Helicon Soft Forum

Hi,
I am new here and I am currently evaluating Helicon Remote to see if it will suit my needs.
I did some search in this forum but couldn't really find a solution.

I plan to use Helicon Remote outside for focus stacking.
My camera is a Canon 6D mark 2 with a 100mm AF macro lens and one of these iOS devices: iPhone 13 mini (16.1) or iPad Pro 2nd Gen (17.7).
I currently only use the demo version until I established a good connection scenario.
This is my target: Connect the iPad Pro via USB to my camera.
However, until now the only working connection I managed is a wireless connection to the iPhone.


iPad Pro tethered: No camera found in Helicon Remote.
iPad Pro wireless: No camera found in Helicon Remote.
iPhone tethered: No camera found in Helicon Remote.
iPhone wireless: Camera found in Helicon Remote.

I have 2 OTG cables:
A cheap one from Amazon and the original Apple OTG USB 3 cable.
The camera uses mini-USB B.

I did some tests and it seems that so far only the Apple OTG is really usable.
At least with that cable I am able to browse images on the camera.
The cheap cable doesn't seem to work at all.


What I hope to achieve:
Connect my iPad Pro with the USB cable to the camera and use Helicon Remote to remote control the camra.

What I need to achieve:
Connect the iPad Pro by any means to the camera and use Helicon Remote to remote control the camra.
I do need the larger screen to perfectly focus the object.

Is there anyone that can give some sound advice?
Or do I just have bad luck that Helicon Remote isn't suitable?
I really hope it works because my first tests with my iPhone and wireless connection were really promising.

I haven't purchased a license yet and will hold back a purchase until I know a working solution.

Hi,

1. Wi-Fi: the exact same steps that work on your iPhone absolutely should work on the iPad. Do you get any error message? Is the camera not detected at all after you connect the iPad to the camera's Wi-Fi network?

2. USB: is it the 11 inch or 12.9 inch iPad Pro? I assume the latter, because it has the same proprietary connector as your iPhone so you can use the same OTG cable. In that case yes, the same cable will work. Make sure you have the latest version of the app installed (no updates in the App Store available for it), connect the camera with the OTG cable the exact same way it worked on iPhone, start the app, wait for ~10 seconds.

If the camera is still not detected: press the "Settings" button on the top right of the main screen (the icon with 3 horizontal lines) - Report a bug - proceed to send the report, we'll take a look.

Hi Catherine,

firstly, thank you for the fast response.
I have the 12.9 inch iPad Pro.
I continued trying and also tested alternative apps, of which none had focus stacking, despise the promise.
They could all connect and remote control the camera.
So I needed to get Helicon Remote working. It had to since the others worked.
Then I went back to have a long chat with ChatGPT.

I finally found the root cause: The Helicon Remote App requires network access in my iPad.
After enabling it I could connect the camera with the iPad in both USB and WiFi mode.
And Helicon Remote found the camera.

It looks like when I first started Helicon Remote I disabled network access.

Now I can hopefully test the focus stacking.

If that works well then this app is the ultimate solution and I save lots of money by not having to upgrade to a Canon mirrorless camera (which include focus stacking).

Thank you for letting us know about the solution, I didn't know this!
Yes, most likely there was a pop-up that you dismissed, which is very easy to do. We'll see if the app itself can check for it and show a message.