Timer remote shutter release from eBay

[guggle (Michael)]

Hi everyone,

Looking at buying this timer remote shutter release from eBay.

Just wondering if anyone has used one or something similar before? Are they worthwhile? The price seems a little too good to be true - is that what you'd expect to pay for something like this?

[MrB (Simon)]

Junk.
I've got one and it's usable but there are reasons these things are so cheap.
Off the top of my head:
1: The direction pad button (the big one under the screen) also has the select button in the centre.
While moving left/right or up/down, quite often it will select when you don't want to. The opposite is true too, when you try to press the centre button to select, it'll bump left or right or up or down. Say you move up/down to try and adjust the time to 5 mins, you hit set and it'll bump it up another to 6min. Frustrating.
This is not fat finger syndrome, it is just poor quality.

2. The shutter button has a slider to lock it on. You push the shutter button and slide it up to lock the shutter, slide it down to release the shutter. After only a few days this locked on for me and wouldn't let go.
I had to pry it out with a screwdriver, the button cap and slider flew off somewhere never to be seen again and I don't care. The pushbutton still works but I have to hold it down without the slider. No problem for the short exposures that this is used for anyway.

3. Time is not accurate. Do a 5 min exposure(300sec) and the exif data will report 305seconds, or 304, or 306.....

4. Battery life is crap. It used two AAA batteries, which for a device like this should last years. They don't. Even without the backlight on, it chews thru the batteries.

They do work, and I've got my money's worth out of it(!), but never again.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

I got one and don't have any issues with it, it's what I use to control my dslr for all my AP and time lapses. As mentioned over longer exposures the timer can be out a few seconds, doesn't worry me. Full batteries with last you six months or so if getting a lot of use.

For the price I'd say it does a great job.

Cheers
Jo

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

I prefer this design over the one with the dial on the side, I bought one of those off ebay and it didn't work properly, it definitely didn't work as it said it should... buttons were erratic, didn't work some of the time. Eventually sent it back and ended up buying one from a local shop for $160 but it hasn't missed a beat, and gets bashed around quite a bit. For the price you are paying it probably will work pretty well, but don't get too disappointed if it doesn't, it's like a lucky draw with this kind of stuff.

[acropolite (Phil)]

I bought one of the Pixel TW-282/N3 Wireless remotes, from an ebay seller. The TW-282 comes in 2 parts, a hotshoe mounting trigger and a cordless remote, range is excellent, at Qld Astrofest I could watch the timer countdown and trigger another exposure from 40 or so metres away inside a brick building. (claimed range is up to 100 metres) Cost was around $80 without any batteries but well worth the money. Not sure about battery life but I didn't manage to flatten the batteries despite 8 very long nights of continuous use at Astrofest. The remote is capable of triggering multiple receiver units, handy for triggering multiple cameras on the one mount, however the only way to get additional receivers is to buy the tx/rx pair.

FWIW Pixel make some nifty remote control Triggers including ttl flash remote triggers.

http://www.pixelhk.com/Proshow.aspx?id=299

Review here http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/p...te-review.html

[guggle (Michael)]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts!

[killswitch (Edison)]

Ive got the real nikon remote and a fake one. The fake one i got is 1 sec off per 1 minute of exposure. I just add an extra second to compensate. For $200 real vs $20 fake i think its worth it.

The real remotes really only has about $30 worth of circuitry in it. Some dodgy reverse engineering must have occurred to create the clones.

[Zubenel (Wes)]

Ga day ,
Does everything it need for next to zero dollars
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/370549602...84.m1497.l2649