Overview Features Remote Live View Photo booth shooting Support

Remote Live View Display on a PC*

Display large, high quality live preview images on a PC screen with the Nikon D300, Nikon D300s, Nikon D5000, Nikon D90, Nikon D700, Nikon D3s, Nikon D3 or Nikon D3X. The live view has two modes:

1. Full frame display with optional live histogram display
2. Zoomed display showing a portion of the frame

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 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, 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 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

Screenshots

Please note: Screenshots of live view using NKRemote are not available yet. The screenshots shown below are from DSLR Remote Pro using a Canon DSLR and are similar to the live view with NKRemote using Nikon D90, Nikon D5000, Nikon D300, Nikon D300s, Nikon D700, Nikon D3s, Nikon D3 or Nikon D3X camera.

Full frame live preview.
Please note: Nikon cameras don't support live histogram display and DoF preview. These features are only available with Canon cameras and DSLR Remote Pro.

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

NKRemote can autofocus using contrast detection autofocus when live view images are 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.
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.

NKRemote 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 the software'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.

* Please Note: The Nikon D200 and Nikon D80 do not support live view

Home | Products | Purchase | Download | Support | Reviews | About | News | Links

© Copyright Breeze Systems 2010

NKRemote - Live view display when controlling Nikon D90, Nikon D300, Nikon D300s, Nikon D5000, Nikon D700, Nikon D3s, Nikon D3, Nikon D3X or Nikon D200 camera from a PC. Uses include photomicroscopy (taking photos through a microscope), astronomy/astrophotography (taking photos through a telescope), photo booths, animation with onion skinning, studio photography and mast/pole photography