Ever since the iPad was announced, we’ve had dozens of photographers ask us if:

  1. DSLR Camera Remote will run on the iPad; and
  2. Will this will finally let them directly control their camera using our app from the iPad without a computer in between the two

The answer is Yes for number 1 and No for number 2. Here’s why.

The iPad is running the iPhone operating system (OS) so our DSLR Camera Remote application runs just fine. As far as our app knows, it doesn’t care if it is an iPad, iPhone or an iPod Touch. Because our app was originally designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the user interface was designed for the 480 x 320 pixel resolution found on those devices {1}. As you well know, the iPad is substantially larger. 1024 x 768 pixels to be exact {2}.

When you sync your iPad with your computer, the DSLR Camera Remote will load just fine and assuming you’ve got our DSLR Camera Remote Server running and your supported DSLR tethered to that computer, you’ll be set. By default, the DSLR Camera Remote application will run in it’s smaller user interface. However, you do have the option to go into 2x mode where the interface is automatically scaled up to fill the screen. I’ll be honest, I thought it would look bad, but it actually looks okay.

The screen shots below give you an idea of how it looks. Both are full size screen shots taken on an iPad. Note in the lower right hand corner that there labels/buttons for 1x and 2x. Those are not labels for the image, but rather buttons to toggle between 1x and 2x modes. Therefore, on the screen shot of the smaller interface, you’ll see 2x which, when tapped, will enlarge the interface to what you see in the second screen shot.

DSLR Camera Remote running on the iPad in 1x mode.

DSLR Camera Remote running on the iPad in 2x mode.

If you click either of these images, you’ll see the full 1024 x 768 version to give you a life size idea of how it looks running on the iPad {3}

So, that answers question number 1 and you can see that the DSLR Camera Remote as it is today, works just fine on an iPad. Now on to question number 2 – will the iPad allow me to eliminate the computer from the equation and connect the iPad directly to the camera.

The short answer is no, you still need to tether the camera to the computer. The longer answer is that while there is the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit, it only solves one portion of the connection problem. This adapter neatly solves connecting the iPad to USB to mini USB connection issue, but it doesn’t get around how our product was initially designed using the supported software developer kits (or SDKs) that are provided by  Canon and Nikon.

Those SDKs, provided by Canon and Nikon, are only available in a format that runs on a Macintosh or Windows based computer. They are not provided in a programming language that is easily portable to the iPhone OS, the Android OS, etc, etc.. What we did was to embed those SDKs into our DSLR Camera Remote Server and then made sure that we put the code in place to have those SDKs (which are completely different between Canon and Nikon and even between camera models from the same manufacturer) talk seamlessly to the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and your tethered camera.

In order to eliminate the computer in the middle from the setup, we either have to wait for Canon or Nikon to make a version of their SDK available that runs on the iPhone OS {4} or we have to recreate it ourselves. This is something we’ve thought about doing, but obviously isn’t something we’ve started doing yet. I’m not ruling it out, but it’s no small undertaking so we aren’t taking the effort lightly.

So at the end of the day, for the foreseeable future, you will need to continue to have a laptop or desktop computer running the DSLR Camera Remote Server along with our DSLR Camera Remote app running on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. We know that you want us to get the app to the point where the computer isn’t needed and we want the same thing. I just don’t know when it will happen. In the meantime, it continues to work as it always has.

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  1. iPhone specs from Apple and iPod Touch specs from Apple [↩]
  2. iPad specs from Apple [↩]
  3. In case you’re wondering, the person in the photo is Chris Pethick, our VP of Engineering, who shot the photo remotely from the iPad. [↩]
  4. The Canon SDK specifically says that they have no intention of porting their SDK to any programming language other than what they currently provide. [↩]

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