Satechi TR-M Timer Remote Control for Nikon D90

by Satechi

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B001QSG4R8
• Item model number: TMAM
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,166 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 8, 2008

Product Description

The Timer Remote Control Shutter is an advanced Nikon D90 Digital camera shutter release tool which can be used to release camera shutter, as well as to be programmed to run timed photography task, etc. Delay the starting moment, manage exposure time, set shooting interval or organize numbers of shots. It allows you to control camera shutter up to 1.0 m (3.28 ft) away from a compatible Nikon D90.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great affordable intervalometer for the D90, March 21, 2009

By 

. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Satechi TR-M Timer Remote Control for Nikon D90 (Electronics)

I bought this product to act as an intervalometer for my Nikon D90 for time-lapse photography. There aren't many products currently that can do this for the D90, as a result of Nikon changing the remote cable connector. You can do time-lapse with Nikon's camera control software, but you'd also need to lug around a laptop and pay $170 for that minimalistic software. The Satechi product was the cheapest remote timer / intervalometer I could find, and its functions seemed to fit what I wanted so I bought it. Overall I'm very satisfied.

Functions

All timing functions work great. When used in full manual with the camera, the timer control can set the exposure time as well. The controls are pretty simple - one look at the user's manual and you'll know how to use the timer without needing to reference it again. If using any other modes on the camera (P, S, A), the remote simply acts as a remote timer / intervalometer. It's smart enough to pre-focus during count-down, prior to triggering the shutter - so for example, if you want to take 1 shot every 5 seconds, the timer will tell the camera to perform autofocus about 2 seconds prior to actually triggering the shutter. One of my initial concerns was that the documentation listed number of exposures from 1 - 399. This is the pre programmed number limitation, however you can also set it to `--` which essentially means keep taking pictures forever. This is the mode I especially wanted since I plan to take time-lapse photos over very long periods of time.

Build Quality

This is the only reason I didn't give this product 5 stars. The build is pretty cheap plastic, the battery cover is a little flimsy, but it's essentially what I expected for buying the absolute cheapest intervalometer I could find. It's very light, so I don't think if I dropped it, it would break. But if crunched in a bag/luggage I could see the screen breaking. It does have an LED light which I thought was really nice to have, since I've been in many low light situations where this is needed.

Connections

This remote plugs into the `GPS' port on the D90. Because of the connector Nikon chose for this port, it's not inherently obvious which way you plug in the cable. This product's cable uses a hard plastic connector, not a metal housing. It is foreseeable that you could force the connector in the wrong way which could possibly damage the pins on the camera. However, I think this is more of an issue of the connector Nikon chose and not so much a cheap connector on the part of Satechi.

If you want to do time-lapse photos, or need a basic remote-trigger timer for your D90 - this is your product. I've uploaded some picture for size comparison reasons - look at the picture next to the can of soda.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Does the job, April 12, 2009

By 

Mike (Orange County Ca) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Satechi TR-M Timer Remote Control for Nikon D90 (Electronics)

I also bought this to do some time lapse photography. Works great and is pretty simple.

You select delay (if any), bulb (if any), interval, number of exposures.

I bought the Satechi hand grip for the D90 but that will only allow you to take 99 pics. No limit on this if you select "--" for interval. Great tip.

Customer service from Satechi is quite good. They called to check to make sure I got the delivery. I called about the number of exposures on the hand grip and the guy called back twice to answer my questions.

Update: I used this to make a time lapse of my niece's wedding rehearsal. Set it to music. It was a big hit. Even my sister couldn't find something to gripe about...a first!

I also found a really great, cheap, and easy program to use to turn the single images into a movie: MovieSalsa. $20. Google it. I was really struggling to find something that was easy to use. Even my Sony Vegas sw was difficult....I screwed around for several hours trying to figure out how to do it.

With MovieSalsa you just dump the photo files in and it does the rest. Lots of things you can tweak if you want to read the directions and start modding it. Pretty easy to speed it up, slow it up, make it run backwards. Fantastic little program.

I then took the MovieSalsa movie, put it into Sony Vegas sw and added the music, titles, etc.... mainly because I was already pretty familiar with Sony Vegas. Zero problems.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic customer service, remote works great, April 21, 2010

By 

Jake_HT "Jake" (NB, Canada) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Satechi TR-M Timer Remote Control for Nikon D90 (Electronics)

First off, the remote totally works well. It does everything as expected. It can shoot on a timer, can shoot in intervals, and can shoot for a certain amount of time. It can also just be used as a remote shutter..

The first remote I got actually broke.. the tip of the plug separated from the rest of the plug when I pulled it out of the camera. This must have been defective because it broke far too easily..

Picture of broken tip here: [...]

So I sent a message to Arthur at Satechi customer support, who actually contacted me before this to make sure I received the remote in the first place.

He was very sympathetic, and told me they would replace the remote free of charge, as soon as they could. And they did!

So Kudos to Satechi for providing an excellent product backed by even better customer support. Not many companies are great like this.

Thank you Satechi, and to everyone who is reading this that is considering this remote, buy it now! Just be careful with it!! You will be very happy with it, and Satechi deserves your service.