Camera Shooting Software

[Swampy]

Has anyone been actively using this? I've been trying to get some shots of a humming bird in the backyard. So, I set up a laptop outside with the camera on a tripod connected via firewire. The laptop has wireless networking on it, and I use another laptop from further away where I won't disturb the birds that also has wireless to remote control the first laptop to take the pictures. This isn't a problem at all.

I'm wondering about the photo's that are taken with the software. When I save them, they are always in the 2.5 meg file size range, while all other pictures taken without the software are 4.5 megs (in fine jpeg mode). Resolution are set the same at 4256x2848. I would think that there are some things being left out with this information... Any thoughts?

Bryan

[jknights]

Sounds interesting way of controlling the laptop remotely. I presume you are triggering by you visually deciding when to trigger the contolling PC.

It is possible to get a 30ft Firewire cable in MicroCenter.com. Also you can get an adapter to fit the normal 6pin Firewire male connector to another Firewire mini 4 pin connector, or 6pin female to 6pin female connector. This then becomes a joiner between the Fuji firewire cable and the long 30ft firewirecable. Beware this may not work due to the multiple joins. I have not tried this.

You can also use an IR controlled release. I have one for my D1X but the S2 takes the old cable style release but I have seen rigs that convert these to IR.

You can definitely shoot in fine JPG mode in the Camera Shooting Software. I personally always use RAF files as they give better quality.


For your setup how are you remotely triggering your main control PC ? I guess you have another piece of software. What is it ? Where did you get it ?

[Swampy]

Originally posted by jknights
Sounds interesting way of controlling the laptop remotely. I presume you are triggering by you visually deciding when to trigger the contolling PC.

It is possible to get a 30ft Firewire cable in MicroCenter.com. Also you can get an adapter to fit the normal 6pin Firewire male connector to another Firewire mini 4 pin connector, or 6pin female to 6pin female connector. This then becomes a joiner between the Fuji firewire cable and the long 30ft firewirecable. Beware this may not work due to the multiple joins. I have not tried this.

You can also use an IR controlled release. I have one for my D1X but the S2 takes the old cable style release but I have seen rigs that convert these to IR.

You can definitely shoot in fine JPG mode in the Camera Shooting Software. I personally always use RAF files as they give better quality.


For your setup how are you remotely triggering your main control PC ? I guess you have another piece of software. What is it ? Where did you get it ?

Well, I figured ou the file size difference, and again, it was a shoot me in the head dumb thing, that I even forgot now, but one of the software settings was off, it wasn't the fine setting or the resolution. Anyway. Dumb thing.

The firewire cable that comes with the camera isn't the only cable you can use. The S2 uses a standard 4 pin (camera) to 6 pin (PC side) firewire cable. I think the maximum length without a repeater is around 20 feet, I could be wrong, I haven't looked up the standard on firewire before, but if MC sells a 30, I'd bet you could do 30 then. I've gone 18 feet before with no problems. Right now, I have 4 firewire cables, 1 set of 4 pin to 4 pin and 1 set of 4 pin to 6 pin. I carry one of each type with me and leave one set at home. My Dell laptop has the 4 pin firewire built into it, so it makes for easy copying.

Basically, the klunky setup I've been doing has 1 laptop with firewire and 802.11b wireless networking. I plug the camera into that laptop via firewire. I've only used this at my house in the yard, so I get all my network settings from my router. Then I take another laptop with 802.11b (or even wired for that matter) and I use a program called VNC to remote control my other laptop. VNC is a free remote control server/client software. It's easy to setup and install and it doesn't take up but 1-2 megs, where PCAnywhere slamms 50megs of crap on your hard drive, makes you reboot, and you can only have 1 person remote controlling at any one time, where VNC will let multiple people (great for training really - teacher controls the main pc, students all log into it and watch what the teach does). Anway, simple program, gives me total control of the other machine.

And yes, I do a visual spot to tell when to hit the shutter. One of the things I like to do is catch humming (and other) birds around the yard, especially at rest on a feeder eating. So, I set my tripod up real close to the feeder and hook all that gunk up. I sit on the other side of the yard browsing the web, posting here, whatever, on my other laptop, keeping one eye on the feeder. When I see him, I just remote control click away.

I started a discussion with one of the executives at my office (PHd) about 802.11 wireless remote control, and didn't finish the conversation, but he said it would be fairly simple to incorporate a small module that could remote trigger the camera via 802.11. I need to finish talking to him. The company I work for (which I will not name) actually designs bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g and other networking chips, so I'm talking to the right people. :)

I'll be sure to post about it when I get more difinitive answers. It's always easy for these guys to do things like this, just getting them to do it for free/chump change is the hard part. I mean, if I had him build it, I'm sure only a couple hundred could be sold realistically.

If you need help in setting up VNC, I can type up clear instructions for you, just let me know. You can find it by going to your favorite search engine and put in "downloading VNC" or even just VNC. It's a UK based product that works really well (not saying the UK can't program or anything).

Bryan