Infra-red remote: checking battery trick

[Spam]

I had a situation a short while ago where I was using an infra-red remote and it simply stopped working. I assumed the battery had died or wasn't making contact properly. Back at work I asked a techie if he could test the battery on his ammeter, and he suggested that I just click the remote while looking at it through my cell-phone camera. I did this and it turns out it's working just fine: you can actually see the light blink.

This works with a DLSR too, but only in LiveView. It's a handy alternative to prising the remote casing open and testing the battery with a meter.

I still don't know why it stopped working on the day.

[Mike Buckley]

I still don't know why it stopped working on the day.

An infrared remote requires either a direct line of sight between the remote and the camera or it needs an indirect line of sight that allows the infrared beam to bounce off various objects until it reaches the camera. If your situation didn't allow that, it's understandable that the shutter would not release.

[Spam]

An infrared remote requires either a direct line of sight between the remote and the camera or it needs an indirect line of sight that allows the infrared beam to bounce off various objects until it reaches the camera. If your situation didn't allow that, it's understandable that the shutter would not release.

That's something (one of the few things ) I do know Mike, and it wasn't the problem here: I was holding the remote right in front of the camera - taking bracketed exposures - and it was working fine up to a certain point.

[Mike Buckley]

When holding the remote very close to the camera, I've encountered situations when I was so close that I had to aim accurately. Backing farther away from the camera meant not having to aim so accurately.

Another possibility is that the switch on your remote has become unreliable. As far as I know, the only points of fallibility on a remote control are the switch and the battery.

[Spam]

Another possibility is that the switch on your remote has become unreliable. As far as I know, the only points of fallibility on a remote control are the switch and the battery.

I've just Googled a hunch, and it seems the hunch was right: apparently IR sensors (door openers and the like) often malfunction under bright sunlight. I was shooting bracketed exposures at different angles to the sun, and maybe it was just at one point that it was too direct (and, assuming it was the battery, I didn't try again elsewhere).

[loosecanon]

Be aware that with small button batteries when you use them there is often a voltage drop before recovery. A sure sign of a depleted battery is when the remote works and then doesn't, only to start working 10 minutes later.

The "trick" of looking at he remote using the camera sensor will show you how much IR light gets past the blocking filter - older cameras passed more.