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Remote Live View Display on a PC

Display large, high quality live preview images on a PC screen with the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EOS 40D, Canon EOS 50D, Canon EOS 450D/Rebel XSi or Canon EOS 1000D/Rebel XS. The live view has two modes:

1. Full frame display with optional live histogram display
2. Zoomed display showing a portion of the frame at 100% magnification (actual pixels)

Applications

• Studio/Product photography - full frame live view display on the PC with depth of field preview and grid overlay to aid composition, highly accurate focusing using 100% zoomed preview and mouse wheel or cursor keys
• Mast photography - full frame remote live view display for accurate camera alignment, onion skinning with offset to aid overlapping of images when taking panoramas
• Photo booth shooting for event photographers
• Wildlife photography - locate a camera close to the subject and operate it from a distance via the USB connection complete with large high quality remote live view display on the PC, accurate remote focusing and precise control over exposure
• Astronomy/Astrophotography - full frame live view display on the PC for previewing images from a telescope, 100% zoomed preview for precision focusing, timed bulb exposures for long exposures
• Microscopy - full frame live view display on the PC for preview without the need for a separate video camera and 100% zoomed preview for precision focusing of the microscope
• Animation - onion skinning with full frame live view display on the PC for accurate placement of models and judging the differences from the previous frame
• Focus Stacking for increased depth of field for macro and close-up photography, landscapse and product photography. More details...

Screenshots

Full frame live preview with histogram

Zoomed preview showing actual pixels

Full frame live preview with "onion skinning" background offset to the left to aid camera alignment when taking multi-image panoramas

Full frame live preview with grid overlay and "onion skinning" background for animation. The left figure has been moved and onion skinning allows its position to be judged compared to the previous frame.

Autofocus

Unique to DSLR Remote Pro is the ability to autofocus using the live view images displayed on the PC. In the full frame live view the area to be used for autofocus can be moved to the required position. Autofocus is also available in the zoomed live view display. Type Ctrl+F to activate the autofocus and a red rectangle will be displayed showing the focus area during AF.
Autofocus in remote live view uses a contrast detection algorithm and may take several seconds to achieve optimum focus which means that it is only suitable for use with a camera mounted on a tripod and a static subject. Autofocus gives more accurate results with some lenses than others and sometimes may fail to focus if the initial image is a long way out of focus.

Onion Skinning

The term "onion skinning" comes from traditional drawn animations where individual frames of an animation were drawn on "onion skin" paper and viewed on a lightbox. The animators (often known as "inbetweeners") would place the previous and next drawings under the current drawing so that they could draw the in between frames for smooth animation.

DSLR Remote Pro supports onion skinning by transparently overlaying the live view image on a background image. The background image can be from a previous frame as in the screenshot above or it may be loaded from a JPEG image prepared in an image editor. This makes it possible to capture a background image, save it to disk and then edit it using an image editor (e.g. to add reference marks) before loading it back into DSLR Remote Pro's live view display.

One of the key uses for onion skinning is stop motion animation but it is also useful for any application which needs accurate alignment of more than one image e.g. overlapping images when photographing panoramas.

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© Copyright Breeze Systems 2008

DSLR Remote Pro - Live view display when controlling Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Canon EOS 40D, Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EOS 50D, Canon EOS 450D/Rebel XSi or Canon EOS 1000D/Rebel XS from a PC. Uses include photomicroscopy (taking photos through a microscope), astronomy/astrophotography (taking photos through a telescope), animation with onion skinning, studio photography and mast/pole photography