then stopped while it was trying to step 15 times or so and then stepped twice and then not anymore.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Boris

It probably will not help in this case, but for peace of mind, have you tried increasing the pause between focusing steps? Also, on the same preferences page in Helicon Remote, make sure "Big" step size is selected and not "Small".

Hello Catherine,

I already tried to set the auto focus time and delay time high. Autofocus is on 10s and delay on 2s and it didn't help.
The step size was "big" already.

Then I'll have to see if I can find another tool for that.


Thank you,
Boris