Benedikt Wolters

Today finally the parts from China arrived which I’ve ordered a couple of weeks ago. Baiscally, in order for shooting videos once in a while with my Canon 7D, I wanted to have some kind of external monitor, for a more precise control over focus while shooting. However, professional battery-operated video monitors that can can be connected through the HDMI-out, are somewhat expensive. Furthermore, they dont give you control functionalities such adjusting focus/shutter-speed/iso/aperture on screen.

So, since I’m a proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 which has a nice 5,5” 1.280x720 HD Super AMOLED Screen, I was looking for Anroid Apps to remotely control a DSLR by USB. The by far best app, I’ve stumbled upon was DSRL Controller, which is still in beta, but has a huge amount of functionality.

DSLR Controller allows you to virtually shift almost every setting to your Android device. Furthermore, there is also a Wi-Fi Passthrough that allows you to delegate all functionality to another android device connected by Wi-Fi. There is also support for timelapses, HDR and whatnot. Beneath DSLR Controller there are other apps available, which I find not that far evolved.

For hardware I’m using a cold-shoe to ball head adapter, which can be aquired from ebay for around 7 EUR.

To mount my Note 2 I’ve dismounted a mini tripod, which also can be found on ebay from China.

For connecting your DSLR to your Samsung Note 2, one needs a USB On-The-Go Cable, which is basically a micro USB cable which the 4th and 5th Pin shorted and connected to ground, there are a lot of videos on youtube on how to build a OTG cable. Alternatively, one can aquire a small USB-Cable for 1-3 EUR, what I did. Furthermore, one need a USB-To Mini-USB cable to connect the OTG Cable to your camera.

This is what the final result looks like. I’m pretty happy, however next up is to build some kind of hood to protect the screen from ambient light.