Laptop as bigger preview screen

Hi to all...........

 

I was interested in using my laptop tethered to my camera and review the shots instantly. I found a discussion about

Pentax remote assistant in the other forum. So I played with it a little bit.

 

I used "separate screen display" option in view. The view is on the opening screen of remote assistant v3. That gave

a screen of approx 5X4 inches size on my laptop screen which was as big as a LF viewfinder. This was much better

option than to review my shots on the camera LCD. Also I could change any setting on the camera and fire the

camera from my laptop. I felt like I was a true pro :-)

 

Just wanted to share this with you guys.

 

Subho

That is really cool, Subho. I just looked at the Remote Assistant feature set and didn't know that it had capability for interval timers as well. That could come in very handy for many types of shots!

 

I am going to download RA 3.51 and try it over the weekend...cheers, Jeff

Little tip...Buy an Acer Aspire One, or Asus EEE or MSI Windbook, Or any of the new 10in or under "netbooks". (HP, Lenovo, etc all make them now)

 

As I type this on my Aspire One, I can tell you these are great little machines.

 

8.9in screen, and form factor exactly 1/2 the size of a 14 inch laptop. Weighs 2lbs and runs for over 3 hours with wifi turned off...although that includes dimming screen. However, the battery is about the size of 6 AA (in 2 columns of 3) so carrying a spare for at least 4 hours of full power screen should be plenty for most people.

 

I got this mainly for travel, and also to load detailed TOPO maps on to use with my GPS receiver for locating trail heads. The highly hacked car GPS works well for general navigation but this is way more powerful and can use multiple mapping programs avail for almost no cost.

 

The other reason I went with it was as an alternative to an Epson P-XXXX or Wolverine image viewer/HD. For $300 shipped it's less money and does more than either of those. Plus, it holds more I have the 120GB version but there is also a 160GB. I am going to add a "slim" DVD writer to it, to both watch movies and to backup memory. Alternatively a second external laptop drive would do the same thing, but without the ability to use it to watch rental movies.

 

So basically I can dump cards onto this at events, or even upload directly to a server if I have WiFi. Just made spending $300-500 on an Epson photo viewer look ridiculous! I haven't loaded any processing software on it yet, I'm not optimistic I will be able to do much other than sort images, and delete. However, it should run Remote Assistant just fine, as my old laptop wasn't nearly this powerful and ran RA.

 

You will look like a gorilla using this though, but it's so small I carry it with my work laptop in the same bag!

Justin,

 

Gee. Something off topic. I have something very close to what you have:

 

1. Aspire One

2. GPS map for Europe and N Am loaded onto the UMPC and PPC

3. GPS BT & another gps PDA Asus Mypal.

 

I have not had any Topo map yet and it would be easy to load up anyway

 

Daniel

NG Topo! is cheap, and easily avail. The have updates from the web now as well.

 

It works great. I can plug my garmin backcountry GPS in or simply use a self contained locator.

 

Not really off topic, I was hoping for laptops to go this way. Smaller but still functional is something that could be useful in digital photography in the field.

 

Not sure if you saw, but for the Super Bowl they were shooting directly to UMPCs (pocket sized ones) and then uploading from them. Awesome use of technology!

I've played with the RA and fell in love with the interval timers. Thought it was wonderful and still have it on my to do list for some street type shooting at starbucks or some other cafe where the camera can just be set to shoot on its on. The IR remote doesn't work well because of the big flashing red light..lol. Its not clear to me, however, that you can shoot and have the photos actually stored on the laptop. Is this possible?

Jemal <br>

<br>

With an UMPC (like Acer Aspire One, or Asus EEE or MSI Windbook) you can use the built in cam to transmit

(video and audio stream) ongoing actions to 20K miles away. Skype can do that. <br>

<br>

Justin,<br>

Bring that over to SuperBowl and dial my skype number assuming you have internet in the stadium.

<br><br><br>

Daniel , Toronto

The Acer Aspire One is truly a nice beast with two problems: the short battery life (as noted above) and the really poor sound output. But it's got a better screen and keyboard than a similar Asus eee. Plus it has two card slots so you can use one to bump up the storage and another to transfer images off your camera. Brilliant touch, that. Wireless also works very well, unlike other laptops.

Robin

<br><br>

I have bought that at CAN$350 around US$280 (1 G mem 120 G HD running XP) with the stock 3 cell batt. For a 6 cell batt it costs like US$110. They have to cut weight and costs somewhere.<br>

The speakers are bad. But it is more than ok if you use the headphone . Hope it is sturdy enough for my rough use.

<br><br>

Daniel , Toronto