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 an 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. I 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. (I do
NOT suggest you to disassemble the Kaidan head.
Only demount the camera when necessary.) Page 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 have
at least two choices
- use the PC with the
flash card reader in Sieg 228. 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 provide are NOT valid.
- I recommend you to use Manual
Mode of Canon PowerShot A10, so the the exposure and white balance are not automatically
adjusted and hopefully consistent across the image sequence. I also
recommend you capture images in portrait pose with small
resolution (640*480) and save them in superfine compression mode.
All those 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 the next group can pick it up. If for some
reason you think you are going to need more time, contact me and the next
group (seitz@cs.washington.edu) immediately to see what can be worked out.