I was eventually able to figure this out myself. This uses UBasic, this build: a530-100a-0.9.9-932-full.zip; requires the A530 dial to be on "M", before starting the program you must be in Manual Focus mode with the flash disabled, and because each zoom of the A530 permits only two aperture values (it doesn't really have an aperture), you must set the aperture to the lower of the two available for whatever zoom you begin at. I begin at full wide angle zoom.
With all of the above in mind, I seemed to find the following:
set_zoom and set_av do not work on the A530
set_focus val does work if the camera is in manual focus mode, and the dial is in M mode. It seems to work better if you place it BEFORE a click "zoom_in" or "zoom_out" command.
A focus setting of 500 provides sharp focus of an object 15 inches from the front of the lens.
If you inactivate the display, it kicks out of manual focus mode and focus commands do not work. A potential future enhancement would be to figure out how to solve this problem. My only idea at this point is to use click commands to temporarily activate the display and focus to a shorter distance. Otherwise, I believe the A530 is just going to sit in autofocus mode.
Here is the code:
rem Author - seerdman for A530
rem set dial to M, turn off flash, put in manual focus at full wide angle
rem set aperture to lower of 2 available settings to allow 1 step
@title Pix in Space
@param a Interval (Seconds)
@default a 5
@param b Batch frames
@default b 10
@param c Wide Focus (mm)
@default c 500
@param d Zoom Focus (mm)
@default d 65535
t=a*1000
if t<100 then let t=5000
n=1
x=500
y=0
z=1
goto "shot"
:shot
print "Shot #", n
sleep x
press "shoot_full"
sleep t
release "shoot_full"
sleep x
n=n+1
y=y+1
if y=b then goto "toggle"
goto "shot"
:toggle
if z=1 then goto "zoomin"
if z=2 then goto "zoomout"
:zoomout
set_focus c
sleep 1000
click "zoom_out"
sleep 1000
set_tv_rel 0-1
sleep x
z=1
y=0
goto "shot"
:zoomin
set_focus d
sleep 1000
click "zoom_in"
sleep 1000
set_tv_rel 1
sleep x
z=2
y=0
goto "shot"
end
