MIOPS produce a range of smart camera triggers and motion accessories. I have discussed many of these in the past but one of the more exciting announcements is for the MIOPS Flex which was successfully funded on KickStarter in January 2021. The campaign aimed to raise $50,000 and achieved an incredible $536,890 from a total of 2,225 backers (as of 8/1/2020). In this post I wanted to discuss the device and the various features I am excited about, it should however be noted that as this is a KickStarter campaign, there is a risk that the device may not make it to fruition however, given the track record MIOPS have that seems like an unlikely outcome.

The MIOPS flex is an interesting new camera trigger, this appears to be a mix between a smart intervalometer (to trigger on things like sound, laser beam being broken, lightning being detected, as well as being able to do a range of timelapses including basic timelapses, long exposure timelapses, HDR timelapses and all the typical cable releases) for your supported camera but it also connects to a compatible camera via the PC connection port and allows you to change your camera settings, preview the camera's live-view (to assist with framing), conduct HDR bracketing and stacking (for example to stack multiple lightning shots), focus stacking, conducting holy grail (day-to-night timelapses), to geotag images from your phones GPS, and to backup some of your images.

The Flex is reported to come with 8GB of memory, although there are options to include more memory to store your backed up images, it should be noted however that this memory is not user replaceable (so you can't use an SD card to increase the space) which in my mind seems like a little bit of a missed opportunity to allow for user expandability.

What I am most excited about is that this device seems to be a great way to combine a smart intervalometer for things like lightning shots with the ability to change your camera settings. There have been times when I have been sitting in my car with my camera outside capturing lightning (covered up) and I have always felt that it would be great to be able to see the shots the camera is capturing and to change the settings if I find out that the image is over or under exposed. With the typical smart triggers as these are only triggering the camera they have no visibility as to what the current camera settings are (or what the images look like). Meanwhile, there are smart camera assistants (like Arsenal AI) which have visibility of the camera settings, and can show live previews and so on and let you change the settings and capture images from your mobile device but as these are not specifically triggers they don't trigger the camera for higher speed events like lightning captures.

MIOPS looks to be a great bridge, between a smart intervalometer for higher speed captures (sound, lightning, laser beam break) in addition to being able to review and control the camera settings and to review the specific images that are being captured (which should allow you to adjust your shots provided you are within close enough wireless range to the device). It should be noted that this device appears to have some intelligence in that it can do day-to-night (holy grail) timelapses which requires it to adjust the camera settings to achieve the right exposure, but this device is not like the Arsenal AI which automatically picks the right settings based on the type of shot you are trying to capture.

The MIOPS Flex appears to be positioned as a device that lets you capture higher speed images where it functions as a smart intervalometer, and also review and control your camera settings, view your captured image previews (and conduct backups of them) as well as assisting with things like focus stacking and providing geotagging for some images (through your mobile phones GPS). This has always been an area I felt was missing within the smart trigger / smart intervalometer area and I look forward to writing more about this device when I receive it. I have backed this device through the kickstarter campaign which is reported to be delivered sometime around Jun 2021 (although these dates almost always slip). It is reported that this device will be available for sale on the MIOPS website sometime around June 2021.

The MIOPS Flex is available for preorder on the MIOPS website or via the link here.

This article will be updated with more information when it becomes available. This post may contain affiliate links, and links for pre-orders which may carry risk (e.g. KickStarter). You should always do your own research and due diligence before backing or reordering items.