Tetherscript Forums

G'day,

I've watch all the Control MY Nikon videos, especially for stacking and I have to applaud you for providing detailed information, thank you.
Having said that, I'm a bit confused on the use of "live view" you demonstrated in your the 35 shot stacking example.

My equipment: Nikon D7200 Nikkor 40mm 1:2.8G lens and a new tether pro usb cable, windows 10 and NVIDIA GT1030 video card.

I can clearly see the importance of seeing/previewing (live view) and making the necessary adjustment to get the stack as good as possible before taking the first shot; that being the reasoning to try this software and process.

In your 35 shot stacking example video, when you are moving the focus point determining the number of shots required your live view appears much clearer than what I see generated my Nikon D7200 with a 40mm 1:2.8G lens.

Is there something I'm missing or is this just the low res quality of the camera's LCD screen and I'm stuck with the low res live view?

Your time is appreciated.

Bob

Hi Bob,

The Nikon cameras have low resolution live view streams - so low that you can see the stream pixels on larger monitors. The resolution of the live view stream in the tutorial video would be the same as on your D7200. Best thing to do is use ControlMyNikon's GPU live view mode (set it in the Preferences screen), and use the Reduce Jitter option that makes the stream look nicer.

The more expensive bodies go as high as 800x600, but the difference isn't that noticeable, IMO.

Cheers,

Russ

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From the KB:

Image Quality

Most Nikon bodies send twenty four 640×420 JPEG Basic Quality images to the computer per second. The D5 and D500 uses JPEG Fine Quality and have an option for 1024×768. You’ll need a fast computer and USB3.0 to stream JPEG Fine at 1024×768 due to there being up to 40 times more data per image transferred compared to the lower resolution modes.

Some bodies allow you to set the live view resolution. If your body allows this, you will find a Live View Image Quality menu item in the View menu. You can only set this while live view is not active. The setting can be stored in a profile.

Each streamed live view image is a reduction of the full normal image size, so you may notice image artifacts on the live view image. You can also enable the ‘Jitter Reduction’ feature in the Layers tab, Image section to get a slightly better quality preview image. The final captured image will be of a much higher quality and larger than the live view image.

Russ,
Thanks very much for the helpful reply, I will indeed follow your recommendations for the D7200.

I do have newer Nikon, but have not tried it until very recently because the D7200 was more that doing the job. The subject matter is minerals, most palm size and smaller. In many cases stacking is necessary to get a full pin sharp photo, hence my concern for at least a satisfactory live view on the computer. Using ControlMyNikon I can get a live view on my computer screen, move the focus box over the the entire specimen to ensure accurate focus then take the shots and stack.

Realizing the new Nikon, a D780 has a better on screen live view resolution I decided to switch. ControlMyNikon recognizes and finds the D78; however, I get no view on screen when I select live view. I reviewed the setting, but can not resolve the no live view on the computer screen.

Any suggestion?
Thanks
Bob