topic Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture? in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Can you use verbal commands to get the EOS R8 to take a picture?

JimmyCanon — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 13:04:11 GMT

We have an R8 and have been looking through the manual and online videos for setting up voice commands like telling the camera to shoot as you can do with a cell phone. It is hard to believe this camera can not do that. Any help would be appreciated.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

jrhoffman75 — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 12:28:45 GMT

I'm not aware of any canon camera that takes voice commands. There may be some third-party add-ons that do, but even there I haven't seen them advertised.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

jwight01 — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 15:55:03 GMT

These cameras are not cell phones. You can use a Canon app to remotely control the camera from a phone, but not by voice command.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

Tronhard — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 19:32:44 GMT

Believe it. It does not. As my colleagues have said, a dedicated camera is not a cell phone. So, suggest continuing to use your cellphone for that purpose.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

Waddizzle — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 01:58:57 GMT

@JimmyCanon wrote:

We have an R8 and have been looking through the manual and online videos for setting up voice commands like telling the camera to shoot as you can do with a cell phone. It is hard to believe this camera can not do that. Any help would be appreciated.

What brand and model of cell phone is able to do that? My iPhone 15 cannot. If I ask, “Siri, take a photo.”, then the Camera app opens. Full stop. Siri is unable to focus much less fire the shutter. In fact, the AF system seems idle.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

JimmyCanon — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 02:32:13 GMT

Galaxy S24 In 2022 Sony applied for a patent for a voice control interface for their cameras. Not sure if they have implemented it yet. The voice commands on the S24 work very well. You can take pictures and videos without having to touch the camera and risk moving it.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

Tronhard — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 02:57:18 GMT

I would suggest using the S24, but if you want to engage with Canon on this on a serious basis, then this is not the forum to do it on. We are not Canon, we are experience users with moderator oversight, so any discussion will be purely speculative.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

Waddizzle — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 04:11:07 GMT

That sounds more like an Accessibility” feature, to me, one which currently only works with the onboard camera and its native app.

My iPhone has a voice control feature, but you apparently have to teach it what it is that you want it to do.

Siri already has basic vocabulary of commands. Enabling Voice Control provides a means to expand on it.

In other words, it doesn’t sound like any smart phones from the leading manufacturers are capable of controlling an external camera using voice control.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

Tronhard — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 07:52:17 GMT

Having worked in cyber security, I have a fundamental reservation with any device that listens to everything I am saying - which is the case when a device is looking for a word like 'Siri" or whatever, as the precursor of a command. While I do not expect that there are people hunched over earphones listening to the minutia of our lives, such information has apparently been harvested into big data. Thus, I prefer to live in splendid isolation.

If I want to remotely control a camera, there are other, more private means of doing so without having to add more capability - using Canon Connect, for example, and the digital interface provides feedback data on settings to your screen.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

March411 — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 14:53:38 GMT

@Tronhard wrote:

I have a fundamental reservation with any device that listens to everything I am saying

Glad I am not the only one that feels that way!

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

FranklinSam — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 12:56:21 GMT

This is a great question that I think a lot of people are starting to ask.

I started with a Rolli knockoff in the mid 80s with a handheld light meter. With the attitude of some of the contributors here I would not have been a Canon DSLR owner since the day the D-30 hit the market or a photoshop retoucher since a beta was available for the Mac2. Every technical development be it metering or auto-focus or face recognition has been decried as "not a camera" by contemporary purists. The rest of us just got on with our work making the best photos we could incorporating the new tools where appropriate. Sure some of it is gimmicks but if I could set ISO, AF, WB, aperture/shutter etc instead without changing position or taking my eye off the finder, that would be amazing for the kind of work I do.

As some others have said this is not the forum to make your wishes known to Canon but DO go the feedback page of their website and let them know.

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

justadude — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 15:29:02 GMT

Exactly! Not even my wife listens to everything I say. I sure wouldn't want my camera to. 😄

Re: Can you use verbal commands to get the Canon R8 to take a picture?

kvbarkley — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 16:17:17 GMT

Feel free to send Canon feedback.