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DIY hardware needed to shoot DSLR photos with the Fotozap Camera App Connect to an Android Device

You can use our platform to shoot privately-delivered and branded photos with a DSLR attached to either an Android tablet or an iPad. 
This article covers Android. Watch this video

Picture Marketing offers a complete kit with a complete set of tested devices and all needed accessories. 
You can also use your own equipment. Just follow these hardware requirements.

For Android, you need three main items:
  1. a compatible DSLR camera
  2. a USB OTG cable (to connect the camera to the Android device)
  3. an Android tablet or phone
The best way to ensure compatibility between these three items is to try them out, but here are some notes on compatibility:

1. The DSLR Camera
For Android, this should work with most any recent Canon or Nikon DSLR that supports tethered Live-View.
For iOS, we have only tested a limited number of Canon cameras.  

A partial list follows. Note that there might be other cameras not on this list that work. And while all cameras on this list should work, we have not tested them all ourselves. 

Canon cameras:

  • SL1
  • T6, T5, T3
  • T6s, T6i, T5i, T4i, T3i, T2i, T1i
  • XSi, XS
  • 80D, 70D, 60D, 50D, 40D
  • 7D Mark II, 7D
  • 6D
  • 5D Mark III, 5D Mark II
  • 1DX,
  • 1Ds Mark III, 1Ds Mark II
  • 1D Mark IV, 1D Mark III, 1D Mark II

Nikon cameras:

  • D4S D4 D3X D3S
  • Df
  • D810 D800/D800E
  • D750 D700
  • D610 D600
  • D300S, D300
  • D7200 D7100 D7000
  • D90 D80
  • D5500 D5300 D5200 D5100 D5000
  • D3500 D3300 D3200

2. The USB OTG Cable
The key thing with the cable is that it must support USB OTG (USB On-The-Go)
  

There are many cables available on Amazon and other places that support USB OTG. 

If your camera has a Mini USB port, then we recommend this cable: 



You can also use a Micro USB adapter, and then use the cable that came with your camera: 



3. The Android Device
The Android tablet must support OTG and have minimum OS version of Android 7.0 or newer. Most recent Android tablets do support this protocol, but you should check to make sure it does.
Here is a helpful article that explains how to tell if your Android device supports OTG.
You can use this OTG Checker App

We recommend the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7, especially if you will be scanning photo access cards since it has a good quality camera. Amazon link

Other than OTG support and OS version, there are no other specific requirements, although if you are going to be scanning QR codes on Photo Access Cards, then it is good to use a tablet with a higher resolution camera and that works OK in low light like the Galaxy Tab S2. 

Also note that while the tablet is connected to the camera, you can not charge most tablets (although some do allow this), so if the event is a long one you might need a second tablet that can be charging while you use the first one. We also offer a solution that allows the tablet to be charged while it is connected. 



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