Manfrotto Digital Director for iPad Mini 4
£275/$300 Manfrotto’s clever iPad mount and app straddle the gap between a simple smartphone remote and a full tethered shooting set-up
Most cameras now incorporate Wi-Fi for remote control from a smartphone, but your phone screen isn’t that much bigger than your camera’s, connections can slow to set up, and the controls can be limited. At the other end of the scale are tethered shooting set-ups, where you control your camera via a computer and a cable; but these are too clumsy to use outside a studio.
Manfrotto’s Digital Director bridges the gap. In effect, it’s still tethered shooting, but the camera connects to your iPad instead of a computer. And because it connects to your camera via a USB cable rather than Wi-Fi, you get a crisp, lag-free Live View and more control over camera settings.
You could use the Digital Director hand-held, but it’s more effective mounted on an accessory arm. It comes into its own when you’re shooting subjects with a client present, with other photographers, or if you’re teaching photography to students, for example – in fact, it transforms the whole experience.
It’s also handy when you’re working single-handed and want need to adjust props (you can angle it so that the Live View display is visible from the subject position), or just want to stand back and take your time over the composition.
Build and handling
The Digital Director looks like little more than an elaborate iPad clamp, but round the back is a housing containing processing hardware, a battery compartment, a power switch, a USB socket and one for the power adaptor (supplied).
With the adaptor plugged in, the Digital Director will also charge your iPad via its Lighting socket. This connection is made automatically when you slide the iPad in.
You have to power up your devices in the right order – first the iPad, then the Digital Director, then the camera. It’s all trouble-free, though it can be a bit of a nuisance waking your various devices if they go to sleep.
Performance
The tap-focus adjustment is intuitive and precise, although the actual focus speed will depend on the Live View performance of your camera. You take a picture by tapping a big on-screen shutter button, and make adjustments to the camera controls by swiping ‘virtual’ ISO, shutter speed, lens aperture, exposure compensation and focus dials at the side of the screen. These feel a little more vague, and you have to change exposure modes on the camera itself.
You can transfer stills to the iPad for viewing, but you can’t do the same with videos. That’s both a surprise and a disappointment. You do get a live histogram, however, plus optional focus peaking and zebra displays and interval timer controls.