Helicon Soft Forum

I'm using remote on an iMac, running snow leopard with a Nikon D700. For the most part, things work well. I've been moving from Nikon remote to this software.

1. I don't understand the work flow with Auto-focus and setting near and far points. It seems odd that I can't autofocus on a front point, store it, autofocus on a rear point and store that. Why are both points removed any time I autofocus? I understand the back has to be behind the front - so I understand removing the back point when autofocusing - but removing both, forces a manual focus on the rear point. Am I missing something?

2. If I make a stack and send it to Focus - and process it - and forget to quit Focus - and send a second stack - I get an error message about starting up two versions of the program. Quitting Focus each time works - but there ought to be some way to let it load a new stack into focus.

3. Once I've zoomed in on an image - there seems to be no clean way to get back out. Hitting preview works but right clicking or esc or something ought to bring me back out to full view.

4. Some hooks to do exposure stacks. EnfuseGUI might be a simple one - of course integrating it into Focus would be even better.

I prefer this over the Nikon software, a few tweaks here and there would make it "perfect" for me.

mgg wrote:I'm using remote on an iMac, running snow leopard with a Nikon D700. For the most part, things work well. I've been moving from Nikon remote to this software.

1. I don't understand the work flow with Auto-focus and setting near and far points. It seems odd that I can't autofocus on a front point, store it, autofocus on a rear point and store that. Why are both points removed any time I autofocus? I understand the back has to be behind the front - so I understand removing the back point when autofocusing - but removing both, forces a manual focus on the rear point. Am I missing something?

When you focus manually from the program, we count steps and this way we know current focus position. When you activate auto-focus, camera changes focus and we loose control of our position. That is why points are reset.

mgg wrote:2. If I make a stack and send it to Focus - and process it - and forget to quit Focus - and send a second stack - I get an error message about starting up two versions of the program. Quitting Focus each time works - but there ought to be some way to let it load a new stack into focus.

Yep, this should be fixed. Thanks for letting us know.

mgg wrote:3. Once I've zoomed in on an image - there seems to be no clean way to get back out. Hitting preview works but right clicking or esc or something ought to bring me back out to full view.

Actually _left_ click should switch you between full view and zoom in view. This will be checked.

mgg wrote:4. Some hooks to do exposure stacks. EnfuseGUI might be a simple one - of course integrating it into Focus would be even better.

I prefer this over the Nikon software, a few tweaks here and there would make it "perfect" for me.

Great, thanks for the feedback. Your suggestions are very welcome.

In regard to the OP's first point ... is there a quicker way to set the nearest and furthest points? It's a bit tedious to set the first point and then have to click the "Big to camera/infinity" buttons 20+ times.

Additionally, if I initially use the DOF calculator to figure out the focusing step interval and then uncheck the Auto button, it sets the interval back to 1 whenever I manually set the number of shots. Then if I change the interval back to its original value (50, e.g.) it sets the number of shots to 1. Is this a bug or am I not understanding how to use it? Thanks

There is no faster way, sorry. Maybe you need to use bigger focusing steps (Preferences\Step size) The program should keep track of all steps that are made by you. What we can do is to allow you to define the size of ">>>" steps. Now is equal to 25 ">" steps.

Stas Yatsenko wrote:There is no faster way, sorry. Maybe you need to use bigger focusing steps (Preferences\Step size) The program should keep track of all steps that are made by you. What we can do is to allow you to define the size of ">>>" steps. Now is equal to 25 ">" steps.

As we allready discuss this would be cool to allow the setting of the multiplier values but wouldn't be as well interesting to have two move back/forward buttons that move the rail continiously just as it is done on the stackshot command box with the two dedicated physical buttons, it works amazling well on the box using those button to do the focus, so a equivalent software way would be great i guess.

I have done a request to stackshot to modify the firmware to keep the use of the two physical button move back/forward even in usb command mode, though I understand that its tricky to have two different source of command, i'd love that. Maybe if other users ask that feature to them it would increase the change that they will consider this feature.

mgg wrote:4. Some hooks to do exposure stacks. EnfuseGUI might be a simple one - of course integrating it into Focus would be even better.

I prefer this over the Nikon software, a few tweaks here and there would make it "perfect" for me.

Great, thanks for the feedback. Your suggestions are very welcome.[/quote]

Would love that feature too !!!

If I understood right, you want the rails to keep moving till the button in the interface is pressed and stop right after button is released?

No I'd like to use the Back/Fwd button of the box their usual ways even if the box is USB connected, I know it's a firmware issue, they told me it could be implemented if enoughusers are interested in.
In a first time you could have a software equivalent of those two.

Ok, we will see what we can do here.