Category: News

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A peek at where I’m up to with Camera Control

This still isn’t finished but I’m quite happy that I’ve got so far all ready…

Camera Control 2 in development

Camera Control 2 in development

Now I can control from the PC which exposure mode the camera is in (M, P, A, S) — but only on the D300, I suppose sensibly it is impossible to control that on the D40 where it is set by a physical dial.

But presuming the mode allows it I can then control aperture and shutter speed easily.  ISO, and WB are easy to set — but I can’t tell what the initial settings of the camera are when it is plugged in which is a bit annoying.

Still have some work to do on the Exposure Compensation control as well.  And generally on the layout of the controls to make them fit together in some sort of sensible way.

But look out soon for this new version — and let me know what other controls or info you’d like to see in here.


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RAW : in remote shutter release script

Two of my scripts let you press a key on the keyboard, or click with the mouse, and remotely release the shutter.  But just like the built in Windows Explorer technique for doing these they both only are able to trigger JPG, even if the camera is set to RAW.

Until today.  It turns out this is not that hard to fix.  But the programatic technique is a bit of a laugh; because Windows Image Automation does not officially support RAW the NEF files on my Nikon D300 are typed as being of “undefined” type.  Unlike JPG files which WIA does know are JPG files and are typed appropriately.

So to get the WIA Take Picture command to get me a NEF I actually have to ask for a picture of type “undefined”!  It’s amazing it works, I guess somewhere an engineer (I’m not sure Microsoft or Nikon) decided that undefined=NEF.  I have no idea of this will also work with Canon, it might or it might not.  

Anyway it works, and it opens up a whole range of possibilities I’ll be exploring soon with the scripting.  But until then head over to the posts for those remote scripts and you can download the latest versions which support RAW.

PS.  Please please no religious RAW vs JPG comments.   It’s a free world, people are entitled to the file format of their choice.

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It’s built in, oops. Remote WIA Picture Taking

Well so much for my expensive remote control script for the D300 — yes it does work, but my script is entirely redundant as the same feature is actually built in to the Windows XP Camera and Scanner Wizard!  You know the one, described here.  It’s how most people get their digital images into their PC , even while those of us who “know better” use Adobe Bridge, or a card reader.

In fact the Wizard has advantages; as a built in part of Windows it is even better as it gives you a immediate thumbnail of the image as soon as you take it.

All you have to do is connect your PTP capable camera and when the wizard pops up you advance to the step where you can see thumbnails.  Now down below them is a row of icons for rotate left right and so on.  Well the last one in the line is “Take Picture”!

Click that and my trusty Nikon D300 instantly takes a picture, and moments later the thumbnail appears in the usual space.

It works great — and the financial breakdown is still the same as with my script, so it is either the most expensive or the cheapest wireless dslr shutter release in the world.

But is it good *enough*?  Thumbnails are great but a bigger view would be even better.   And by combining my remote shutter release script with the Tethered shooting / Adobe Bridge script that should be my next step.

Stay tuned!

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Coming soon – the world’s most expensive DSLR remote control

Yes, to go with my expensive D300 — I now find I have no wireless remote control shutter release.  The handly little not-particularly-cheap ML-L3 remote that worked for my D40 is no good for the D300.

Instead I’m supposed to buy an ML-3 remote — which costs about ten times the price.  Sure it does a lot more, but I don’t particularly want more, I just want to press a button in my hand while the camera is on a tripod at the other side of the room as I do endless self-portraits while practicing my off-camera lighting.

So, what is a geek to do?  Well, build something yourself of course — with the techniques in mind that I used for the Tethered Shooting script I realized I could put together a wireless remote with things I had hanging around.

Now if I add up the cost of all those items it comes to about 25 times the cost of the ML-3, so that would have to count as the most expensive dSLR wireless remote control in the world!   But…  If I already have all the gear then the extra cost to me is zero.

So once again it’s a bit (ok a lot) of hardware tied together with a few lines of code – Windows only (XP SP2 minimum) in the version I’m doing, but I’m sure Macs can do something very similar.

Details tomorrow when I get it all packaged up.

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D300 – Tethered as well

Well I’ve been a bit busy the last week and a bit, and what little “photo time” I have has been occupied with playing with my new toy the Nikon D300.  It was a gift to me and I’m really appreciating it very much.  It is a lot of camera when compared with my D40 and I really now understand what I read before about for people upgrading D40 -> D300.  Because it is a “class well above your current camera” you will need to “step up your game photographically if you want to get the benefits of those extra pixels. And there’s an enormous amount of controls to master to do that

In a sense I am no way near there — I wasn’t even near there with my D40 though I did feel a little frustration at its limits.  But as always it is the photographer, not the camera, that is the critical component and I want to spend more time on that aspect.

Still, as a geek I’ll never turn down, or fail to appreciate the fun, in a new gadget.

Pro:

  • Finally auto-focus for my 50mm f1/8 lens!
  • Better high ISO, it is not miraculous, but it is better
  • ISO 100 — so called “Lo”
  • Built in CLS commander, so I can free up my SB-800 and effectively get another off-camera flash
  • It works fine with my tethered shooting script.  🙂

Con:

  • It’s heavy – really, I don’t want to carry this about in my bag all the time
  • RAW files are so big — oh no, do I need another hard disk already?
  • It uses CF cards — when I have a big collection of SD 🙁

And the absolutely biggest issue:

  • I can no longer blame my terrible photographs on having inadaquate equipment.  😉

Ok I’ll stop playing soon and get back to doing something constructive.  Next up on my list “The World’s Most Expensive D300 Remote Shutter Release”.  Details to follow (if it works!)

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