Flash-to-Subject Distance Calculator Utility

Ken Nadvornick submitted a new resource:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists) - Flash-to-Subject Distance Calculator Utility

Here is a handy little software utility that I wrote for my own use and have been using for several years. I just completed some upgrades and thought it might also be useful to a few others.

This utility is designed to create flash-to-subject distance tables for any source of flash illumination whose guide number is known, or can be measured. It does nothing that you cannot do for yourself with a hand calculator. It just does it faster and more conveniently.

I use it primarily for...

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(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Version 1.30

For the record, the initial release in the original article is Version 1.30. Any future updates will be documented here, and remain available from the same download link at the bottom of that original article.

Ken

Wow, excellent thank you!

of course,I have to ask: where is the Mac version?

RalphLambrecht said:

of course,I have to ask: where is the Mac version?

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Waiting for someone to buy me a Mac??



Seriously though, I don't have access to, or much development experience with, Macs. I do know there are a number Windows and DOS emulators available for Macs. These seem to range from full-featured and reportedly excellent (VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop 9) down to simple freebie MS-DOS emulators (DOSBox for Mac, see: YouTube video).

Because no one wants to spend money in order to run a free utility, I might take a look at the DOSBox solution first. It's a little more techie to get going. I've used the version for Windows to run an ancient MS-DOS planetarium program I still keep around and that works pretty well. But I've never tried the Mac version. Nor have I tried running a Windows command-window-targeted executable under any DOSBox MS-DOS emulation.

Maybe I can try that tonight when I get home from work?



Ken

Well I did try and as it turns out the Windows DOSBox 0.74 MS-DOS emulation is actually a pretty good implementation. So good, in fact, that it correctly identifies the utility executable as being stubbed a Windows 32-bit Portable Executable (PE) format file.

That means it won't run in the Windows DOSBox environment. You (correctly) get the default stub notification "This program cannot be run in DOS mode." I would presume the same would be the case for the Mac DOSBox emulator as well.

Ken

Just a short notice, especially to those many who continue accessing this article from outside of APUG...

The bad news is that my ISP has recently informed me that they are permanently discontinuing their personal web space storage feature for all of their users. The cutoff is currently stated to be October 5, 2015. Unfortunately that web space is where the utility that is the subject of this article is located. So after that date the utility will no longer be available at the download link provided above.

But the good news is that it's now been a year-and-a-half since I first posted that original link, and during that period there has been a fairly large number of improvements and new features added to the utility for my own continuing needs and use, along with a few bug fixes. At this same time APUG itself is about to undergo its own major upgrade within the very near future, and I'm not yet certain how the Articles section may be affected.

So once the APUG upgrade has been completed and stabilized I intend to then upload the new version, probably also with a new updated article listing the improvements and illustrating how to use everything. As well as providing a new link for downloading it.

Thanks for your patience.

Ken

Ken Nadvornick said:

The cutoff is currently stated to be October 5, 2015.

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Oops. My mistake. The cutoff is actually stated to be October 8 2015. Meaning the final active day is October 7th.

Sorry.



Ken

Ken Nadvornick said:

At this same time APUG itself is about to undergo its own major upgrade within the very near future, and I'm not yet certain how the Articles section may be affected.

So once the APUG upgrade has been completed and stabilized I intend to then upload the new version, probably also with a new updated article listing the improvements and illustrating how to use everything. As well as providing a new link for downloading it.

Thanks for your patience.

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Still awaiting the APUG system upgrade, and with it a mechanism to allow file downloads...

Ken