Faster capture speed

General Discussion about digiCamControl and related photography techniques.
craigthom
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 1:20 am

Faster capture speed

Post by craigthom » Sun May 14, 2017 3:05 am

I am using a Canon 7D. I've got it set to store pictures to the camera only. It's set for manual focus and manual exposure. I've got thumbnails turned off.

If I write a script with nothing but "dcc capture" ten times it takes a bit over a second to take each photo. If I turn on live view (to lock up the mirror), it takes almost two seconds per picture.

If I run the sample iso changing script, it can take a few seconds per picture. And the echo command doesn't work.

If I run exposure bracketing it takes a bit over a second a photo.

Is this all the speed I'm going to get? I'd really like to get three or four frames per second, but a solid one would be better than what I've got.

This is a concern for me because, in August, I'm going to have about 120 seconds of total eclipse. I'd like to get as many pictures as I can in this period, bracketing by shutter speed as I go to make it easier to do composite pictures of different areas of the eclipse. I'd like to write a script to run through shutterspeed and capture images in a loop for those two minutes.

The camera itself is capable of much faster frame rates.

If this is the best the program can do, I'll have to do something else. It's a good thing I've got three months.

By the way, what values are returned by "get shutterspeed"?

Faster capture speed

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craigthom
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 1:20 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by craigthom » Sun May 14, 2017 9:29 pm

I'm going to build a serial cable interface and see if that helps with the capture rate.

craigthom
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 1:20 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by craigthom » Tue May 23, 2017 3:53 am

Well, I've got a serial cable. It still takes two seconds or so to capture an image. That's disappointing.

This delay must be added into the program somewhere, but I can't find a setting to get rid of it. Any ideas?

craigthom
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 1:20 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by craigthom » Tue May 23, 2017 10:50 pm

When I set the shooting mode on my camera to high speed, the shutter fires several times for each "dcc capture" in a script. This means that the shutter is being held for a second or so.

Since I really want to get more than a shot a second, I'm going to need a shorter serial release "press".

TechnicianJohn
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 6:40 pm

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by TechnicianJohn » Wed May 24, 2017 7:53 pm

HI Craig, I'm also shooting the eclipse (Canon 6D), and running into the same issues.

I'm getting about 3 frames in 5 sec running my scripts. The echo command works in the "no longer improved" XML based script language, so I'm using that.

Don't use "shutterspeed", there is a mistake in the documentation; the correct command to use is "shutter".

Are you aware of the Eclipse Megamovie Project?
https://eclipsemega.movie/
Please join us, several of us are using Digicamcontrol and we're collaborating on scripts for the eclipse. See my post in O[f][f]-Topic

craigthom
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 1:20 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by craigthom » Wed May 24, 2017 10:20 pm

In another topic he added a fix to allow configuring the serial shutter time. It seems to work fine.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1763

I've been playing with Eclipse Orchestrator, and I may end up going with that. I've been playing with the free version. It's expensive, though, so I'll wait until a couple of weeks out, checking the long-range forecast, before I plop down the money.

But I can get the times, so maybe I'll be just as well of scripting digicamcontrol myself, especially now that I can beat two frames a second.

So what are the format for "shutter"?

I will look into that mega movie thing.

craigthom
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 1:20 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by craigthom » Thu May 25, 2017 1:39 am

It runs even faster with a short loop in XML scripting, getting just a bit more than three frames per second. It isn't a steady "click click click" all the time, but it isn't dropping any captures.

The problem with XML scripting is that I can set shutter speeds lower than 1/4 sec. I think this is a bug; there's a dropdown for "value" that looks empty, but when I hold my mouse over it values show up. Those values don't work, though.

astronomer
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2017 4:56 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by astronomer » Fri Jul 07, 2017 5:01 am

Hi,

Did you figure out a workaround this issue? I'm experiencing the same thing using tcl scripting.

craigthom
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 1:20 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by craigthom » Fri Jul 07, 2017 5:09 am

No, I decided to spend the money for Eclipse Orchestrator for the event. After than I'll return to DigiCamControl for things that are less specific. DigiCamControl seems to be great, flexible program, it's just the tool I want for the Eclipse.

It had better not rain.

astronomer
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2017 4:56 am

Re: Faster capture speed

Post by astronomer » Fri Jul 07, 2017 5:47 am

Did eclipse orchestrator have a significant performance gain? How much frame rate it could get for a bracketing burst?

I'm looking at other option like libgphoto2 gphoto2. But it appears the performance hit was rooted in camera. If eclipse orchestrator is still based around the same ptp/mtp command, it seems very difficult to get around the problem.

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