08-Jul-2020 Monitors, radio & photos

Tech photos

Another session of product photography. I'm slowly working through my "tech junk" collection, and assigning kit to one of three piles: keep, sell, dump or strip for parts. I'm photographing everything as I go. On today's list were 4-way SVGA monitor splitters and a car mount for my HTC Advantage.

Monitor splitters

I have two of these, but never used them. They split an incoming SVGA signal into four identical SVGA outputs. A splitter on my radio desk might be nice. I have two big transceivers, an FT-1000MP HF rig on the left and an FT-736RDX VHF and UHF set up on the right. I've previously had a logging PC positioned to the left of the desk. That's great for HF logging, but awkward for working on VHF and up. I could repurpose an ancient PCs as a radio computer, with a monitor at each end of the desk. A wireless mini-keyboard and mouse, or just the keyboard with built-in track pad, would let me work easily from either position. I guess at least one of the monitor splitters is joining the "keep" pile.

Remote operation

Yesterday I used an LED ring light with the light tent, and didn't use a remote shutter release. Today I opened up my "flash case" and pulled out three Yongnuo flash guns with wireless triggers. I also keep a wireless shutter release in the case, so I set that up as well. It didn't work. That was a surprise, as I've used a similar set up many times. The off camera flash worked flawlessly, but the remote trigger did nothing.

Cable fail

I could see the wireless receiver getting the command but the camera ignored it. I pulled out a couple of infra-red remotes, they worked fine. After a dig through various bags I found a couple of wired releases and a cable to let a Yongnuo flash-trigger act as a shutter release. Still no joy. Could this be the first time I've used the EOS 5D Mark 3 with a remote release? Possibly. I've worked that way a lot in the past, but I can only remember using the 5D Mark II. Now I was worried that the 5D3's remote socket was defective. I dug out my 5D2 and tried that; it worked perfectly with every remote release. This wasn't looking good. I have a fancy iShoot release, with a built-in timer. This seemed to click into place, the others are a friction fit. I tried the 5D3 again, making sure that each cable was pushed firmly in. That's better, now I had two cables that worked: the iShoot and a simple third party remote. Only the iShoot works reliably on the 5D3. My assumption is that the genuine Canon cable is designed to click into place, and only the iShoot does that. That the others work with the 5D2 is more by luck than design.

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© 2020 Terry Ebdon.

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