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Old 08-04-06, 17:12
Don Hoey's Avatar
Don Hoey Don Hoey is offline  
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Norfolk
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Default Camera Remote Control through a PC

Sometime over next weekend Nikon Foxy Bob is visiting to give me a tutorial on Digital Darkroom Techniques. While he is here he wants to have a play with flash.

Remembering a post by Wolfie in the Macro Forum where he connected a laptop to his camera I thought this could be a quick and easy way of showing the effects of flash positioning, diffusers, adding reflectors etc.

I was very impressed with my first attempt and feel a thread dedicated to this might be of value.

If you have a laptop you may well be able to connect your camera to it. Down load the pictures straight to your hard drive and view them quite quickly. In the case of single images within 10 seconds of taking the picture. The advantage is that you can see the image at full screen there and then and can make any adjustments to the subject or camera controls immediately.

In the past I have used a 2 1/2 x workshop magnifier on the rear screen to see if things were right. I have a picture in my gallery of Stevies D100, where I wanted a reflection to appear over the LCD. As I could not see that in the viewfinder it took over an hour to get right.

As I am using Nikon I can only describe the sequence from a Nikon standpoint. I am sure Canon would do similar.

I have Nikon Capture software Version 3.5 on the laptop and that was the program I used here.

First step is to connect the camera to the laptop with the supplied lead. At this stage it must be switched OFF. Fire up the laptop and open NC. Turn the camera ON. Then on the top toolbar go to ' Tools ' and click on Show Nikon Capture Camera Control. This will detect your camera and ask for a file location for your images and numbering preferences. Once set you will see the camera controls as shown in the screen shots. From your laptop you can make any number of settings to the camera. I have shown screen shots of some of the tabs. Current camera settings are displayed on each tab. Other than phsical changes to camera position, or focal length, all controls including triggering can be done through the PC.

As this laptop is a bit underpowered by todays standards I viewed images in Paint Shop Pro 8. Nikon Capture as an image editing program is far too slow. For speed in setting up a shot it is quicker to use JPEG Fine. For the final image you can shoot in RAW ( adjustable from PC ).

Screen capture 1 shows my view 10 secs after taking the picture. Two of Capture Controls are visible on the left of the screen.

Screen capture 2 shows the Status. Once the image is downloaded the histogram is diplayed. Image download and its progress is displayed in the Current Task area. Blown highlights can be checked by ticking the box ' Emphasise area over '.

Screen captures 3 and 4 show various tab views of Camera Control.

Don
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Screen capture 1.jpg (134.6 KB, 19 views)
File Type: jpg Screen capture 2.jpg (93.3 KB, 9 views)
File Type: jpg Screen capture 3.jpg (89.3 KB, 11 views)
File Type: jpg Screen capture 4.jpg (83.5 KB, 7 views)
File Type: jpg Dividing Head.jpg (156.6 KB, 10 views)
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