sequence and viewing images

[gemsbok]

Hi again

 

I am using a nikon D610. It connects fine, live view is great, makes focusing a doddle. However - once I set the sequence to do exposures more than a few seconds long, it goes all over the place. No matter what I set the delay and pause to, it will only do one image. I have resorted to just using a cable remote to set an image sequence once I've got my focus right, which sort of defeats one of the main objects.

 

The second issue is that the images dont show in the review strip. I have to go and find them and it will randomly put them in one of the two folders created by BYN in my pictures folder. That's no big deal but its fiddly when your fingers are frozen, trying to navigate through menus. It's set to PC and card.

 

Could it be the cable? Or is there some setting that I haven't applied?

 

Thanks

 

Ian

[astroman133]

Ian,

 

Your symptoms seem to indicate that BYN is having a problem pulling the image from the camera down to the PC. How do you have the camera connected to the PC? For testing purposes you should connect the camera to the PC using only the USB cable that came with the camera...No hubs or extension cables. Is the PC a full-fledged laptop or desktop? Not a netbook or tablet!

 

For testing and familiarization purposes I would suggest doing this indoors at the kitchen table, with a lens on the camera. There is no need to freeze your fingers off.

 

Your issue should not be affected by changes to the Delay or Pause values...Leave them at 0 for testing. BYN does not yet save images to the in-camera memory card, so change the setting to PC Only.

 

Your images are going randomly into different folders? Which folders? You define which folders BYN uses via the Setup screen. Images are downloaded from the camera into the BackyardTEMP\Download folder. BYE then does some processing on the file, changes its name, and copies it to the BackyardNikon folder, perhaps into a subfolder depending on your choices on the Setup screen. However, this process may be failing if the image file that was downloaded from the camera is corrupted or incomplete.

 

Are all these files, nearly the same size? This will help to determine if they are complete.

 

The more specific the information you provide the better we are able to help.

[gemsbok]

I'm connected using the supplied cable, but it's necessary to use a short extension to reach the laptop, which is a full HP windows 8, high spec machine. I will try it using just the cable and no extension. Thanks for that. I'm in the process of getting a mini PC to purely run my 'scope software then network it to my main desktop in the house using wired ethernet. It should work.....he says hopefully! If I can do that, then there will be no need for an extension to the USB cable. 

 

The folders it saves to are the folders created by BYN - the temp folder and the main folder (I don't have the exact names to hand but they are the default ones). It will save to one or the other in a seemingly random fashion. It also saves to the card, so it's no big deal apart from reviewing the images to ensure that focus has been maintained. I can try saving just to the PC using an attached drive and specifying a folder - that would actually be a good option and save me transferring from the card.

 

Yes, the files are all the same size, around 30Mb with the D610. 

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Ian

[astroman133]

Ian,

 

I strongly recommend changing the Save To location to be only the PC. Guylain has previously said that saving to the card for Nikon cameras does not work. The only reason that the choice is there is that BYN is using much of the same code as BYE and that he intends to figure out how to make it work for Nikon cameras, as well.

 

Be careful when specifying an external, attached, drive as a destination for BYN.

 

In the Setup dialog you specify a location for the BackyardTEMP folder. This is typically something like C:\Users\<your username>\Pictures\BackyardTEMP. This folder location MUST be on an internal drive. Specifying a thumb drive, external drive, NAS drive, cloud drive, or any other non-internal folder location is not supported.

 

The Download folder can be on an external drive, however, it is recommended to use only an always-available path that is on an internal drive. Especially for testing and troubleshooting!

 

Also, you should recognize that as  the size of camera sensors grow, the time to process those image files also increases. You need to be patient to see if the images finally materialize in the Download folder. In the Camera Information Center of the main window you should see a value that shows the number of images in BYN's "processing" queue. If you are taking long exposures this value will flash to 1 for a few seconds and then disappear. If you are taking short exposures where the duration is shorter than the processing time then you will see the queue count keep increasing as new images are added to it. If you stop taking new exposures the queue count should decrease back down to 0.

[gemsbok]

Thanks Rick

 

I will give that a go - it all sounds reasonable to me! It copes perfectly well with short test exposures of a few seconds at a high ISO, so that would figure. I try to leave at least a 30 second gap between exposures to allow for sensor cooling, and that also gives plenty of time for a download.

 

I will try it all out now before I start imaging tonight. Thanks for your time and help

 

Ian

[admin]

Are you taking BULB or time value images?

 

Taking a 1 second image or a 10 minute image should NOT make any difference in image download and/or viewing.

 

Do you have mirror lock or long exposure noise reduction set to ON?  If yes turn them off and try again.

[astroman133]

Ian,

 

BTW a 30-second delay between exposures is not enough to provide sufficient temperature drop. In any case having the temperature stabilize wherever it will provides a more consistent temperature for matching with dark frames.

 

Also any delay between exposures starts after the download of the prior image has finished.

[gemsbok]

Yes, I know about the temperature drop time but it's a balancing act between cooling a little bit and getting as much imaging as possible as clear skies where I live are few and far between. So I try for a compromise and use lots of calibration frames all with the same delay. No mirror lock and all noise reduction is off.

 

I've set it to PC only and used the cable without an extension and so far it seems to be going according to plan, so thanks for that guys, I can work around the rest of it. Much appreciated!

[astroman133]

I'm glad that you are up and running.