Kaidan Head
Some suggestions on capturing and transferring images:
- Bring your own batteries
(4 AA's), since the ones in the cameras (Canon Powershot
A10) will likely be almost used up when you pick it up.
- There is a camera
instruction manual in the camera box.
- The head should click to 18
positions. If it doesn't click, you need to adjust the mechanism at
the base of the head. Don’t tighten the head too much. There is an
online instruction manual here.
- Before shooting images,
make sure the optical center of the camera is approximately on the
rotation axis of the Kaidan head. We have
measured how you should configure your Kaidan
head to make this happen and marked the configuration. When you mount the
camera on the Kaidan head, please follow those
markers. When you demount the camera, please be careful not to destroy the
markers. (We do NOT suggest you disassemble the Kaidan
head. Only demount the camera when necessary.) Pages
11-14 of Kaidan instruction manual tells
you how to configure the head, if you are curious.
- You can use bubbles on the
levelers to make sure the head is mounted level.
- Make sure the camera is
turned off when you're finished. Also, do not leave the LCD
monitor on longer than necessary, since the batteries drain pretty
fast.
- To download pictures you can:
- use
a laptop or PC with a flash card reader. You can take the flash
card right out of the camera and insert in the slot.
- install
the Canon software on your machine (should be in the Canon camera box)
and download via USB.
- You might want to go ahead
and capture a hand-held sequence at the same time, while you have the
camera.
- During capturing, the lens
should be most zoomed out (the default mode of the camera).
Otherwise, the focal length parameters we provided are NOT valid.
- We recommend you use Manual
Mode of the Canon PowerShot A10, so that the
exposure and white balance are not automatically adjusted and hopefully
consistent across the image sequence. We also recommend you capture images
in portrait mode with small resolution (640*480) and save
them in superfine compression mode. All these modes are described
in the associated camera instruction manual. After capturing, you can use
Photoshop or other image package to rotate the images.
- Make sure you return the
equipment promptly, so that the next group can pick it up. If, for
some reason, you think you are going to need more time, contact the TA and
the next group immediately to see what can be worked out.