Author: raymond

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Made any time lapse videos?

If you have made any time lapse vids using my script and they are publicly available (youtube, etc) I’d love it if you’d post a link!  I’ve still not done anything interesting with it — I have a few ideas but never the right time to sit there with camera and computer for several hours.  Sadly nothing worth seeing from where I live or work and even the sky has been cloudless for days so I can’t do the “clouds streaming across the sky” thing.

Anyway if you have had better luck, or better ideas, than me lets have a look!

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DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 3.1 – Patience

Here is a small update to the 3.0 version

.  Besides a bug fix it also allows delaying the start of a time lapse, which is why I call this the Patience release.

DOWNLOAD

Changes:

  • Allow click on preview image if path has a space
  • Maximum time lapse shots
  • Delay before starting time lapse

When doing a time lapse you now get these options:

Frequency (seconds)

>

   Shots each time  

   Total shots to take  

   Delay before starting  

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White balance lens cap

I had this idea about two days ago — make a lens cap out of the same material used for an ExpoDisc and you can leave it on all the time.

Turns out it has already been done.  [via dps]

Rather begs a DIY version though doesn’t it?  I have a cheap 3rd party extra lens cap (bought at great expense in Venice just down from the Rialto when I thought I’d lost my original Nikon cap), which I could merge with a Pringles can lid with or without a coffee filter.

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Closing a crashed DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control

If you find that DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control crashes — then you may be suprised to find it does not appear in the Windows Task manager, so you can’t end the task as you might another application.

Well actually you can — but you need to know that it is actually an “HTA” which is a type of Internet Explorer script.  So to kill it you need to terminate a process called MSHTA.EXE which is the container for these scripts.

So press Alt-Ctrl-Del (or Windows-K) to bring up the Windows Task manager, click on the Processes tab, then find and click on mshta.exe.  You may then end click the End Process button.

mshta-end-process

You do not need to reboot or anything else, you can now run the script again.

If this happens to you please do let me know the situation (XP/Vista, what camera, and what you were doing right before the crash) so hopefully I can improve the software to avoid it next time.

Thanks.

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DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 3.0 – Happy New Year!

I’m please to be able to say that you can now download

the latest release of DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control.   This is release 3.0 – the Happy New Year! release.

DOWNLOAD 3.0

Upgrading to this version will get you:

  • Time Lapse!  

Yes,  at last, I’ve implemented — admittedly very very basic and boring — but still functional — time lapse.  If you have a D300 or other camera with time lapse built in then this is boring, but for those of you with D40 and similiar then this gets you what you need to do all those fun time lapse videos.

  • Persistent download directory

It now remembers the directory you selected and stays with it when you restart the application.

  • File name prefix

This field allows you to specify something to prefix the file names with.  The idea is that you use it when shooting a lot of people, say at a school or fair, and as each person comes up you can just type in their name, shoot a few shots, then change the name for the next person.  Then each file name will have the person’s name on it.

  • Reconnect camera without restarting

If you need to reconnect the camera; say the usb cable came unplugged, or you forgot to change to M mode before starting, you can now just click again on Select Camera” rather than restart the script.

Ok so that’s pretty much it — plus some small tweaks and bug fixes.   I’ll write or do a video soon with some howto time lapse, and how to actually turn it into video using free tools.

Until then, Happy New Year!

PS.  If you’ve found this site and/or my scripts helpful, please do help to spread the word by telling a friend, posting a message on a forum, blogging  about it or similiar — the more people who hear about it the better!  Thanks very much for your help which I greatly appreciate.

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Want Voice Activated Shutter Release for a Nikon?

The software you need is:

  1. Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1
  2. DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 2.1

Then to get voice activated shutter release:

  1. Install both.
  2. Turn on the Language Bar (in control panel, regional and language, languages, details, language bar)
  3. (Optional) Train Microsoft Voice recognition (in control panel, speech)
  4. Turn on the microphone (click the mic icon in the language bar)
  5. Run DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 2.1
  6. Say “Voice command”
  7. (optional) Say “What can I say” then scroll down to the bottom of the list where it says “Menus and Buttons” and expand that list, ensure that “Shutter release” is one of the listed commands
  8. Say “Shutter Release”

And yes, of course this thought is inspired by ShutterVoice,  the Canon EOS front end that provides much better control via voice — with voice feedback even!

I wondered if I could do something like that myself — but when I checked I realized that basically everything I wanted was already either built in or a free microsoft download.  I’ll have a think about if I can adjust the UI of my script so more features can be voice controlled, but for now shutter release is fun.

All together now, say “Shutter release”.

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Demo Video for DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 2.1

I thought it was well past time that I did some more explanation of how to use the new features in DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 2.1.

Turns out my video skills need a bit of work though as I ended up putting together a 10 minute video, the YouTube limit, and only covered half the features. Still, I hope this is helpful both to see what sort of thing the script is useful for — in this case I’m covering self-portrait balancing flash vs ambient ala Strobist.

 

(Click through and view the high quality version if you want to read the text!)

Equipment used:

  • 1 x SB-600 at camera left set at manual 1/4 power with a folding paper grid spot  on a bamboo light stand
  • 1 x SB-800 at camera right, also manual 1/4 power
  • Nikon D300 with a 18-55mm 
  • Pop-up flash on the D300 is the trigger for the flashes
  • Long USB cable, plus a USB extender cable
  • Thinkpad X31

I cover the use of the remote shutter release, combined with shutter, aperture and ISO controls to take and download images as well as using Bridge to view them.

What I ran out of time to do before the YouTube 10 minute limit was tethered shooting from the camera, and external viewer push.  Perhaps I’ll try to do another short video covering those, but I do really want to work on the next features!

While doing this demo I also noted some odd slowness of the script in some situations, particularly M vs P mode that I’m unable to explain at the moment, so will spend some time to investigate that and hopefully speed the whole thing up.

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Sorry, no LiveView — but here is a thought

I’m afraid I’m probably not going to be able to support Nikon LiveView in DIYPhotobits.com CameraControl. It isn’t available via PTP or WIA but only via the Nikon SDK which I don’t have access to (and probably couldn’t program even if I could).

However here’s an great thought to get a similiar experience – at least in a studio situation.

Basically use the video out of the camera to to send to another monitor, while at the same time also tethering.

I haven’t tried this — nor I suspect has the person suggesting it — but it sounds like it would be good, presuming you have the two monitors required.

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Tethering unplugged

So exactly what should happen if you are in the middle of a tethered – via usb cable – shoot and someone trips over the wire?

First, it shouldn’t rip the cable out of the camera and damage the usb connector on either camera or computer.

To that end it helps to put some sort of knot or fastening at both ends so the strain will not be taken by the USB connectors.   For the camera end it probably makes sense to attach to the camera strap or perhaps a tripod head plate, while on the PC end it may be as simple as clamping to the table.

But what if a really big pull is made on the cable?  In that case it is better the cable comes unplugged — so that’s a good reason to use a two part cable — USB extender plus cable — so that it can basically just come unplugged in the centre.

Ok so that’s the physical part, but what about the software.  How should the software respond?

I recently learned that Nikon CameraControl Pro 2 — which I have never tried — causes images taken during a tethered session to only be saved to the PC, not to the camera as well.  I’m quite amazed by that actually — when designing DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control I deliberately made the decision that the images would be in BOTH locations — it seems like an obvious backup.  In fact I’m a little concerned that it is saved in only a single location on the PC and I’ll be adding features (eventually!) that allow the images to be instantly backed up to another location such as an external drive, file server, or maybe even an internet service — imagine tethering directly to Flickr!

Anyway, the point is what happens when you realize the cable is unplugged and plug it in again?

1. Nothing happens — you have to restart the software 

This is typical it seems, that’s what my script does

2. The software notices the camera is gone and waits for it

And when it is plugged in it downloads any new images that were taken while it was unplugged

I think #2 makes a lot more sense don’t you?  It doesn’t sound that hard.  Ok when you plug in the camera again the annoying choice thing pops up but you can (I think) ignore that.  Or maybe I can look for it and send a Cancle to it.  Then the script can see the camera is back — look for any new images, download them, then go back to what it was doing before.

Ok sounds like a plan — or can you suggest an alternative, or maybe some options that would make sense?  I’m all ears.

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