ShutterCount 1.1 is now available on the Mac App Store.
In this release we have added support for Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, EOS 50D and EOS 550D / Rebel T2i / Kiss X4 cameras.
The complete list of supported cameras is available on the product page.
Also new is a FAQ page, which is available from the app’s help menu, or directly by clicking here.
My newest Mac app, ShutterCount displays the number of shutter actuations (the shutter count) of your Canon EOS digital camera. The shutter count is read directly from a USB-connected camera, and thus provides accurate numbers that are not attainable with simple EXIF-based methods.
Simple is that. You can skip the trip to Canon for a reading, and you don’t have to pay every single time you want to check the count. Note however, that video clips recorded are not included in the number. For a separate mirror movement reading (that includes videos) you should still have to visit a Canon service center.
Speaking of money, you can grab the app at a special introductory price from the Mac App Store. This promotion runs until the end of October.
Supported cameras are the following:
Today I practically finished the focus bracketing feature in Kuuvik Capture. Of course it has to pass our rigorous testing procedure, but the features are considered final.
Speaking of the features. You can drive focus starting from either the closest or from the farthest point, in small/medium/large sized steps. What those steps mean is camera body and lens specific (a totally arbitrary value actually), so you have to test it before starting the bracket. Hint: Command + arrow in live view mode drives focus by small steps, while Command + Shift + arrow drives it in medium steps.
You can expose up to 30 images in a focus bracketed sequence. It can also be combined with mirror lock-up and the intervalometer, as usual. At the end of the sequence we try to focus your lens back to the starting position, but don’t rely on it if you need accurate positioning – some lenses are really crappy in this regard and are unable to drive focus by the same amount back and forth.
We have also changed the maximum number of shots you can expose in other bracketing modes to 15. As you can see on the bracketing monitor, this number is usually more than the exposure range your camera is capable of, but some of you requested it, so we added it.
Version 1.1 is in private beta right now, and it is planned to be release early July. It will be a free upgrade for current Kuuvik Capture users.
There are situations when you need remote camera control. No, I’m not speaking about the “let’s control the camera from an iPad two meters away” kind of pointless exercises, I’m talking about real needs. Think about cameras mounted on the roof of the stadium, situations where you would scare wildlife away with your presence, or downright dangerous places where you don’t want to spend more time than absolutely necessary.
I bought Canon’s Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E7(B) to assist in implementing some of my photographic ideas, and also to develop network (both wired and wireless) tethering support for Kuuvik Capture. While it’s clear that Canon’s transmitters are not standing in the forefront of today’s technology, if you could live with their quirks and limitations, then they could do the job well.
The Pricing Issue
Well, I paid 520 EUR (roughly $675, excluding taxes) for the WFT. Although this is some $175 less than the list price, it is pretty expensive. The bill of materials for this device is hardly more than $50, so this asking price is a bit irritating. As a comparison: an Apple Airport Extreme base station that packs comparable amount of software costs $179. Considering the functionality of the WFT, my opinion is that Canon could sell huge amounts of these at $199 or even at $299. But the $849 list price is simply unrealistic.
The bad news is if you need full, 100% USB-equivalent remote control functionality, then you have to swallow the price, and buy the device. There are some products, such as Camranger, that offer partial solutions, but you need a WFT for the whole thing.
Integrated Wi-Fi (and WFT software) on the 6D certainly points to a good direction, and I hope more cameras with integrated WFTs will follow. This is how it should be done in 2013.
The Hardware
When the first wireless transmitters had appeared for Canons, they were ugly bricks that connected to the camera with a cable, but in exchange they supported multiple cameras. Then Canon made their mind, and started to sell dedicated transmitters for each camera model (think 5D2 and 7D). With the WFT-E7, the ugly brick returns. In theory it will support future cameras, but I found no sign on the Net whether it works with anything except the 5D3. I plan to investigate this in the near future.
Its exterior finish acts like a dust magnet, and also files off small skin particles of your hand, so it’s a challenge to keep it clean.
Mounting the WFT is another challenge. I’m using Arca-Swiss compatible tripod heads/plates, so screwing the WFT under my camera is not an option. As a short term solution I simply attached a keyring to the supplied neoprene case, and hung the device on my tripod hook. In the long term the keyring will be replaced with a carabiner that will attach to that hole on the tripod base. Canon packages two cables with the device: one is too short and the other one is too long for me. This is why I reel up and velcro the longer cable to the case.
The good news is that the WFT is powered by the same LP-E6 battery that powers the 5D3.
Operating Modes
You can choose from the following operating modes (which are mutually exclusive):
The only mode that gives you full remote control is the EOS Utility mode. This is what I’m using, so will skip the others.
Network Configuration
This is the first quirk. For some unknown reason, the device can’t operate as an access point. So you either connect it to an existing network; bring your own access point (another box, batteries, etc); or create and use an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network (which can work only in “g” speed, and its WEP encryption isn’t something considered secure). This is a major oversight on a $675 device.
I won’t talk about basic network configuration, because you can find pretty good and detailed guides at Canon’s Digital Learning Center. I will, however, talk about another quirk: pairing.
Pairing
To control a WFT-equipped camera, you have to pair it to the computer and application you plan to use it from (I’ll call this computer/application pair an endpoint).
You must configure your networks settings on the 5D3 using the Connection wizard. No matter how experienced you are in IP network configuration, this is the only way you can get your WFT to do the pairing at the end.
Below is a screenshot of the network camera manager in the private beta version of Kuuvik Capture 1.1 showing my paired (and connected) 5D Mark III.
Network camera manager in Kuuvik Capture 1.1 beta
Working with the WFT
This is the best part: once paired and connected, you can forget about the WFT. Everything looks and works as if your camera was connected via USB. Yes, Wi-Fi can be slow (especially ad-hoc “g” speed networks), so large RAW file downloads can take a while. But otherwise the functionality is completely identical.
You only have to pair your WFT to Kuuvik Capture once, but you must watch for the connection sequence later on. WFTs advertise themselves on the network using Bonjour. When you turn on a paired WFT, it will advertise itself for a minute. During this time Kuuvik Capture (or another software) must connect to it. If the camera does not receive a connection request within a minute, it will shut down the WFT! From this point on things become pretty stochastic. Sometimes after a while the camera turn the WFT on again, sometimes you have to disable and re-enable EOS Utility mode on the camera to retry the connection.
The recommended sequence is:
Conclusion
During the last few weeks of testing the WFT-E7 worked as expected – offering stable, completely USB-equivalent connection. I don’t have a reason no to be satisfied with it. I just try not to think about its price.
Oh, I’m sure 6D owners will break into a smile seeing the ugly brick hanging under my tripod…
☕ ☕ ☕
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The tilt movement is used in technical cameras as well as DSLR tilt/shift lenses to precisely adjust where the plane of focus is on the image. Focusing with tilt is a tedious process (described here and here), but the results always worth the time!
There was a big pain point in using DSLR T/S lenses: checking what you have done. The viewfinder isn’t enough for that with today’s high resolution bodies, so you have to zoom in and check different points on the image using magnified live view. The adjust either tilt or focus. Then check the points. Then refocus… I had some images where I spent more than half an hour on fine tuning focus!
I said “was” – as it was the case before Kuuvik Capture’s Split View feature came along. I’m using this since I was halfway into developing the first prototype, and man, it can save lots of time! No, it won’t think instead of you, but the ability to quickly and visually asses what you have accomplished is priceless. It is also a great tool for learning how to focus a tilt/shift lens.
So watch the video below, and if you are using a Canon EOS-1D X, 5D Mark III or 6D with any of Canon’s great tilt/shift lenses, then grab Kuuvik Capture’s beta now! It’s that good (OK, don’t believe me, try it for yourself ;)).
As I told you in the introduction of Kuuvik Capture, I used the software yesterday for shooting quasi-macros with the Canon 135 f/2. In this post I’ll give a detailed description how it helped me creating The First Flower.
The final optimized image. Click the image for a larger version.
The biggest challenge was keeping the appropriate depth of field, without the softening effect of diffraction. I would like to expose the image at f/11 or wider, so I focused on the flower and checked the image in 5x magnification to see whether all the thorns are in focus. Unfortunately they weren’t. So I placed a marker on the flower, and another one on the lower left part of the image and entered split view. Split view can show you two or three 5x magnified parts of the image simultaneously with the 5D Mark III.
Why just 5x and not 10x? Simply because 10x is an “empty magnification” in Canons, that is you do not get more detail in 10x. This is because the 10x magnification is simply the 5x image blown up in software!
Seeing both parts at once I was able to see how much more should I stop down. I used depth of field preview and focus pulling to optimize sharpness for the thorns. I ended up shooting the first preview at f/14. Critical focus check at 100% revealed just a tiny bit of softness at the base of the thorns on the lower left, so I stopped down to f/16 and took another preview. It was good at this time.
Then came exposure optimization. I started out at +1 during the live view part, and seeing the raw histogram I knew that I have some more headroom to lighten the image, thus keep more data. At +1 2/3 stops the image became overexposed, so I lowered the exposure to +1 1/3.
Deleted the markers and turned off focus peaking to see the image in its entirety, it was what I was after (this is what you can see on the above screenshot). I marked it final. This step removed all four preview images I made during the optimization – both from the computer and from the camera’s memory card. In the studio I didn’t have to go through the selection process as I just had a single, final, optimized image.
