My camera is not taking pictures

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How to setup your camera

There are many reasons why your camera is not taking an image when it is triggered by the RamperPro. The most common reasons are listed below. Please use another trigger cable when you are still unable to fire your camera. But we have found that broken trigger cables are very rare.

  • Check if your camera is not in auto focus mode because that could result on lost images if the camera cannot focus properly.We recommend to set the camera to manual focus and then focus manually on your subject before you start your shoot.
  • Is there a memory card in your camera?
  • The preview mode of the RamperPro needs two cables. You need to connect both the supplied trigger cable and the USB cable. This is done by design to make sure that both cables are connected properly before you start your shoot. Note that the current version of the preview mode doesn't work in Bulb mode. Set your camera to manual to use the preview mode.
  • Always disable live view when you use the RamperPro. The camera will not be triggered properly when live view is enabled and your camera battery will be drained too during long ramping shoots.
  • Make sure that you haven't configured your camera to use an external intervalometer. You can setup the RamperPro to be triggered by motion controllers. That way the RamperPro will take an image when the motion controller had made it's move. But this means that the RamperPro will wait for that external trigger. So external trigger means that the RamperPro will not fire the camera.

How to use a modern Canon camera like the 6D or 5DS

Modern Canon cameras behave a bit strange when they are connected via USB to a PC/Mac or the RamperPro. These cameras cannot be triggered via the remote cord when they cannot confirm that the subject is in focus. This is even true when you switch off the auto focus of the camera! This means that the camera will fail to take an image in dark conditions when the camera cannot confirm the focus (even when auto focus is switched off). There are three ways to overcome this:

  • Trigger the camera via USB
  • Do the lens twist trick as it is described here
  • Use AI Focus on these cameras. But you must make sure that the subject is in perfect focus when you start the shoot.
  • Use a manual lens. This could for example be a Nikon lens combined with an Novoflex adapter

Trigger your camera via USB

Its also possible to trigger the camera via USB and not via the remote trigger cable. That works fine when you are only using one camera. Its not recommended to USB trigger your camera when you are shooting with two cameras in stereo mode. The benefit of using USB and not the remote trigger cable is that you don't need to connect the trigger cable and the PC sync cable. Just connect the USB cable between the RamperPro and your camera. Make sure that USB triggering is configured on your RamperPro! Navigate to the camera1 and camera2 icons in the system menu (tools icon in the button bar). There you can set the property "Trigger by USB" to true.

Make sure that you have not configured to use an external intervalometer

Your camera will not fire when you have (accidentally) configured the RamperPro to be triggered by an external intervalometer and when the trigger is not there. How to find out:

  • You camera will take a preview image
  • You camera will fire only 1 time when you start a ramping time lapse. The first test image will still be taken.
  • The RamperPro will notify "EXTERNAL" as the interval in the status screen. Go to the status screen that is available on the home screen when a time lapse is running. Then press the arrow down button until you see the interval that is being used.

Your RamperPro is setup for an external interval when all of these points are true. Go to the I/O screen (tools icon and press the arrow down until you find it). Then set the I/O pins (all 4 of them) to be outputs. Use the arrow down from this screen since there are 4 of these settings. You can find more about integrating motion control hardware on this manual page.