where there’s smoke there’s fire

Foreword:

Well, first and foremost, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Vadim K.Riez, I’m in my forties, and when it comes to my occupations and hobbies, it turns out that I wear many hats: I am a Photography CTO, a Commercial photographer specializing in Technical and product photography, an Integration Ninja and a keen adept of everything based on innovative technology. I am absolutely in love with every aspect of photography, and it has been a major part of my life for the past twenty years. Over the years I have shot with many models and types of cameras, made by different manufacturers. But my personal preferences lay with Nikon. And this is mostly due to two reasons. First of all, starting from D800 – Nikon DSLR body abilities and functionality have met over 90% of my demands` checklist, and second of all – because I know exactly what to expect from the NEF files they produce. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a “perfect” camera, and all camera bodies from all manufacturers have their cons as well as “childhood diseases”. But when it comes to Nikon gear – I am very well aware of cameras` capabilities and shortcomings, and have found my ways to work around them. What drove me to write down this post – is ONE particular shortcoming of Nikon gear that drove me nuts up until the point I have decided to try and build a custom made solution. Ready for a bit of a long-read with technical whining?
Here we go!

The problem:

Over the past two years I have been working with the Z series cameras which superseded my D810 and D750 bodies. I am very happy with the integrability and flexibility that the Z bodies and the new Z mount provide. All of the limitations I have encountered in DSLR bodies were finally resolved in the Z series: The Live View is very detailed and has quite an impressive refresh rate, the shorter flange and bigger inner throat diameter of a new bayonet – allow for mounting these camera bodies pretty much everywhere with almost any kind of optics attached. Their size and weight allow for integration in all kinds of rigs, where mounting a DSLR camera would have call for more bulky solutions. Everything is really nice and I’m overly happy. Spare one thing: The lack of ability to remotely control the camera in a proper way. Let me explain: Apart from a simple remote control, that initiates the shutter through a dedicated camera port, up to this moment there has been no proper solution for doing more sophisticated things remotely (without touching the camera). For instance zooming in and out during Live View, or panning the zoomed area across the frame to check for sharpness or DOF distribution.

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