Helicon Soft Forum

hello,

i am new to helicon remote and i really need some help - i shoot with a canon r5, several studio strobes and a remote connection via USB.
i first establish the connection with Eos utility, close it, open remote - a workaround my colleagues showed me, to hold the connection.
when i first installed it, it worked, but now - not anymore.
i re-installed it, but nothing helps.

First, helicon always triggers the strobes when i open it, which is not optimal.
Then, i always loose the Liveview, i need to go into the camera menue after every photo, the menue-settings are set back everytime.

i focus on the A-point with Autofocus, then add the B-point manually by using the arrows, >>. i do not touch anything else.
Camera settings are on single shot etc., lens is full range... i checked all mentioned points for trouble shooting.
But i am missing someting? I must do something wrong but i can not find it.

So, the first image of the stack is taken correctly, but all the following ones are super blurry and totally out of focus.
Helicon takes the correct amount of images it calculated, but the focus is just off.

Please excuse my raw english, i also speak german, if anyone is more comfortable in helping me out in german.

Thank you so much in advance, i need to shoot a lot of images here and i am kind of desperate.

Hello,

First of all, eliminate the EOS Utility from your workflow, it is not only not required but also can cause issues. Never run it at the same time as Helicon Remote, or before. And make sure it doesn't open automatically when the camera is connected.

MKrue wrote: 17.12.2025 14:11 First, helicon always triggers the strobes when i open it, which is not optimal.

This is because a photo must be taken, it's unavoidable.

MKrue wrote: 17.12.2025 14:11 the menue-settings are set back everytime.

What do you mean by set back, set back to what? This is the first time we're hearing about something like this.

MKrue wrote: 17.12.2025 14:11 So, the first image of the stack is taken correctly, but all the following ones are super blurry and totally out of focus.
Helicon takes the correct amount of images it calculated, but the focus is just off.

Check that your lens is set to Full range, if it has a lens switch. And check the autofocus mode in the camera, specifically - autofocus for live view (turn the live view mode on, then check AF settings). Make sure only the basic single-shot mode is selected, no tracking/continuous/servo/face detection etc.

Hi,

the problem in the beginning was, that Helicon does not connect at all without installing or running canon utiliy beforehand. my collegues ran into this issue and i did was well, so that was our workaround to make Helicon connect (the other teams work with helicon since 1-2 years, but the do not use strobes like i do).
Update: It does connect now (yay! maybe it was due to the new installation?) - and i uninstalled Canon Utility, in case it messed with the settings (which it does, if both are open at the same time, i avoided to do that). Closed all programs and only Helicon Remote is running.
Problem persists.

Trying to explain further:
The camera has 3 liveview mode for expoure simulation, active, during and deactivated, 2 with simulated light settings, helicon only shows a preview image if the setting 2 of the 3 menue options is active (set to option "during"). So when i start helicon, it is always de-activated, i have to activate it in the camera menue again and after the photos are taken, it is set back again to option 1. And the screen goes black again. And no matter what i set in the options, the liveview is always active whilst shooting (on camera), which drains the battery very fast and heats up the camera. It would be good if the setting would stay on option 2 and the camera liveview on the back of the camera could be off. Can that be done?

Lens is set to fullrange and all options are as recommended. It is single shot mode and no tracking or anything is active. I just double-checked.
The strange thing is, it DID work beforehand, but after trying it out the first few times, the stacking did not, it only produced green/pink-images. So now i usually export the Raw-files from LR as .dng or .tiffs into Helicon and the rendering now works.

Now that the stacking with Helicon works just fine - not so the Remote, it is always first images fine, than out of focus images. I really do need the remote for a faster workflow, a lot of work upcoming for several new books.

Any more ideas what could be the problem, i am sure something in the settings must be wrong, something i have to edit?
I checked all camera settings and solutions found in other posts, set mode to manual on the lens, that did not help, deactivated image preview etc., it is still: first image fine, following ones all blurry and out of focus.

The lens does follow the focus steps when i click on the >> arrows, it all works, just when shooting, the focus is not set at all.
As if remote is forgetting the focus setps.

Hi,

MKrue wrote: 18.12.2025 09:58 it only produced green/pink-images. So now i usually export the Raw-files from LR as .dng or .tiffs into Helicon and the rendering now works.

This should not happen with the default raw decoder (which is the "Raw-in-DNG-out" option). If you want to solve it let me know if it still occurs, but exporting from LR is also completely fine.

MKrue wrote: 18.12.2025 09:58 it is always first images fine, than out of focus images.

MKrue wrote: 18.12.2025 09:58The lens does follow the focus steps when i click on the >> arrows, it all works, just when shooting, the focus is not set at all.

I'm interpreting these as different problems and they might have different solutions. For the latter, if the focus simply doesn't move, everything I mentioned earlier is still applicable - the autofocus settings in the camera can cause this. But on top of that also check the image review/quick review setting in the camera, turn it OFF.
If nothing else helps, try resetting the camera body settings.

MKrue wrote: 18.12.2025 09:58 helicon only shows a preview image if the setting 2 of the 3 menue options is active (set to option "during").

It always shows the preview, but because you are set up for strobes the preview is underexposed (black) when the strobes don't fire. Yes, we need to look into this, and we will.

MKrue wrote: 18.12.2025 09:58the liveview is always active whilst shooting (on camera), which drains the battery very fast and heats up the camera

The sensor is what drains the battery and heats the camera up. Since it's a mirrorless camera, it's always in live view when it's on and there's nothing that can be done about it. It might be possible to turn the LCD off, but it has negligible power consumption compared to everything else the camera is doing.

Yes, the raw-decoder must have solved that problem! It no longer occures.

Quick review is turned off, it workes fine when i save the focus steps in Helicon Remote, but when shooting the stack, the focus is way off and it takes like first image in focus, point A, than an amount of images that are out of focus more and more.
it looks like it does not go from A to B but from A to somewhere way behing B... as if it jumps after shooting the A-point to a position far behind the ones i selected. So it does move, but not as planned.
I tried it with "to camera" and it is the same, Point B is done right, than all the following go more and more out of focus - the same direction, to the background. So, Helicon does go through the right amount of steps, flash fires - but the postion is always way off.

Resetting the camera did not help, lens in manual mode did not and all autofocus settings are as recommended. lens change did not help.
It seems to me like a calculation issue, i de-installed Helicon and re-installed but maybe it is ome setting?

Can i shoot the steps manually tough? If i take single images, the preview turns dark and all settings are deleted, so i can not do it by hand buy shooting an image for every focus step. After i shoot a single image, all saved focus steps are gone.

That sounds like it might be a configuration issue and not a problem with the camera. Before you press "Start shooting", what is the indicated "Interval" value in the Focus bracketing panel? Are you shooting in the "Auto" mode? After setting up the A and B points, un-tick the "Auto" checkbox and set the interval to a value 5x-10x smaller than it was (but no less than 1, obviously).

Yes, it does.
I already tried to shoot with auto and without but got the same results. Lets try again.
So, i start by checking how many steps i need and then i save A, by using the Autofocus button.
then i mode by >> until i reach the desired postion, then i save B. And start shooting.

So, before i start shooting, settings are:


Auto [x]
amount of images: 2
interval value: 47
Result: first image is Point A, second image way out of focus/blurry,


I follow your steps, i uncheck Auto [x], i set the value down 5-10x smaller,
to:

amount of images: 4
interval value: 3

Result: first image is Point A, the following ones are not totally blurry, but still do not move to B correctly.
image 3 and 4 are around Point B, but the other 2 are somewhere in between.

restart Helicon, one more try:

amount of images: 2
interval value: 47

i set:
amount of images: 4
interval value: 3
Auto is unchecked.

- and it seems to work! The steps are correct!

But that is weird, because that is exactly how i try to do it all the times before. A small number in the interval, not over 4.
So i will not end up with too many images (to save space).

Trying once more, starting from scratch:
Stunned. It works.

Why suddenly, tough?
Will be back to work on the 7th of january and try it out with the next project!

MKrue wrote: 22.12.2025 13:39 Auto [x]
amount of images: 2
interval value: 47
Result: first image is Point A, second image way out of focus/blurry,

This is normal. The interval is calculated at 47 which is a lot more than your distance from A to B, hence only 2 shots and the second one overshoots the point B massively. You need to calibrate the DOF calculator. If you know you want the interval to be 4, change the correction factor until the indicated step size becomes near 4, and click OK.

So , new project, same issue - i repeated the recommended steps, but the previous problem is back.
First image is fine, following ones are shot to far back and out of focus.
I have f18, interval 2 and image 2, auto was intervall set to 72.

Maybe something messes with the values, but i can not find what it is. And why it worked last time and now does not.
Must be something with those settings. Do you have any idea what it could be?

Greetings!

Hi, most likely it's working as intended, I'm not sure what's causing the confusion so I can't point it out. Un-tick the "Auto" checkbox and enter the interval between shots that you want (or enter the number of shots you want and the interval will be recalculated for that).

Hello, it is working now!
Changing the values in the DOF calculator seemed to have helped, although i really have tried that before,
now it works like a charm!

And after shooting a stack, the liveview no longer turns black and needs to be re-set in the camera, just once, before shooting.
I do not know why this works now, but it does.

I hope it will stay that way, because it speeds up my workflow so much.
Greetings!

Hello,

Happy to hear it's working now! Having to turn off live view exposure simulation only once is how it should be, no idea what was different before.