TWAIN software contd.

Camera connected: Camera Settings

The camera settings dialog allows you to set / retrieve various camera settings: camera model, body ID, firmware version, owners name, date & time, CF card status (and format option), personal functions, parameter sets, personal white balance.

Camera connected: Personal Functions

I previously covered the personal functions in some detail, however below you'll see an animation of the dialog used to set these functions.

Camera connected: Parameters

The parameters option allows you to create up to three parameter sets which can contain a custom tone (gamma) curve, sharpening settings as well as individual compression ratios for Fine and Normal JPEG modes. Kudos for offering this level of flexibility (although it would have been nice to be able to set these in-camera).

It's interesting to note that the sharpness intensity used by default (for the camera's "Standard" set) is 0, an indication that the EOS-1D does almost no in-camera sharpening by default (very similar to the EOS-D30).

Remote Capture

Remote Capture is an application we first saw on the EOS-D30 and subsequently was included with the PowerShot G1 and G2. Remote Capture is designed to allow you shoot directly from your computer (a notebook is ideal). This provides you with a large, higher resolution review and direct storage of each image as it is shot. Images can be stored on the computers hard disk or hard disk and camera Compact Flash card.

Before you start you must have Firewire (IEEE 1394) connectivity on your computer. This shouldn't be a problem for most Mac users however native IEEE 1394 connectivity on PC's is still scarce. Fortunately PCI IEEE 1394 cards are now relatively inexpensive and will be a good investment for the future. Firewire is far faster than USB and thus transfer of the images back from the camera is very fast, typically around one second for a JPEG.

Remote Capture can be used to take single shots, time lapse interval shots, timer based shots as well as simply a 'back-end' storage and review system when using the camera hand-held.

Main Windows (Save & Shooting)

After starting Remote Capture and connecting to the camera two windows are displayed:

Save Window (Left)

The left window, titled 'Save' displays a small version of the last captured image as well as its exposure information and a histogram. Along the top of the window there is a 'film strip' of the last few exposures. Clicking on the 'View' button provides a larger single image view which can be zoomed and scrolled:

Shooting Window (Right)

The right window, titled 'Shooting' provides the option to choose automatic rotation (if you were for example taking portrait shots) as well as the number of 'Shots To Go' (based on remaining hard disk or CF space).

You can either click on the Release button, press a hotkey (which can be pre-programmed) or simply press the cameras shutter release button. The ability to use the camera shutter release means that with a camera connected and shooting hand-held Remote Capture becomes a high resolution review terminal.

The Shooting Window also has two drop-down menus. The Camera menu allows you to change Camera Settings, Personal Functions and Parameters (as previously described in the TWAIN software). The Shooting menu allows you to set Remote Capture to perform multiple timelapse (Interval Timer) or single shot timer exposures:

Preferences

The Preferences dialog allows you to select the destination (computer or computer and camera), filename and folder for captured images as well as assigning a hotkey (a Function key) for shutter release.