Overview





If you are using SDM for general photography, you may hide the header at the top of the page or replace it with a compact header just showing zoom focal length.
Choose from the options in 'Stereo/SDM Header'.

Normally, synch mode is enabled but if you have directly pressed the shutter button it will be disabled.
Re-enable it via the Stereo submenu and you will see 'Synch' displayed at the top of the screen.
Half-press the Ricoh switch to focus and fully press to blank screen and light LED.
When the LED's on both cameras are lit, release the switch.
For movies, a few seconds delay has been claimed by some users to give better synchronisation.
With an ordinary switch, briefly press-and-release to focus and then press to blank screen, etc.
A second quick press-and-release or half-press of the shutter button will cancel the focus.
Alternatively, give a single longer press and release.

After your camera has powered-up, SDM displays various information on the screen.
The main items are :-
The descriptions in square brackets are the names of each element as used by the Layout Editor.
To change their position on the screen, in 'Advanced Menu' select 'OSD Parameters\Layout Editor'.
Browse to item of interest using FuncSet key and change its position with the multi-controller arrow keys.
The stereo status bar displays :-
STEREO shooting is the normal mode for stereo shootings.
It means that a photo is taken directly on pressing-and-releasing the switch, a script is not required.
FAST is a mode intended for action non-stereo photography (such as digiscoping), the photo is taken as soon as the switch is pressed, it does not wait for switch release.
In single-shot mode, it is enabled by setting focus-mode to manual or digiscoping.
In this mode, SDM treats voltage on the USB connector as a key-press and responds in various ways.
As they are essential for stereo photography using twinned cameras, the synchronisation-mode status, synch delay and lens zoom value (in mm) are permanently displayed.
They are on a red background on the left camera and a blue background on the right camera.
You will only see 'Synch' if synch is enabled and 'Disable USB Download' is active and you will only see a delay value if synch delay is enabled.

A number of on-screen displays (OSD's) are available to aid stereo shooting or provide system information.
These are described separately.
In <ALT> mode use left/right arrows to browse the displays and the FuncSet key to toggle on/off.
Alternate OSD's are blank so that you can quickly hide them.
In mode use left/right arrows to browse the OSD's.
Battery percentage voltage is always displayed.

Overrides displayed are :-
Bracketing status will only be displayed if the Canon shooting mode is set to 'continuous'.
The distance-bracketing status will also only be displayed if the camera is in a valid focus-override mode.

As well as the image JPG and RAW files, SDM can save XML files (of shooting and settings information) and bracketing LOG files.
If saving of them is enabled in the menu options, their status will be displayed (shown on the right of above screenshot).

At the bottom of the screen, a description of the currently-loaded script is displayed. In alternative menu mode, <ALT> or <CFG> will be displayed.
Some features only work in <ALT> mode, others only work in ordinary mode (<ALT> not displayed).

SYNCHRONISED ZOOMING



This works on cameras that have a single zoom lever or switch.
In the Stereo menu, you can enable or disable this option and also set a timeout value of two to ten seconds.
(Remember, you need time to operate the zoom switch on both cameras).
If the remote switch has not been pressed by the timeout time, synchronised-zoom mode will terminate.
To enter synchronised-zoom mode, quickly move the zoom lever to wide-angle or telephoto setting and release.
The blue LED will light and in this mode you can use the remote switch to zoom.
Quickly press-and-release the switch to move one zoom step.
When the zoom limit is reached, the zoom direction will reverse.
(a zoom-step is an SDM-defined value that for some cameras is the same as the Canon zoom step but for other cameras, that could have 125 native steps, it is derived from a suitably-spaced selection).
Moving the zoom lever more slowly enables normal zoom operation.
To exit zoom mode, half-press the camera shutter, half-press the Ricoh switch or let it time-out.
You cannot use the <ALT> button until you have exited zoom mode.
Used correctly, this is a useful feature and you should avoid the temptation to manually press the zoom, there is no need and it will only lead to frustration.
Ensure that your switch battery has not discharged to a marginal value that zooms one lens but not the other.

STARTUP



On startup it is possible to run a script that, for example, sets parameters not remembered by the camera.
The script must be named 'Startup.bas' and located in the CHDK/SCRIPTS folder.
On completion, the script will be exited and your usual default script will be present.
The following example sets the A620 to continuous-shooting mode :

@title Startup
set_zoom 1
rem set continuous mode for A620
sleep 5000
click "set"
sleep 300
click "down"
sleep 300
click "down"
sleep 300
click "right"
click "right"
click "set"
sleep 1500
click "print"
sleep 300
exit_alt
end