Now Supporting 64-bit Windows 7

I finally got my hands on a test suite of Windows 7 64-bit workstations and found that indeed, ControlMyNikon supports 64-bit versions of Windows 7.  Up until now I had only shown that it supported 32-bit versions, but received emails indicating that it working for users in 64-bit environments.  Well that's great news and many thanks for the feedback!  Note that this only applies to Windows 7.  Vista and XP 64-bit are still officially unsupported.

As for Mac users?  Well, I have heard that it runs under VMWare Fusion but I can't confirm it yet.

New Tutorial Video - Using Themes

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video worth?  Well, when it comes to understanding ControlMyNikon, it's priceless.  This free, new HD video shows you how to change the look and feel by using Themes. Click on the image below the start the video, or watch it on YouTube. Be sure to run the video in high-def and in full-screen if possible as it has a lot of detail.  More videos are in the pipeline!

Version 2.6 Released!

After reviewing feedback from our users, we have released a new version of ControlMyNikon! There is a new version available for download that fixes the following issues:

Release Notes v2.6
1) Fixed error encountered when the camera ActiveD Lighting was set to Auto on a D90.
2) Fixed error frequently encountered when resizing the window while live view is running.
3) Fixed the focus stacking slices and slice delay boxes so that they are no longer read only.
4) The Focus Stacking group of controls no longer moves to a location above the focus navigator when you resize the window.
5) The flash commander builtin compensation picklist is now the correct color.
6) Clicking either of the shoot buttons before the previous capture has been transferred to the pc no longer causes a crash.
7) You can now send the additional remote UDP commands to ControlMyNikon: +/- Aperture, +/- Shutter Speed, +/- Exposure Compensation

Download ControlMyNikon v2.6

Version 2.4 Released!

Greetings, fellow tethering enthusiasts!  This new version of ControlMyNikon fixes a bug that prevented D90 live view from being displayed.  Many thanks to those of you who sent emails concerning this issue and helped out with the testing of the new version.  Your help is much appreciated!

Download ControlMyNikon v2.4 here!

Version 2.3 Released!

It's that time again - for a new version of ControlMyNikon!  Version 2.3 is a significant upgrade to the previous version.  More Themes, Microphone Triggers and general tweaks/fixes galore!  Here is the main screen in the new default theme - Office 2007 Black.  Download it here!

New Features

• Added Remote Triggering via UDP command.  Just set the port and enable it in the preferences screen.  Send a 0, 1 or 2 to this port to trigger the Autofocus Only, Shoot, and AF and Shoot commands.
• Added a Microphone Trigger.  Now you can use any microphone recognized by windows to trigger the shutter.  Just select the microphone and set the loudness threshold.  No special hardware required!
• Added over 40 new themes.  
• Added right-click copy to the script window.
• Tweaked the screen so that it now runs on a wsvga netbook at 1024x600 resolution.
• You can now hide the Image Browser histogram and file browser.

Bugs Fixed

• The browser buttons do not actually change the file and mirror paths.
• The Image Browser fails to resize images properly in some situations.
• Resizing the window while Liveview was enabled could cause the application to crash.
• The AF Only (F5) button is missing a bracket.
• The script loop counter is cut off on large loop numbers.
• Portrait oriented images are not showing up in the proper orientation.

There's Always Time for a Timelapse

One thing I noticed on the Granville Island HDR shoot was all the little water taxis zipping about.  I made a mental note to return and try a timelapse sequence of these boats.  However, I had never even attempted a timelapse before, so I did a little research.  Turns out the best place to pick up the tips and tricks of the trade are over at Timescapes Timelapse.  Armed with this information, I was was ready to give it a try.

The goal for the timelapse video was to be around 1 minute in length in HD.  A quick calculation indicated that I would need to capture 1200 images at 4 second intervals.  This would take around 2.5 hours to capture, but hey it's a nice place to hang out.  This length of time means that a DSLR video capture is out as it captures much shorter segments before maxing out.

For equipment, I brought along a Tripod, Nikon D40 with 18-200mm VR, laptop and ControlMyNikon.  The D40 had been sitting on the shelf for awhile, a victim of my upgrading to a D300.  What a perfect time to use it as the 3008 x 2000 resolution is more than enough for producing the video.  Also, I liked the thought of working the shutter on the D40 as it seems quieter and less clunky than the D300.

You have some options in triggering your camera for a timelapse.  Some higher-end Nikons have a built-in intervalometer.  The tricky part of using it is that you can't really review your images on the LCD and check the histogram to ensure that the exposure is ok.  If you leave the LCD on between shots, the battery will drain too quickly.  There are also external triggers called intervalometer's starting around $50 USD.  These work on cameras without a built-in intervalometer, but you still have the LCD/battery drain problem.  However, if you have a laptop, you can remotely trigger and view the images as they come in on the laptop monitor.  This way your camera batteries last a lot longer as the camera LCD never lights up after shots. 

I found my location.  This one had lots of people and boats flitting about so it should look good on a timelapse video.   I set up the tripod as short and sturdy as it would go to minimize camera movement.  Added the D40, set the focus to manual, turned VR off, set the lens as wide as it would go, connected it to the laptop via USB, then started ControlMyNikon.  In it's simplest mode, you could use ControlMyNikon as a remote trigger and just keep on clicking the Capture button every several seconds but that would be a pain.  I had visions of setting this all up and sitting nearby on a park bench so I could keep an eye on the rig while I listened to my iPod.  Every now and then, I could wander over, check the captured images on the laptop for exposure/focus etc, then wander back to the comfortable bench.  Simple and easy, that's me, so I used a very simple script to control the image captures.  Here is the script:

I would be shooting in Aperture mode, but need to set this on the camera body manually as one cannot set this remotely on a D40.  The Aperture vs Manual mode for time lapse sequences is a hotly contested issue in time lapse circles.  Since this was a twilight sequence, I hoped that the little D40 could keep up with the exposure changes.  I even equipped it with the viewfinder shield so that stray light entering the viewfinder would not mess up the exposure calculations. The script sets the image type to JPEG Fine, which is all we need for a time lapse.  I set the repeats to 2000 knowing I could just stop the script at anytime when I have all the images I needed.  Within the loop, there is a 2 second delay.  There is approximately a 1.5 second delay to transfer the file from the camera to laptop, so the total delay is 3.5 seconds. That's a little faster than my 4 seconds originally planned, but I figured better too many images then too few.

To run the script, I simply clicked on the start button and watched the images roll in.  I started up the iPod and relaxed while keeping an eye on the rig.  Every now and then I would review the latest captured images on the built-in ControlMyNikon image browser and all was fine.  Two and a half hour later, I figured I had enough images.  A quick check of the batteries in the camera and laptop showed that I could have gone to about 3.5 hours if needed.

I used QuickTime Pro to import the images to create the video.  The resulting video was sharp and well exposed, but I wanted it to be a bit more smooth.  Enter Adobe After Effects CS4.  The folks on the Timelapse forums had mentioned that there is a Time Warp effect in AE that allows you to interpolate frames, thus making 'in-between' images.  I tried that and sure enough, it became a alot smoother than the QuickTime version.  You'll sometimes see a bit of blurring or warping when one moving element crosses another moving element and this is a side effect of Time Warp.  I've heard that tweaking the Time Warp properties or using other AE plugins can minimize this problem.  The pan and zoom-out effect at the beginning of the video is also done using AE.

All in all, shooting timelapse is very relaxing.  Just set up and sit back.  I'm looking forward to the next one!

A Little HDR

It's been awhile since I did any HDR, so I thought I would give it a try with ControlMyNikon.  Many of the supported Nikon DSLR's have exposure bracketing built-in and this makes it easy to capture the necessary HDR image sequence.  But what about those D40, D60 and D80 owners who have limited or no bracketing capabilities.  And what if you wanted to to push the envelope a bit with custom image sequences?  Enter ControlMyNikon.

My first attempt was at Vancouver, Canada's lovely Granville Island.  This is a great place to grab dinner and then enjoy the stunning city skyline.  I brought my tripod, D300, USB cable and a laptop with ControlMyNikon installed on it.  I found a good spot on the dock and set everything up in under five minutes.  I wasn't too sure what to make of the dock as it bobbed around in the waves a little bit, so it might cause problems in my HDR processing software, Photomatix.

So, how do you capture the image sequence using using ControlMyNikon?  Well, there are several options:

• Manually set the exposure settings on the camera body and press the shutter release button.  The images will automatically be sent to the laptop where you can view them in the Image Browser and check out the histogram. Pros: None, really.  Cons: Too easy to move the camera during setting changes, causing image alignment problems.  
• Remotely set the exposure settings using ControlMyNikon and remotely fire the shutter release button. The images will automatically be sent to the laptop where you can view them in the Image Browser and check out the histogram. Pros: Don't need to touch the camera.  Cons: Takes too much time between shots.  I'd like to take the shots as quickly as possible due to moving clouds and objects such as boats.  
• Run a script in ControlMyNikon to capture the image sequence.  The images will automatically be sent to the laptop where you can view them in the Image Browser and check out the histogram. Pros: Don't need to touch the camera and is very fast.  Cons: None.

I like the fast and easy option, so I decided the run a script.  The script is very easy to create - no programming knowledge is required.  You just select the command you want, and press a button to add it to the script.  Later, you save the script for later use when you are in a similar situation.  The scripting is very flexible, but I had to make a decision on how to change exposure between shots.  As a general rule, you always keep ISO and aperture the same for all the shots and you only change the shutter speed.  We can change the shutter speed in two different ways:

• Set it in Aperture Mode, and then change the exposure compensation between shots.  Pros: Easy.  Cons: You may not have enough available compensation to fully capture all the needed exposures.  Also, you are trusting the built-in exposure compensation to judge the right exposures, which can be tricky in variable light, such as a night scene.
• Set it in Manual Mode, and then change the shutter speed between shots.  Pros: You get more control.  Cons: A little tougher to set up.  You are guaranteed to get enough exposure coverage.

I tried both options:  First up, Aperture Mode:

Current Script: HDR_Aperture_Priority.dsc

1.  Set Exposure Mode to [1: Aperture priority]

2.  Set Noise Reduction to on

3.  Set Exposure Delay to on

4.  Set White Balance Mode to [Sunny]

5.  Set Image Type to [RAW + JPEG Fine]

6.  Set Image Size to [L(4288*2848)]

7.  Set RAW Bits to [1: 14]

8.  Set RAW Compression to [6: Lossless compressed]

9.  Set JPEG Compression to [1: Optimal Quality]

10.  Set JPEG Color Space to [1: AdobeRGB]

11.  Set Image Path to [c:\pics\hdr\@DATETIME2]

12.  Set Image Name to [@DATETIME1]

13.  Set ISO to [200]

14.  Set Active D Lighting to [3: Off]

15.  Set Aperture to f[8]

16.  Set Exposure Compensation Interval to [1 Step]

17.  Set Exposure Compensation to [-5.00]

18.  REPEAT [10] TIMES

19.  Capture with No Autofocus

20.  Exposure Compensation Increase

21.  GOTO PREVIOUS REPEAT

It took me several minutes to create this script.  I grab the RAW file in addition to the JPEG just in case I find a killer shot and want to tweak it further.  I set up the file name and paths so that each image sequence would get it's own folder.  Set the exposure compensation to 1 step and then backed it off so the starting exposure compensation would be -5.00.  Set the repeats for 10 times and captured without auto focus so that the camera would not hunt for a focus in the darkness.  This script will give me 10 shots, each spaced by 1EV.  As the script run, I watched the images come in on the Image Browser and check the histogram of each.  Even though I captured 10 images, I thought the brightest image could have been brighter to give Photomatix more to work with.

Next up, Manual Mode:

Current Script: HDR_Manual_Mode.dsc
1.  Set Exposure Mode to [3: Manual]

2.  Set Noise Reduction to on

3.  Set Exposure Delay to on

4.  Set White Balance Mode to [Sunny]

5.  Set Image Type to [JPEG Fine]

6.  Set Image Size to [L(4288*2848)]

7.  Set RAW Bits to [1: 14]

8.  Set RAW Compression to [6: Lossless compressed]

9.  Set JPEG Compression to [1: Optimal Quality]

10.  Set JPEG Color Space to [1: AdobeRGB]

11.  Set Image Path to [c:\pics\hdr\@DATETIME2]

12.  Set Image Name to [@DATETIME1]

13.  Set ISO to [200]

14.  Set Active D Lighting to [3: Off]

15.  Set Aperture to f[8]

16.  Set Shutter Speed to [4]

17.  REPEAT [14] TIMES

18.  Capture with No Autofocus

19.  Shutter Speed Increase

20.  Shutter Speed Increase
21.  GOTO PREVIOUS REPEAT

I saved the previous script and then edited it to change the mode and set the shutter speed.  This is more of an interactive setup in that you must determine what the upper and lower shutter speeds will be. To do this, guess  the slowest speed and try it by setting the speed and pressing the 'Capture' button in ControlMyNikon.  Once you have a speed that has not blown out any highlights, select the fastest speed so that it doesn't blow out any shadows.  Those two speeds are your range.  You can check in the shutter speed list how many shutter speeds are between them.  On my camera, starting at a 4 second shutter speed and ending at 1/100 gave 27 separate steps.  This was too many, so I set it to 14 steps and increased the shutter speed twice between each step. 

This worked very well and the brightest image was exactly where i wanted it.  

Now the best part is that after all this work to travel to the location, setup etc, I just ran PhotoMatix on my laptop with the captured images.  This let me see if I had what I needed for a successful HDR.  After awhile, I just let the script run while I chatted with some South Korean photo club members out on an evening field trip.  By the time I left, I had the best possible images for the least effort.  Too often before I had taken my camera out and used the bracketing function to capture the images, but found something that I hadn't noticed on the small LCD display only when I got home to process the images.  That is soooo frustrating.

Anyways, just my thoughts on HDR, ControlMyNikon Style.