Following on from my last posting about the frustrations of my Optio S12, I've changed camera and modified the rig yet again.
I decided that the S12 and GentLED were a lost cause, so decided I would up the ante and replace the S12 with a W80. This is a waterproof and shockproof camera, which is a bonus, but more importanly for me it includes a built in intervalometer that can be set to a specidied number of shots, or to continue shooting until it the card is full, the battery dies or you stop it manually. The interval can be set to anything from 10 seconds up to 24 hours. Once again Digigood on eBay was my source and the camera was delivered promptly (must remember to leave feedback!
So on inspection, the camera was a different form to the S12. On the S12 the tripod mount was roughly in the centre. On the W80 it is at the far right as viewed from the rear. This gave me a little bit of a problem as I had saved weight in my rig by only having the camera mount large enough to reach the mounton the S12, so I needed to extend this down. So I cut the existing mounting plate off and bolted on a new, larger mounting plate. Fortunately, none of this is visible when the camera is installed. While I was at it, I drilled out the rivets to the gentLED bracket and removed that.
The W80 is slightly larger and heavier than the S12, but fortunately I don't think I've upset the balance of the rig.
While I was at it, I modified the picavet slightly. Originally, the lines had been running through the eyes in the cross. My friend Ramon Palares from Holland suggested that I add in some split rings to hang the rig from as these have smoother edges than the cross itself and so will reduce the likelihood of fraying.
Pictures of the new rig to follow.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Oh what a frustrating day
I had a day off yesterday, and following on from some problems I'd had with the IR shutter release on my Optio, I decided to redesign my rig based on some very good advise from the folks over on Cris Benton's KAP forum.
So having quickly modified the rig, I then proceeded to spend several hours trying to get the IR sensor to work. It seemed that if I had the remote trigger in fron of the lens then the shutter would release consistently, but if I pointed the remote at the sensor, triggering became much less reliable. It didn't matter whether I shaded the whole lot, built a canopy, or whatever, getting anything more than one release in ten was just impossible. So in the end, I decided it was a "feature" of the camera and decide to look for an alternative approach. I found an Optio W80 on eBay. The W80 includes an interval timer, but no IR, so I can manage with setting the camera to click away on its own.
Look out for an S10 on eBay soon!
(I'll upload images of the modified rig when I get a minute.
So having quickly modified the rig, I then proceeded to spend several hours trying to get the IR sensor to work. It seemed that if I had the remote trigger in fron of the lens then the shutter would release consistently, but if I pointed the remote at the sensor, triggering became much less reliable. It didn't matter whether I shaded the whole lot, built a canopy, or whatever, getting anything more than one release in ten was just impossible. So in the end, I decided it was a "feature" of the camera and decide to look for an alternative approach. I found an Optio W80 on eBay. The W80 includes an interval timer, but no IR, so I can manage with setting the camera to click away on its own.
Look out for an S10 on eBay soon!
(I'll upload images of the modified rig when I get a minute.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Issues uncovered and problems solved?
Last week in Hythe I discovered a couple of issues with both my RC and autokap rigs. I think I have solved both of them this week...
The R/C rig only seemed to by operating the shutter on every thrid operation. I've been experimenting all week with SDM and can't seem to get this behaviour to change with any consistency. I've followed the various suggestions on the interweb but to no avail. So in the end, or in frustration, I've gone back to plain vanilla CHDK. So this means I've got to run a script to operate via USB, but I can live with that, and now I'm back operational with the shutter operating on every operation :)
the autokap rig was a bit more tricky to resolve. As I mentioned last week, the camera seemed to stop shooting after about 10 shots when in the air. I experimented with the camera on the ground this week and it seemed to shoot the first couple of shots, then become very inconsistent. No matter what I did, I still couldn't get any consistency. So I asked for some guidance on the KAP discussion forum. Initial advise led me to believe I had a faulty Gentled. Then someone asked if I had the camera set for manual focus or fixed at infinity. So I tried some further experiments. Certainly the gentled wasn't faulty as I could clearly see the IR led flashing. But with the camera focus fixed at infinity, the operation of the shutter was at best random and at worst non-existant. So I switched the camera over to manual focus with focus set to infinity. Immediately the camera started to respond to every flash of the gentled. I also tried it on auto and the shutter continued to respond. Interesting behaviou, but problem solved, so I can go away happy :)
The R/C rig only seemed to by operating the shutter on every thrid operation. I've been experimenting all week with SDM and can't seem to get this behaviour to change with any consistency. I've followed the various suggestions on the interweb but to no avail. So in the end, or in frustration, I've gone back to plain vanilla CHDK. So this means I've got to run a script to operate via USB, but I can live with that, and now I'm back operational with the shutter operating on every operation :)
the autokap rig was a bit more tricky to resolve. As I mentioned last week, the camera seemed to stop shooting after about 10 shots when in the air. I experimented with the camera on the ground this week and it seemed to shoot the first couple of shots, then become very inconsistent. No matter what I did, I still couldn't get any consistency. So I asked for some guidance on the KAP discussion forum. Initial advise led me to believe I had a faulty Gentled. Then someone asked if I had the camera set for manual focus or fixed at infinity. So I tried some further experiments. Certainly the gentled wasn't faulty as I could clearly see the IR led flashing. But with the camera focus fixed at infinity, the operation of the shutter was at best random and at worst non-existant. So I switched the camera over to manual focus with focus set to infinity. Immediately the camera started to respond to every flash of the gentled. I also tried it on auto and the shutter continued to respond. Interesting behaviou, but problem solved, so I can go away happy :)
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
First steps in AutoKAP
Sunday 31st January 2010 saw my first tentative steps into the AutoKAP arena, which wasn't entirely successful! For Christmas I'd got the various components I needed to build a simple autokap rig. It is powered by a small 3v electric motor with gearing that brings it down to about 2rpm. The rig is designed to take a Pentax Optio S10 camera and the shutter is fired by a GentLED auto. The battery pack is mounted behind the motor.
Having built it, and checked the balance, I found that I needed to move the battery pack slightly in order to achieve good balance with the camera.
Anyway. So off to Hythe I trotted on Sunday afternoon to meet up with some kite flyers. I wasn't too hopeful as there was no breeze at home. But when I got to Hythe I was pleasantly surprised. Very cold but gloriously sunny day with a light breeze that grew a bit once you'd got out of the turbulence.
So with a 78" rokkaku in the air, I attached the rig and did all the sensible gorund checks. Then let it gain height. Certainly the rig was turning, but there was no indication of the shutter firing. So I left it flying for about 10 minutes. Given that the shutter should fire every 10-15 seconds, I should get between 40 and 60 photographs. By now the rig had stopped roatating. So I brought it down to earth and checked a few things. Well the rig batteries seemed to be flat. Disappointing. I know they are not knew, but I would hope they managed a bit better than that. I'll have to check the current draw of the motor. OK. What about the photos. 13! Only 13! what had gone wrong. Well it looks as though the shutter doesn't trigger on every release of the GentLED. I need to check this out. It could be the position of the GentLED or it could be the time it takes the camera to recycle after storing a shot. I will need to do some experiments on this. But out of the 13 shots, I had three that weren't blurred. This one is the Dukes Head pub, just across the road from the field we were flying on.
OK so having given up on AutoKAP for now, time to try R/C KAP again. Again I've been a busy boy, having converted my rig to use 2.4GHz from 35 MHz. I've also swithed my camera (a Canon G9) from plain vanilla CHDK to SDM. So here lies a problem. With CHDK, I could start up my USB script and every time I signalled the shutter it would fire. With SDM the same script seems to only fire on the third trigger, and then only if the triggers are in quick succession. It seems as though the first trigger wakes the camera, but it isn't sleeping, the second trigger operates focus, like a half press, and the third operates the shutter. Again I need to check this out. Unfortunately the documentation is a bit out of date as I am using the 1.82 release. But it looks as if I may need to change the focus setting to a digiscope setting and also switch off camera sync. but it looks like switching off the sync needs to be done before every shot, so must be managed in the script. Anyway, having figured out what was heppening, I happily clicked away and got a much higher success rate. This one is of Hythe town centre viewed across the Royal Military Canal.
Having built it, and checked the balance, I found that I needed to move the battery pack slightly in order to achieve good balance with the camera.
Anyway. So off to Hythe I trotted on Sunday afternoon to meet up with some kite flyers. I wasn't too hopeful as there was no breeze at home. But when I got to Hythe I was pleasantly surprised. Very cold but gloriously sunny day with a light breeze that grew a bit once you'd got out of the turbulence.
So with a 78" rokkaku in the air, I attached the rig and did all the sensible gorund checks. Then let it gain height. Certainly the rig was turning, but there was no indication of the shutter firing. So I left it flying for about 10 minutes. Given that the shutter should fire every 10-15 seconds, I should get between 40 and 60 photographs. By now the rig had stopped roatating. So I brought it down to earth and checked a few things. Well the rig batteries seemed to be flat. Disappointing. I know they are not knew, but I would hope they managed a bit better than that. I'll have to check the current draw of the motor. OK. What about the photos. 13! Only 13! what had gone wrong. Well it looks as though the shutter doesn't trigger on every release of the GentLED. I need to check this out. It could be the position of the GentLED or it could be the time it takes the camera to recycle after storing a shot. I will need to do some experiments on this. But out of the 13 shots, I had three that weren't blurred. This one is the Dukes Head pub, just across the road from the field we were flying on.
OK so having given up on AutoKAP for now, time to try R/C KAP again. Again I've been a busy boy, having converted my rig to use 2.4GHz from 35 MHz. I've also swithed my camera (a Canon G9) from plain vanilla CHDK to SDM. So here lies a problem. With CHDK, I could start up my USB script and every time I signalled the shutter it would fire. With SDM the same script seems to only fire on the third trigger, and then only if the triggers are in quick succession. It seems as though the first trigger wakes the camera, but it isn't sleeping, the second trigger operates focus, like a half press, and the third operates the shutter. Again I need to check this out. Unfortunately the documentation is a bit out of date as I am using the 1.82 release. But it looks as if I may need to change the focus setting to a digiscope setting and also switch off camera sync. but it looks like switching off the sync needs to be done before every shot, so must be managed in the script. Anyway, having figured out what was heppening, I happily clicked away and got a much higher success rate. This one is of Hythe town centre viewed across the Royal Military Canal.
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