December 2nd - Remote Shutter Release

When dealing with longer exposures, keeping your camera still on a tripod is essential to avoid camera shake. To help with this is an equally important piece of kit the Remote Release. These are designed so you can auto focus or manually focus and then take the photo without touching the camera – therefore stopping unnecessary shake and blurring on your pictures.

Like most things photography related there is so much to choose from in type of remote release you can get. For example do you want a wired remote release or a infrared remote release or a radio triggered remote release. Then do you go for your camera makes version i.e. Nikon/Canon or a 3rd party tool. There is no quick answer to any of these questions and it really boils down to the same thing and that is budget! If you can afford it I would recommend the wireless remote shutter release, out of the two kinds already mentioned (radio/infrared) I'd go with the release that works with a radio trigger. The disadvantage of infrared is that you can't use it from behind the camera, the remote needs to be facing the front of the camera. It also has a limited distance on where you can trigger the shutter from. With a radio trigger you can control the shutter sometimes from  distance of 320ft (depending on model). These are great devices not just for long exposures but sometimes very quick exposures. Think about macro photography, what would you rather do chase a bee or butterfly around all day or set your camera up, sit back, enjoy the sun and when the moment arrives fire away!