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Folding Paper Grid Spot

In my last post I used the folding paper grid spot — you know what a grid spot is right

?   Now there are plenty of ways of making your own — if you don’t want to buy a professionally made one

— the most effective seem to be using black drinking straws, and I have made a couple like that and they are great.

But they are a little on the bulky side — I mean I can’t slip one into my pocket — at least not without the girls saying “Is the a grid spot in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me“.   So wanting to be a little more discrete I came up with this idea.

It does work fine — compare the first two images below — the first with the grid spot on, and the second without and the SB-800 just zoomed to max 105mm.  But when folded down it literally fits in my wallet – though in practice I keep it in the little slip case that houses the flash, so whereever I have a flash I have a grid spot as well.

Again, images for us visual folks — and I’ll try to do some writen instructions soon as there is a trick to making that paper matrix easily.  Double sided tape!

[svgallery name=”FoldingPaperGridSpot”]

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DIY Bamboo Light Stand

Why a bamboo light stand?  Well if you are a reader of Strobist

then you know that lightstands are very handy — if not read here first.  Of course a factory built one is simple and probably the best option

, but it isn’t exactly cheap.  Particularly if you want more than one — and you will, you’ll want several.  There’s your main light, then fill, then hair and rim lights, and what about some reflectors and…  you get the picture.  Just try not to over-do the whole speedlight thing, heh?

Now one good solution to keep Strobist from hurting your wallet is the Stick in a Can, click that link and watch the video if that name doesn’t mean anything to you, but good/cheap and DIY as that is it isn’t great for portability.  I mean how many cans full of concrete can you carry about – even in the back of your car?

So here is my solution to the problem — which makes sense for me because were I live bamboo is cheap cheap cheap.  This light stand uses three 6 foot pieces of bambo, some brass bolts and a piece of string.  The bolts and string cost me more than the bamboo.

If you live somewhere where bamboo is an exotic import and costs a fortune, well then this post is of only academic interest.  Though flip through the pictures and maybe consider doing the same out of PVC tubing?  I understand that’s pretty cheap — using PVC tubing for photo stands is not new of course.  But that’s another topic. 

As we are visual types I’ll start with a slide show that shows what the stand looks like and how it’s used.  And I’ll follow up with some more details in another post.

[svgallery name=”DIYStrobistBambooLightStand”]

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The Self Portrait script

Update: This is now obsolete, use instead the 

DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 1.0 application.

Also called the “Tethered Remote Bridge” script this addition to my scripting library lets me remotely release the shutter on my D300 or D40, while tethered via USB to my Windows PC.  Then the image is downloaded and displayed in Adobe Bridge within 3-4 seconds.

DOWNLOAD (New version) – Gives you RAW or JPG choice

DOWNLOAD (Old version) – JPG only

It’s a combination of the prior scripts I’ve written so nothing very new to explain.

I am going to be using it while working on my “strobist” portrait skills.  As I don’t have a model I’m stuck with doing self-portraits and I want to sit in my chair and trigger the camera and see the results all without getting up.

Yes I know I still have to work to adjust lights and such but it is still sure to be less back-and-forth between camera and seat now!

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How fast is tethered shooting on a Windows PC?

I was thinking about this after reading Terry White’s post about the topic, though he is more interested in Mac vs PC (or Mac vs Windows really).  Interestingly he was able to do a Mac vs Windows test on the same hardware which of course makes it much more valid test.  The interesting conclusion is that the Camera-to-Lightroom total speed is almost identical, though the download vs import speed varies a lot.

A lot of the time taken up is in Lightroom which I have not tried so far, I’m still using Adobe Bridge to view my JPG and RAW (NEF) files.  That’s why I did a version of my tethered shooting script that is optimized for Bridge – which is to say it sends a keypress to bridge to advance to the most recent frame.

Testing with my configuration showed that the total time of camera-to-bridge was averaging slightly less than 3 seconds.  I did these tests with my D40 shooting raw – so that’s a 5mb file, via a USB2 hub connected to a fast but rather old Dell PC.  I’ll try it again later with the D300 which has the larger files to see how much difference there is; not a lot I suspect based on previous un-timed test.

In Terry’s tests the CCP2 import under Windows took 3.2 seconds, which is similar to my script, but then the import into Lightroom took 8 seconds – I believe Bridge is showing images much faster.  Of course the intial view it gives you is a preview but it’s normally less than a second for it to render a high quality view.

Does all this make much difference?  Not if you are doing product shots I think, but if you are shooting models then shaving seconds off each shot would be good I think.

Conclusion?  If speed is important shoot into a temp folder and use Bridge to view as you go, then import later when you are done.

PS: Still need to upload my Tethered Remote Bridge script — aka the self-portrait script!

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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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Tethered shooting with Bridge viewing

Update: This is now obsolete, use instead the  DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 2.1 – Greens 

application.

Here’s an update to the Tethered shooting script

— this one customized to work with Bridge for viewing.

Download

Instructions and usage are the same as the original except that if you have Bridge open on the tethered shooting folder — “c:\tethered” by default — then after each new image is added Bridge will advance to that image by pressing [END] to go to the last image in the folder.  You need to have sorting set appropriately so the most recent image is the last in the folder.

It doesn’t work with Slideshow unfortunately but you can collapse the side panels (use the tab key) and maximize the size of the thumbnails to get an almost-full-screen view of the images as you shoot them.

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D300 Remote Control Script

Update: This is now obsolete for two reasons, firstly remote is built into windows, and secondly for advance use you have the DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control 1.0 application.

I wrote yesterday about why I need this script to be a remote shutter release for my Nikon D300 so today here are the details of what you need, and how to use it.  Oh, and why not use one of the cheap 3rd party remotes

 (e.g. Phottix N1

or Cleon N8), a real remote like a ML-3 or a MC-DC1 Remote cord?  Well if I can DIY I’d always like to try that first!

Hardware (this is what I used, you can substitute some pieces of course):

  • Long USB cable — doesn’t have to be that long but longer is more convenient
  • One Thinkpad X31 — or any laptop with a USB port and a Wifi connection
  • One Fujitsu Lifebook — or any other laptop with a Wifi connection
  • Wireless access point — so you can connect from one PC to another
  • Windows XP SP2 on both PCs
  • Microsoft Windows WIA Automation
  • The software Linked below
DOWNLOAD (2.0)remote2

– RAW or JPG, you choose

– JPG only
Installation:

Copy the files into any folder on your PC, I suggest c:program filesremote but it’s up to you.

Usage: 

  • Make sure your camera is in USB PTP mode
  • Plug the USB cable into the first laptop and into the camera, turn the camera on and cancel any pop-ups that occur for downloading etc
  • Install the Windows WIA Automation DLL by running install.cmd (you only need to do this once)
  • Run the script c:program filesremoteremote.wsf by double clicking it.

… and here’s the key thing that makes it wireless

  • Now use your second laptop and use the built in Windows Remote Desktop function to connect to the first laptop over your wireless connection.
  • To release the shutter on your D300 just click or use the enter key to press the “OK” button

Works with:

  • Nikon D300
  • Nikon D40
  • … and I presume would on any Nikon dSLR

    • Cost:

    • Long USB cable $2
    • Thankpad X31 $1,099
    • Fujitsu Lifebook $1,507
    • Linksys Wifi Access point $47
    • Windows WIA Automation $0
    • My script $0
    • Total: $2,655

    Or, if you already have all that hardware then :

    • Total: $0

    Variation, remote but not wireless:

    A very long mouse cable or keyboard cable could get you a similar effect with one laptop/computer – but that wouldn’t be so much fun now would it?  Or how about a wireless keyboard or mouse?

    And next:

    And then this could be combined with the tethered shooting script – plus a “advanced to next image” script to get some good results, that’s the next thing to do on the scripting side.

    Please let me know if you try this out and it works for you!  I know this isn’t particularly easy to understand from reading the above, but you’ll find it easy if you try – and I’ll try to do a video some time to show how it works.

     

    Update: The combined script that has the remote shutter release functionality here plus the tethered downloading I called the “Self Portrait Script” and you can download it

    here .

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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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