Ninja and Sony Z5 LANC control

[Mark Morreau]

I have an original Ninja and have been trying to get LANC control working with a Sony Z5 using a Manfrotto 531pro LANC controller.

The LANC controller works fine with the camera, but I cannot get the Camera (connected by LANC) or the LANC controller to trigger the Ninja, nor can I get the loop-through to work (LANC controller to Ninja's LANC-in, Ninja's LANC-out to Z5's LANC in).

According to the Atomos knowledge base this combination should work.. but it's not.
Can anyone report real-world success?

Cheers

Mark

[Mike Sims]

I don’t have a Ninja, I have a Samurai which also has LANC in and outs. When I received the Samurai last November I immediately tried to do the same thing (different controller and camera, same set-up). It didn’t work. I reported it to Atomos and was told that I was the first to report the problem (although Ninja had been out about a year at that point). Atomos support confirmed it also didn’t work with Ninja. Support reported back from the engineers that the Atomos LANC implementation was never intended to have a LANC controller connected to the Atomos LANC IN (although they indicated that it should be possible for them to make it do so). As of a couple of months ago, they were still looking into it but, as I was still the only one to complain, it wasn’t perceived as being very high priority. Perhaps filling out a trouble ticket may help, eventually.

Additionally, Atomos LANC won’t work with a handful of Sony and Canon cameras. The knowledge base seems to indicate that your camera is not one of those. Try the following experiment. Attach a patch cord to the camera LANC and then to the Ninja LANC IN. Trigger record on the camera. Does the Ninja start recording? If so, you may be able to use the work-around described here. I hope this is helpful, good luck.

[Mark Morreau]

Thanks for your reply, Mike.

I updated the firmware on my Ninja to the latest version (2.2) and after doing so all LANC controls worked as they ought to... sorry that's no help to your and your Samurai, but it made me happy.

Cheers

Mark

[Brian Murphy]

When I read that your LANC worked after the 2.2 upgrade I checked my NINJA again and it was at 2.2 but still no LANC with my FS100. I have written them a couple of times and no response or ackowledgement of the "ticket" and despite being somewhat irate I feel that they could at least offer some sort of fix. I like my Ninja as a recorder but find having to fumble around with it while on my shoulder to start and stop record is a pain in the ass. I understand since the release of the Ninja II that they have fixed the problem but that shouldn't mean that they get to abandon the rest of us. I would be happy with a fix that allowed a start stop button and would be happy to pay for the button. They just don't answer or at least in the dozens of forums I have visited they have not. Their failure to respond just makes me very wary of ever buying or suggesting anyone buy from them agan. There are certainly lots of options out there now.

[Mark Morreau]

That's very strange, Brian. I feel it *ought* to work, since LANC is such a universal - and simple - protocol. It's been working reliably for me since the FW update. I have a short LANC cable between the camera and the Ninja, and it's been working when using a LANC controller, when pressing the record button on the camera, or when using the IR control to start camera. The Ninja and camera all start together in all three scenarios.

I don't see how it can work with Ninja 2, as Ninja 2 doesn't have a LANC control. It's supposed to start simultaneously recording via HDMI timecode, but Atomos have not yet published a list of all supported cameras.

[Brian Murphy]

I may have mislead you. The Ninja 2 works via HDMI and not LANC. I agree that LANC is or at least to the best of my knowledge and past experience over the many years I have used it, been a simple to deal with protocol. I can remember the old days of using a device called a Rosetta Stone to control my Sony camcorders via early Media 100 systems as playback decks for editing. It worked flawlessly. One would think that in this day and age Atomos could get that part of old tech to work easily. But no... they can't or at least don't care enough to do so.
Today was a good example. I had to shoot a press conference for a politician. I loaded the SDHC card and my Ninja. Got the speech and tripod stuff on the Ninja but had to deal with Log and Transfer from the SDHC card for the cut-aways . PIA but what can I say?

[Brian Murphy]

Today I got it to work. I re-installed the firmware update, connected a 2.5 mm Y splitter adapter. I connected the stock Sony FS100 handle to one lead and one to the LANC in of the Ninja version one. I hit the record button on the FS100 handle and both the camera and the Ninja when into record. I am thrilled. I am not sure why it works but it does.
So all of that being said, I guess I owe somewhat of an apology to the people at Atomos. However, why, if they know have they not posted this option on the website? hhhhh6hh

[Matthew Hurley]

Originally Posted by Brian Murphy

Today I got it to work. I re-installed the firmware update, connected a 2.5 mm Y splitter adapter. I connected the stock Sony FS100 handle to one lead and one to the LANC in of the Ninja version one. I hit the record button on the FS100 handle and both the camera and the Ninja when into record. I am thrilled. I am not sure why it works but it does.
So all of that being said, I guess I owe somewhat of an apology to the people at Atomos. However, why, if they know have they not posted this option on the website? hhhhh6hh

Thanks for the info. Question,what did you do with the other lead as the Y splitter has 2 female and 1 male lead?

[Brian Murphy]

One side of the Y goes to the Lanc on the FS100 and the other side goes to the > on the Ninja 1. I used 1 modified Manfrotto cable and put a female line jack on it rather than the stock male as they ship with male on both ends. The female end connects to my Sony Lanc handle since I am using a Berkey system setup with rails and my handle is on the front end making the stock Lanc cable on the handle too short.
But again I mention I am working with a Ninja 1 and not Ninja 2 or Samurai.
SInce my experiments I contacted the folks at Atomos and they are going to be publishing new documentation in their support area to help folks with connecting. Make sure you have the latest firmware on your Ninja 1 and on your Sony FS 100. If you are still having problems message me and we can figure it out.
Brian

[Matthew Hurley]

Thanks Brian. Could you possibly post a picture of the Y lanc set up you have made? I am running the latest version (2.2) for my first generation Ninja and have the latest firmware (2.0) installed on my FS100.

Funny thing about all this is a write up over on the Atomos site talking about this issue and that Atomos (claims) the 2.0 Sony firmware update addressed the problem. I beg to differ. I have tried every combo known to man to get the camera to trigger the first generation Ninja. The Y splitter lanc may be the way to go as I have in the past (Six months) ago asked Atomos for some guidance. Not that I want to slag off a company, but customer and technical support do not appear to be one of their finer points.

G2 - FS100 and LANC - ATOMOS

G2 - FS100 and LANC

We have done some testing today (14th Dec 2012) with the Sony FS-100 and the Ninja-1 and Samurai with Connect H2S combo.
Since Sony's firmware version 2.00 the LANC signal now appears to match the other Sony camera's and allows us to trigger the Ninja-1 or Samurai via LANC.

This is great news for anyone who wants a way to trigger the Ninja-1 with this camera without needing to upgrade to the Ninja-2 to utilise the HDMI timecode.

Please follow our article on how to setup LANC to be able to take advantage of the trigger: L1 - How to trigger an Atomos Recorder using LANC - ATOMOS

During my test today I did find my external controller did not function in loop mode but I do believe this may have been a bad LANC out, if you do find this does not work please let us know and we will update this article.

Well it certainly does not work for me!

[Brian Murphy]

Sorry for the late reply but the holiday season has kept me busy. I will shoot a shot off the setup and post it along with my details but it should work for you.

[Mike Sims]

“…it should work for you.” Agreed. This is the same work-around I linked to in post #2 of this thread. I have been using it for a year now.

[Brian Murphy]

There are a couple of points that need to be mentioned and some need to be confirmed. First we are working with an FS100 and not a Z5. The Ninja firmware and the Sony FS100 firmware need to be at the latest version and this is especially true for the FS100. Sony made a change for sure that affects LANC. The other issue is that some FS100 cameras will work without the Y adapter setup and some will not. It could be that a later build of the FS100 had mods to it that dealt with this and were not mentioned but that is just a guess on my part. In the research I have done among FS100 users there is no delay in the trigger with the latest firmware.