Latest tweaks to M3/M10 Landscape Bracketing Script

As readers of my blog know, from a travel perspective, I think the CHDK enabled M3 and M10 are an incredible pair of cameras, especially as you can pick them up relatively cheaply on the second hand market.

When travelling light, ie not wishing to carry my EOS R and all its heavy lenses, I carry both the M3 and M10, as I have the M3 running in its native sensor mode, covering the visible part of the spectrum, and the M10 converted with to IR, at a 720nm cut.

Both cameras run my LBS-M script which gives full control of complex focus and exposure bracketing.

In the latest version of LBS-M, which can be downloaded from the right, I've added a dynamic adjustment feature, that allows you to change both focus and exposure options without exiting the script and going back to the script’s CHDK menu. In addition, you can dynamically switch the bookend feature on or off, change the shutter delay time and select various sky bracketing options.

The adjustment state can be accessed by doing a half shutter long press, which will take the script into a new mode that allows you to use the UP, DOWN, RIGHT and LEFT keys to move/toggle through various options:

• UP will toggle the bookend feature on and off
• RIGHT will move through the various exposure bracketing options
• LEFT will move through the various focus options
• DOWN will adjust the time delay (0 to 10s)
• SET will move through the sky bracketing options

The following M3 screen captures illustrate the above in action:

The above shows a typical LBS-M start up state, showing focus, in this case, is at infinity, the near DoF (161cn) and an infinity blur of 0 microns. This focus state is not ideal as there is no reported Canon focus data to use: thus I would normally back off infinity focus until I see some focus data appear, eg and infinity blur of greater than 0 microns. We also see the exposure (middle top bars) is indicating an overexposed scene.

In the above I auto ETTRed using the script and adjusted the exposure do the over exposed indicator is not showing red or white. For this illustration we won't adjust focus but enter the adjustment mode by doing a long half shutter press (about 2 seconds), when we see the following appear:

In the above we see a reminder that we can use the Left, Right, Up, Down and Set buttons:

In the above we see that I've set the focus mode to Manual, that ISO bracketing has been set (as the ISO bracket value was set to ISO 1600 in the script's menu, this means a second image, at ISO 1600, will be taken), that bookends has been turned on, that a delay of 5s has been set, and that ETTR sky bracketing has been enabled..

In the above I've returned to the shooting state by doing a half shutter press. I can re-enter the dynamic adjustment mode at any time the script is running, by doing a long half shutter press; and change any of the settings.

As this is a rather boring post, I'll finish up with a test shot I just took on the IR converted M10. I took the shot through a window and it is not meant to be a prize winning image;-)

As usual I welcome any feedback on this post or any of my posts.