When you are setting up a shot you may want to see what kind of result you will be getting before taking the actual picture you will be keeping. Camera Controller allows you to see the results of the current camera settings without saving a bunch of pictures you will have to delete from your hard disk later. In many respects, the preview picture is similar to an actual picture except that Camera Controller deletes the preview picture for you automatically, keeping your hard disk clean and uncluttered.
Camera controller supports three preview modes; camera preview, picture preview, and video preview. Each mode has it's useful features as well as it's pitfalls. The best result is usually obtained when a combination of one or more of these preview modes is used to frame and set up exposures for your pictures. These modes are described below.
Your camera has a built in preview image that is essentially a copy of what you see in the camera's LCD. This is usually a small image that will look about the same size and have the same level of detail as your camera's LCD. Because it is small, the image downloads fairly quickly and can be used for general focusing and zooming. However, the small size and lack of detail can make fine focusing difficult. Also, the image is exactly the same as you would see in the LCD so it may not reflect what the actual resulting picture will look like.
Displaying camera previews
- Click the main window camera preview toolbar button to display camera previews.
Alternatively, the built in preview can be ignored and an actual picture can be taken and used for the preview. This gives a detailed and accurately exposed preview image, however, the image is much larger and takes considerably longer to download and display. The larger size makes is slow to use for general focusing and zooming.
Displaying picture previews
- Click the main window picture preview toolbar button to display picture previews.
Notes:
- The resolution of the picture preview snapshot is selected using the "Preview Quality" setting.
- Picture previews are always displayed when the exposure control window's Apply button is clicked.
If your camera has a video out connector and you have a Video for Windows compatible capture device installed in your PC, you can connect your camera's video out to your PC and display the contents of the LCD in Camera Controllers video display window. This preview mode is real time and has a good enough picture that you can generally use it for all focusing and framing tasks. It's problem is that the LCD does not always properly reflect the exposure settings - particularly in situations requiring long exposures.
Setting up video preview mode
- Connect your camera's video-out to your capture device's video-in.
- Verify the camera's communication cable is properly connected to the PC.
- Start camera controller.
- Click the main window "Tools/Options" menu item to display the options window.
- Click the options window's "Video" tab.
- Select the video capture device you connected your camera to in step 1 from the list of devices in the "Video Device" box.
- Click the options window's "General" tab.
- Disable the "Automatically update preview after Zoom or Focus?" check box.
- Click OK to save and return to the main window.
- Click the main window video preview toolbar button to display the video display window.
- Click the video display window's "Video/Source" menu item to display the video source window for your capture device. Note: If your capture device has only one source, this menu item may be disabled.
- If available, select the source port you connected your camera to in step 1.
- Click the OK button to return to the video display window.
Displaying video preview
- Click the main window video preview toolbar button to display the video display window.
Notes:
- Both the main window and the video display window are active when the video display window is being displayed.
- The video display window can be hidden by clicking the main window toolbar button labeled "Video" again. Alternatively, you can click the system close button in the upper right hand corner of the video display window. See the main window and video display window descriptions for more details.