D780 Live View Function Only Loop?

[kswallow54]

All,

Trying to figure out what I should expect with my Nikon D780. I notice when LiveView is clicked there is nothing that show with the camera on the screen. If I click loop and save image then I get roughly 1 image a second that pops up. Is this the expected behavior? I was expecting a more live image from the camera, or am I assuming incorrectly. 

Thanks. 

Keith

 

[s3igell]

Newer DSLRs have so many settings that you can easily trigger one which defeats a Necessary Function for BYN.  The "Supported Cameras" page lists D780 supported including LiveView.

Start by looking through the Camera Menu for any setting that references Live View or Turning On/Off the Camera-Back LED Display.

If worst, backup your settings, and do a Factory Reset.

Also look through this forum for other D780 User Posts, to see if they encountered / solved a similar problem.

[kswallow54]

43 minutes ago, s3igell said:

Newer DSLRs have so many settings that you can easily trigger one which defeats a Necessary Function for BYN.  The "Supported Cameras" page lists D780 supported including LiveView.

Start by looking through the Camera Menu for any setting that references Live View or Turning On/Off the Camera-Back LED Display.

If worst, backup your settings, and do a Factory Reset.

Also look through this forum for other D780 User Posts, to see if they encountered / solved a similar problem.

Tried a factory reset. Didn't help. 

Reviewed all the posts. Tried the offset mentioned in one post and it didn't help. Looked through all the settings and don't see anything specific. 

From what I have read no one with a D780 ever solved this in the forum posts. If there is someone that has please let me know the magic bullet, as I would love to use this software. 

[astroman133]

First, LiveView in the camera works by taking very short exposures, downsampling them to fit on the LCD display, and displaying them one after the other. The rate is probably somewhere around 30 images per second. BYN downloads those small images and displays them on the screen, but the download time lowers the frame rate to probably less than 20 frames per second. This rate varies by model.

Also on Frame and Focus you can shoot snap images. These snap images are small JPG images taken with the specified exposure settings. You can take one snap image by setting the Shutter f-stop (if you have a lens attached), and iSO and then pressing the Snap Image button. If you want to take multiple snap images, you need to press the Loop button first. Then when you press the Snap Image button it starts taking images and continues until you press the Abort button.

If you have a lens on the camera, instead of a telescope, you need to put the lens in Manual Focus mode. This is due to the fact that the camera's automatic focus logic will not work in low light situations, like when shooting the night sky. Also if a lens is attached, you need to "dumb down" the camera so it does not try to use any of its more sophisticated LiveView autofocus algorithms, like Face+Tracking. Set it for single point focusing, and still in Manual Focus mode.

By itself the Loop button does nothing. It only tells BYN to repeat taking snap images until aborted. If you press the Loop button and it changes from having a dark background to having a light background, it is active. Then when you press the Snap Image button it will continue to take multiple snap images until you Abort it.

Snap images are useful because you can specify longer exposures that enable you to see dimmer stars more clearly. BYN can also measure the HFD of a star in the downloaded snap image. This allows you to adjust the focus while taking a series of snap images. It is not as fast as LiveView focusing, but older camera models don't have LiveView, so this is how they can achieve critical focus.

Now back to LiveView with the camera connected at prime focus to a telescope...Since the LiveView images are very short exposures, they are also very dark when you are shooting the night sky. Only the brightest stars will show up at all; and they will be very small, dim dots that are easy to overlook. If the scope is not in focus, the LiveView image on BYN, and on the LCD screen when not connected to the PC, will appear empty. If you look closely you may see a changing pattern of static or snow. The only way to brignten the image is to increase the ISO value. Using a higher ISO value also increases the noise.

When I first started, I wondered how could I get close to focus if the LiveView is empty. First I tried slowly moving the focuser through the entire range of travel. This was not successful. Then I finally resorted to contorting my body to look through the camera's viewfinder while adjusting the focuser. This allowed me to get close enough that I could see a bright star, like Vega or Arcturus, on the Liveview screen.

Other techniques to get close to focus include focusing on mountains or a distant radio or cell tower or street light, before it gets dark. You might also be able to see out of focus stars by shooting 2-3 second exposures snap exposures at ISO 800. If the moon is up, it also makes a good target to get close to critical focus. Then you can switch to a bright star for final focusing.

I mentioned this in case it turns out that BYN and Live View are functioning as designed and you just concluded that it wasn't working because the displayed image did not show any stars.

Unfortunately, when I looked through the old forum posts I saw two other new users who reported issues with LiveView on the D780. This could lead you to conclude that BYN has a "LiveView issue" with the D780. Both of those threads stopped with no report from the original posters that they figured out what they were doing wrong. So there was no definitive resolution. It could be that there is some kind of LiveView bug in BYN, or it could be that the posters were doing something incorrectly and just never came back to say that their issue was resolved.

Before giving up I would first ask you to try some of the focusing techniques mentioned above. Probably the best way to prove that there is a problem with the D780 and BYN's Frame and Focus would be to test it during daylight hours. If you can shoot a 1/500th of a second Snap image and see a focused target, but you still see nothing in Liveview then I would say that there is indeed a problem with BYN and the 780. If you get everything working then please come back here and let us know. You never know who may have a similar issue with the same or different camera and conclude that the issue is with BYN rather than being caused by some error that they made.

Thanks,

 

[kswallow54]

1 hour ago, astroman133 said:

First, LiveView in the camera works by taking very short exposures, downsampling them to fit on the LCD display, and displaying them one after the other. The rate is probably somewhere around 30 images per second. BYN downloads those small images and displays them on the screen, but the download time lowers the frame rate to probably less than 20 frames per second. This rate varies by model.

Also on Frame and Focus you can shoot snap images. These snap images are small JPG images taken with the specified exposure settings. You can take one snap image by setting the Shutter f-stop (if you have a lens attached), and iSO and then pressing the Snap Image button. If you want to take multiple snap images, you need to press the Loop button first. Then when you press the Snap Image button it starts taking images and continues until you press the Abort button.

If you have a lens on the camera, instead of a telescope, you need to put the lens in Manual Focus mode. This is due to the fact that the camera's automatic focus logic will not work in low light situations, like when shooting the night sky. Also if a lens is attached, you need to "dumb down" the camera so it does not try to use any of its more sophisticated LiveView autofocus algorithms, like Face+Tracking. Set it for single point focusing, and still in Manual Focus mode.

By itself the Loop button does nothing. It only tells BYN to repeat taking snap images until aborted. If you press the Loop button and it changes from having a dark background to having a light background, it is active. Then when you press the Snap Image button it will continue to take multiple snap images until you Abort it.

Snap images are useful because you can specify longer exposures that enable you to see dimmer stars more clearly. BYN can also measure the HFD of a star in the downloaded snap image. This allows you to adjust the focus while taking a series of snap images. It is not as fast as LiveView focusing, but older camera models don't have LiveView, so this is how they can achieve critical focus.

Now back to LiveView with the camera connected at prime focus to a telescope...Since the LiveView images are very short exposures, they are also very dark when you are shooting the night sky. Only the brightest stars will show up at all; and they will be very small, dim dots that are easy to overlook. If the scope is not in focus, the LiveView image on BYN, and on the LCD screen when not connected to the PC, will appear empty. If you look closely you may see a changing pattern of static or snow. The only way to brignten the image is to increase the ISO value. Using a higher ISO value also increases the noise.

When I first started, I wondered how could I get close to focus if the LiveView is empty. First I tried slowly moving the focuser through the entire range of travel. This was not successful. Then I finally resorted to contorting my body to look through the camera's viewfinder while adjusting the focuser. This allowed me to get close enough that I could see a bright star, like Vega or Arcturus, on the Liveview screen.

Other techniques to get close to focus include focusing on mountains or a distant radio or cell tower or street light, before it gets dark. You might also be able to see out of focus stars by shooting 2-3 second exposures snap exposures at ISO 800. If the moon is up, it also makes a good target to get close to critical focus. Then you can switch to a bright star for final focusing.

I mentioned this in case it turns out that BYN and Live View are functioning as designed and you just concluded that it wasn't working because the displayed image did not show any stars.

Unfortunately, when I looked through the old forum posts I saw two other new users who reported issues with LiveView on the D780. This could lead you to conclude that BYN has a "LiveView issue" with the D780. Both of those threads stopped with no report from the original posters that they figured out what they were doing wrong. So there was no definitive resolution. It could be that there is some kind of LiveView bug in BYN, or it could be that the posters were doing something incorrectly and just never came back to say that their issue was resolved.

Before giving up I would first ask you to try some of the focusing techniques mentioned above. Probably the best way to prove that there is a problem with the D780 and BYN's Frame and Focus would be to test it during daylight hours. If you can shoot a 1/500th of a second Snap image and see a focused target, but you still see nothing in Liveview then I would say that there is indeed a problem with BYN and the 780. If you get everything working then please come back here and let us know. You never know who may have a similar issue with the same or different camera and conclude that the issue is with BYN rather than being caused by some error that they made.

Thanks,

 

Appreciate the detail on this. I will toy around with this later tonight. I had been using a lens inside in a well lit room. The app can control the camera for any picture function and if I put it into loop I get the snaps, and if I turn off the app etc it will shutdown live view if I have that triggered on the camera. I tried to disable all of the functions for auto focus etc, but will add it directly to my scope and see if having the lens gone etc. I will also try some of the ISO/Frame settings mentioned and report back. Thanks again...