Has anyone else encountered issues using infrared based intervalometer?

[erotavlas]

I made my own IR intervalometer from an old iPod Nano with IR transmitter attached to the headphone jack. My camera is the Sony Nex 5N. Now I've used it on several occasions with perfect results to do star trails and one timelapse movie. However most recently I have noticed that I'll come back to the camera after maybe 2 or three hours and the camera is no longer taking images. Furthermore after examining the results there sometimes are gaps or misfired shots where the shutter wasn't open for the expected duration

I have my own special battery pack by the way so there is still plenty of power available to run the camera. I checked the iPod and it appears to still have quite a bit of battery power left and is still playing the shutter release sequence. But the camera is stopped taking pictures.

Now I have several theories why this may be

1- The buffer in the camera was taking too long at some point to write the image to the SD card thus when the iPod transmitted the shutter release signal, the camera wasn't ready and missed it - screwing up the whole sequence.

2- Something like a bug or condensation (I'm shooting at night) gets in the way of the signal

3- Drops in temperature causing the batteries to fail prematurely (I checked the battery pack I'm using on the camera and it appears to be fine - perhaps it is the iPod nano battery)

4- iPod just stopped playing the tracks for some reason

However I'm not sure which is the correct explanation

Overall I wish to eventually upgrade to a camera that supports tethered intervalometer. I find that IR can be prone to error.

Has anyone else had any issues using an IR intervalometer on Sony E-Mount cameras? (or other cameras that use IR)

 

[480sparky]

Turn off the camera's noise reduction function.... that alone eats up a LOT of processing time.

 

[erotavlas]

Turn off the camera's noise reduction function.... that alone eats up a LOT of processing time.

I always have done that in order to achieve less that one second gap between shots. Particularly important for star trails.

 

[astroNikon]

you could always put a black piece of construction paper taped on top of the camera and have it going back to cover the iPod. This will help minimize light (at least from above) and help keep Dew from getting on it. Not good when it's windy though. I used this on my old telescope with camera.

Can't help on the intervalometer part though. Once reason I bought a Nikon dslr .. It's invaluable. Some Canon's have it now. And you can get many hand held units when they are supported.