Three years of work. Three years of coding, engineering, sleepless nights with pizza and coffee… you know the drill. But it’s finally here, despite of all non-believers trying to steer us off course. We made it!
A bit of history first. The thought came to me when I was running around with a tripod and a D200 trying to grab some night HDRs, and kept on stumbling into 30 seconds barrier with in-camera bracketing. It got me thinking… and I had an idea 
Everybody, please meet the Promote Control. To my knowledge, it’s the first commercially available remote control for digital cameras that can talk to a camera over USB while staying portable. This means we can do external bracketing just like you could do with a tethered camera (i.e. by connecting it to your computer) – but this time you won’t need your computer! The whole unit is less than 6 oz and easily fits into your pocket. A backlit LCD screen will help you work even in complete darkness, while big keys can be easily used in gloves for those cold outdoor sessions.
Now for the interesting stuff. Add an optional shutter cord (in addition to the USB), and you can do exposure bracketing… with Mirror Lock-Up before each shot! It needs to be supported by the camera of course. You can even setup the MLU delay – anywhere from 1 to 20 seconds. And if your bracketing ends up jumping beyond that 30 second barrier, Promote Control will put your camera into Bulb mode and use shutter cable to time the exposure. Is this cute or what?
It also got more common modes like Time-Lapse (also with MLU if desired) and a “One Shot” mode where you can optionally set camera exposure from the remote control (starting from 1/4000s – we got USB control, remember?). There is a user setup menu with a bunch of settings, including variable display backlight intensity (and even backlight color in RGB!), all sorts of timers etc. The whole unit is powered from 2 AA batteries (and it likes them all, from NiMH to alkalines) – and if you are into astrophotography with hours worth of exposure times, hook it up to an AC adapter and forget about batteries.
I hope it’s going to be as much of a joy to use as it was to design it. I want to thank all our team at Promote Systems that spent nights making sure this baby sees the light. I want to thank everybody who was with us through this project, including my family and friends. You all have been a great support guys… we couldn’t have done it without your help and support.
I have a favorite Sci-Fi TV series – somehow I preferred it to others. It’s called “Babylon 5″. It started as a foster project with unclear future, and ended up having a bunch of fans. In its final season they’ve said some words that burned right into my mind, and I will remember those words forever.
“We dedicate this to all those who didn’t believe in the success of this project.
Faith manages.”
The impossible just takes a little longer. Great job breaking the code.
Do you know if any of these have been sold in Austin? I’d like to check it out before buying one. It looks like it will do everything I need it to do but I need to activate it remotely.
Where are the Promote Control product shots? If you send me a demo to try out I’ll get you a few good shots.
You’re going to sell a lot of these to Canon shooters.
Phil
“The impossible just takes a little longer”… couldn’t have said it any better – thanks Phil! We currently have no dealers in Austin… but have one in Houston:
http://www.houstoncameraexchange.com
They should have some left in stock, and if they don’t, let me know and we will send more to them.
Remote activation is certainly possible – at this time we have no ready-made sensors, but with a bit of DIY you will make a remote activation cord within 30 minutes. We will be glad to assist any way we can (specs, part numbers, etc), and if you end up making a good remote activation sensor, maybe it can even work out as a commercial product for you. As a matter of fact we plan to publish all documentation required to make remote activation cords and sensors.
P.S. Product shots are in order… we just have our hands full at the moment
Oh, and thanks for your compliments!
Hi,
I’ve spent my afternoon searching for a solution to increase the limited possibility of my D80 which can only take sets of 3 frames at -2,0,+2 when i stumble upon the promote control…
just two questions to be sure :
Take a set of 5 pictures at -4,-2,0,+2,+4 is not a problem with the promote control ?
Is there a way to automatically take these 5 pictures with a single press on the shutter ?
I think that if you’d make a little demonstration video showing us everything, that would be very helpful
I’ve got the same problem than you two years ago >> an old post from me
http://www.panoguide.com/forums/qna/3434/
best regards,
Nikko
Hello Nikko,
Both questions are a Yes
You can set up a sequence like that with just a few button clicks, and it will be activated by one click of the Start button on the Promote Control. We are also looking into making a series of instructional videos showing various capabilities of the Promote Control. Let me know if I can be of further help!
Regards,
Arty
Thank you very much … that promote control looks definitely very interesting … i can already foresee his future success among the panorama photographer community
Best regards,
Nikko
Is the Promote Control compatible with the Canon 5D camera?
Unfortunately the original Canon 5D camera is not compatible with Promote Control. The original 5D uses a proprietary Canon USB protocol that is completely different from the one they switched to in the more recent models. They do not seem to have any more interest in producing cameras with the old protocol.
Was wondering if the timelapse function can be programmed by setting eg. 300 images or at least displays how many frames it has taken?
Is the cradle option be available with some sort of retractable cable as suggested on the hdrilab forums. Perhaps some thing like a tape measure only its for a cable. Another thing would be to have GPS sitting off the flash mount and connected through the unit itself. I’m trying to find ways of mounting it for aerial panos.
sorry forgot to ask if you have any dealers in sydney australia to have a look at the available products?
You can certainly take 300 images in a time-lapse sequence – Promote Control will show how many images are remaining, and will also show the remaining delay before taking the next exposure in HH:MM:SS. We are currently designing a tripod leg mounted cradle for the Promote Control, however I cannot yet comment on the expected availability.
Unfortunately we don’t yet have dealers in Australia – but if you know a store that might be interested in carrying our products, please feel free to refer them! We will be glad to have them onboard
I would love to see that cradle happen sooner so as to make me get my hands on the remote. No pressure here. Ha! Ha!
cheers
We’re working on a cradle solution at this time – I will make sure to post the news here as soon as we get it done!
Heard about your great product via http://twitter.com/HDRphotography – I’m in the UK and have a D90 – are there any recommended stockists you are using in the UK ?
If not, what is the best way to get hold of one ??
The UK photographers are gonna like this !
Cheers, Steve
Hi Steve,
We are currently discussing dealership status with several UK-based retailers. At this time the fastest way to get a Promote Control is to order from our website. We ship via USPS EMS and it normally takes about 7 days to get there. Thanks!
Hi Arty, I’m following all the developments on the HDRLabs. Must say with all the proposed talk the product will be significantly in its own niche.
However I do have another question for you,
is it possible to do a HDR timelapse sequence with the Promote?
Combining both features for the purpose would be a solid idea.
have a current requirement that needs the feature.
As for now I’m manually doing a 7 exposure bracket every 8 secs d300 with MD10 and remote shutter release. tell you its a pain in the backside attempting. The promote would be best suitable for this.
We are currently working over making HDR timelapse happen – it’s mostly a UI issue, as we have limited screen space and we will need to allow setting twice as many options as we have now. But I think we will work it out. However it’s possible to daisy chain two Promote Controls and have one do the time-lapse, and another one will do the HDR. The cable to connect them would be a simple 3.5mm to 2.5mm stereo audio wire. If you’re interested, write us a note using the contact form on the website, and we will help further with this. Still, we have plans to make HDR time lapsing work.