Helicon Soft Forum

1. Using Helicon Remote ver. 4.5.7 M - Registered Version.
2. Using Canon R6 II with the most up-to-date firmware as of this post.
3. Using Mac Max Studio
4. Tethered USB C to USB C Tether Tools 15' cable
5. WeMacro Rail

General Info:
I have had Helicon Focus & Remote for a few months now. I never really used the Helicon Remote. My setup was the following connect to the WeMacro via Mac Max Studio Desktop bluetooth (never had a problem). Run my rail with the WeMacro desktop app. I had an HDMI line from my R6 II to one of my monitors on my desk which was set to HDMI so i could see the live view form the camera when setting the start and endpoint. This has been my setup and it has worked great.

Now I have decided to give Helicon Remote a try. I liked the thought of the ability to control my setting on my camera from the program, without having to get up and walk to where my Macro Bench setup is if I needed to change change something. I also liked that I could run the WeMacro Rail from it as well. A few things I have noticed and maybe I am doing something wrong..?.?.?

1. The "Toggle Live View" works but it is odd. my R6II is set to C-1 for my in studio shooting, My C-1 mode has the Display Simulation "off" which means that the "live view" is on 100% of the time. I have Helicon Remote Activate Live View upon Connecting to Camera "Yes". In my simple mind my Camera is set to have live view on, and Helicon is set to show the live view. But this is not the case. When I start Helicon Remote, The live view shows up, I see what is infront of the lens, for less than a second, then my live view screen goes dark. When I go to my camera Helicon Remote changed my "display simulation form off to ExpSIM. which is not "live view" clicking the Helicon remote live toggle button does not do anything. I have to get up walk to the camera, get in the menu and go turn the camera back to display simulation to Off. I tried setting the camera to EXPSIM and then opening helicon to see if it would turn off the EXPSIM and set it to off for live view and nope that does not work. I tried setting Helicon remote to Activate Live View upon Connecting to Camera "No", and then once open clicking the button to start live view and nope that does not work as well.

So for Number 1 above it seems with the R6II that once you are up and running in Helicon, you need to go back to the camera and set your display to off. cause no matter what you have it set to Helicon will not turn it on and if it is on Helicon will turn it off and back into EXPSIM.

2. Setting the A and the B point is slow. Helicon once it moves you have to wait for the "blue line" to load before you can move it again. Unlike if you use the WeMacro program and you can hold the button down and it will move until you release it or it hits the front or back of the rail. I get it, this might be program limitation but if you are reading this do not expect to move the rail as fast as you can using the native Wemacro program.

Also, adding on to number 2 above, it does not appear that Helicon does any sort of backlash/configuration when you press the start button. I have noticed that when I use Helicon with the WeMacro that it just does not seem to run right. Maybe I am wrong.?.?. but I have been setting my A point a little further back in hopes that it will "act" like a backlash when it starts. But not ideal.

3. I have noticed a lot of misfires when using Helicon Remote. sometimes no issues, and then sometimes halfway through the stack it misfires every other photo. I have pleaenty of wait time, after my reail moves I have it set for 4 seconds before it fires again.


That all said, I have decided to do a hybrid Helicon Remote & WeMacro Program set up that one of my friends says she does because of this same issues I am having.

1. I use the WeMacro Program to control the rail and the shots.
2. Instead of HDMI to my monitor. I keep my camera tethered to tether cable, and I have Helicon remote up and running. This gives me the best view of the subject when I am moving the rail back and forth, as well as after each shot shows me a preview for about 2 seconds which is nice, and it writes the images to my external SSD too. so when I am done I do not have to go to the camera and pull a card out. The only suckie part is that I still have to get up and screw with the display setting since this program turns it off when it is plugged in. But I will deal with that given I do not have to keep taking cards in and out, and with it saving to the SSD I can look at each one as they come in. its nice to have the histogram there too. with my BenQ screen I have a lot of room for the view area.

All in all I think I would use this as a stand alone if #1 the live view could get sorted, #2 find out why my photo/rail seems to be off (backlash maybe), and #3 i could move the rail faster from A to B. but till then, I do like what my new setup in terms of controling the rail with the native wemacro program and viewing the live views to see my start and end on the Helicon and that it is saving my images to the ssd

Hello,

Sorry you encountered some issues with Helicon Remote. Generally it should just work, and these are not common or even known problems. Let me reply in order.
1. There is no need to change anything on the camera while Helicon Remote is running, don't do that. Leave in in exp. sim. Do you see live view on the screen? If not - something is wrong, please send a bug report at this point: menu - Help - Report a bug.
2. There is no backlash to speak of in the Wemacro rail. Yes, there is no backlash compensation, it's not needed, we have quite a few customers using Wemacro and no one has ever complained. I don't know why it would be off, that's really unusual. Does the offset accumulate if you keep moving between A and B (using the arrow keys next to the A/B buttons)?
Regarding the speed: make sure you're in the millimiter mode and not micrometer mode: Helicon Remote menu - Preferences - Wemacro.
3. What do you mean by misfire?

I have the exact same problem with my R5 as describes with the exposure simulation settings in camera and the screen going dark, i also need to re-set them after every stack.

Hello,

First, a caveat pre-emptor. While I’m not a novice photographer and have years of experience with computers and technology BUT Extreme Macro is a new area for me. So expect some ignorance. My apologies if I confuse you more than enlighten.

I am just setting up my macro environment: Mac Studio M1 8mb memory, all it does is tethered capture, I process on a real computer Wemacro rail, Sony α7R V, Helicon Remote.

The Sony α7R V is not officially supported by Helicon but I spoke to Catherine and she indicated that user feedback has been positive so I am giving a go. So far no issues that I can tie to camera support.

What interested me about your post, jaldri01, were:

1. The slow movement of the rail is very frustrating. Catherine, I don’t think setting to millimetres is a real solution. I’m set to microns because I want fine control over the steps. Unless you mean you can set it to millimetres and then use 0.001 as the step size. If that speeds up the rail, I’d do it, but it’s awkward and then why offer the micron or millimetre option. ? I also agree that pressing the >>> button should move the rail as long as it’s held down. Also, I’ve noticed that the buttons in the interface are very slow to respond visually. Perhaps this is because it’s not a native Mac app or I’m running it on a very low-powered computer. I don’t experience slow interface reactions in other programs, however.

2. I don’t have enough experience to say definitively whether backlash compensation is needed on Wemacro. All the conventional wisdom I’ve read online suggests it should be accounted for:

The WeMacro rail compensates for backlash through an automatic software calibration process, either via the phone app or computer program.

3. jaldri01, I’m very interested in your description of the hybrid setup. It sounds like a solution that could work well for me. How do you keep your Canon R6 tethered and have the shutter attached to the WeMacro? And if WeMacro is running the rail and firing the camera, how does Helicon grab the images back to the computer? I’m confused about the wiring. Can you please clarify? Thanks.

4. I agree 100% that the images should end up on disk rather than the card. That’s pretty much a hard requirement for me. However, I think you’d have a better quality live view via HDMI. I’ve never wired my Sony directly to a monitor, but I’ll probably try now.

Again, apologies for any confusion. I’ll improve

Joel

Hello Joel,
There is no difference in positional accuracy between the um and mm modes, only in the movement speed. You can specify a fractional step size, e. g. 0.01 mm = 10 um. The limit of 2 fractional digits is just in the interface, we can change to 3 if you want steps of less than 10 micrometers, but I doubt you actually need them so small. You can go smaller than 1.0 um too, it's 64 microsteps per um.

I_am_Joel wrote: 02.01.2026 21:23 I’ve noticed that the buttons in the interface are very slow to respond visually.

Could you record that on video and share it with me? We haven't heard of such a problem, and it's definitely not because it's not a native app.