Gossip meeting “Building a Zoom practical meeting”
Tuesday 13th July 2021
Quekett members can watch a video of this meeting.
Paul Smith opened the meeting and talked us through his PowerPoint presentation on constructing a temporary demonstration area for a Zoom meeting. You can view his slides here:
Click the arrows to move through the slides. Click the symbol at bottom right for a larger version.
You can watch Paul’s presentation here:
Click the arrow to start the video; click the symbol to the left of “vimeo” for a larger version
Geoff Phillips told us that before COVID-19, he used to meet up once a month with Chris Adams and other enthusiasts to identify freshwater organisms. They now meet once a week using Zoom, and share images of specimens and of keys and illustrations. Some specimens are viewed whole, while others are dissected and mounted on slides. Geoff prefers using the cameras on his microscopes via a tethering program instead of as webcams because it gives better control of colour and exposure.
Key to caddis larvae
Gwyneth Thurgood showed us one of her paintings that was inspired by a transmission electron micrograph of the endodermis of apple rootstock at 80,000×. She saw it when she was invited to visit the East Malling Research Station in Kent to see their electron micrograph images for her artistic purposes. It is reminiscent of the view a bird would see when flying towards the shore line of the Jurassic Coast in Devon.
The Sandstone Cliff, 1964, Pastel, by Gwyneth Thurgood
Alan Wood has been trying to use his Canon digital SLRs as webcams, and has been experimenting with 2 programs.
EOS Webcam Utility from Canon has no interface, it is just a driver that works when a supported camera is attached and a suitable program such as Zoom is open. Any changes to the camera settings have to be made on the camera.
It is supposed to work with 5D Mark III, 6D, 7D, 60D, 600D, 100D, 1100D and later cameras (and also mirrorless EOS R models and EOS M6 Mark II, EOS M50 Mark II, EOS M50, EOS M200).
It works with Alan’s EOS 5D Mark II (not officially supported) and EOS 600D, but the image is not the full width of the window in Zoom.
Free download from: Canon EOS Webcam Utility Software
After installing the driver, Alan’s EOS 40D no longer worked with EOS Utility, but it worked again after he un-installed the driver.
digiCamControl Virtual Webcam has an interface where you can set aperture, shutter speed, ISO, metering mode, white balance, exposure compensation and focus mode. You can also flip the image left to right, focus, and turn Live View on and off.
It is supposed to work with 5D Mark III, 6D, 7D, 50D, 500D, 100D, 1000D and later cameras, and with EOS R models, some EOS M models, and some Nikon and Sony cameras.
It works with Alan’s EOS 5D Mark II (not officially supported) and EOS 600D, and the image is the full width of the window in Zoom, but movement is not as smooth as with EOS Webcam Utility.
Free download from: Download | digiCamControl
digiCamControl Virtual Webcam (Configuration screen)
When you are in a Zoom meeting, you can switch between the cameras that are attached to your computer; just click the up arrow next to the Stop Video icon near the bottom left of the window, and select one from the list:
Selecting a camera in Zoom