Bought a 25' LANC extension cable to do some stealth wildlife videography with my Canon HF-G40 and a Manfrotto 521 remote. Purchased it from the DV Shop in Toronto. The brand is TecNec.

https://www.dvshop.ca/cables/lanc.html

It works fine but has an annoying tendency to spontaneously twist on itself and I have to go through this tedious ritual of undoing the twists when laying it out to full length and then coiling it back up.

Is LANC cable always like that or are there brands, maybe with heavier duty sheathing, that are not prone to twisting ?

Cheers.

Thin cables like LANC cables are always prone to twist internally if you not very careful when coiling them. Have you tried the over-under reverse coil technique? One wrap counteracts the twist of the previous wrap. You may already be doing this and it is just a poor cable but it's worth a try. If the cable already has a "set" to its twist trying lying it out flat and untwisted on a hot sunny day and hope any spiral set it has drops out of it. Then while it is warm from the sun try the coiling technique shown in the following video if you haven't already tried this technique.

Chris Young

How to Coil Cables - YouTube

It's very ugly, but if you have easily kinkable cable tape it to a piece of mic cable, this stops it bending. I do it a lot with cat 5/6 cable which never lays flat - the extra cable it's taped to works very well. It then coils well for storage too.

Thanks both.

@Chris, no I wasn’t familiar with these coiling techniques. I’ll try later and see if it makes a difference.

@Paul, Thats a possibility. Another might be that flexible plastic conduit that snaps around the cable. Would protect it also in the field.

It's very ugly, but if you have easily kinkable cable tape it to a piece of mic cable, this stops it bending. I do it a lot with cat 5/6 cable which never lays flat - the extra cable it's taped to works very well. It then coils well for storage too.

Like your thinking there Paul. Made a note of that for sure!

Chris Young