BYE won't connect to Canon EOS 7D

[956bestred]

I'm a first time BYE user trying to connect a Canon EOS 7D camera. Have tried all 3-driver options without success. Am using a Windows 10, 64-bit OS. Camera is connected with a short mini-USB cable. Suggestions?

Thanks in advance. Excited to dive into AP and this tool looks great!

[admin]

Does Windows see the camera?

 

[956bestred]

No, so I spent some time looking for a driver to no avail. Trying to eliminate the obvious, pretty sure I had another mini-cable. Found it and yes, got windows & BYE to connect. Must have been a bad cable.

Can now take some initial photos but live view doesn't work when moving to the focus pallet. Live view goes dark on the camera LCD as soon as it is connected to BYE. I can take 1-preview shot from the focus pallet & BYE seems to lock-up during downloading even though the preview image is already there. 

Any thoughts on this problem?

Thanks!

 

[admin]

Do you have live view disabled in the camera menu?

What it you do a camera reset using its menu?  Does live view work.

The snap image lock up is a separate issue, lets fix one at a time.

[956bestred]

1 hour ago, admin said:

Do you have live view disabled in the camera menu?

What it you do a camera reset using its menu?  Does live view work.

The snap image lock up is a separate issue, lets fix one at a time.

Live view is active on camera LCD until I plug it into USB cable and connect to laptop. At this point the shutter closes & LCD on camera displays "Press start/stop to activate movie shooting." I start up BYE and go to focus pallet. By trial & error I got live view to work by pushing the "start/stop" button on the camera. The LCD screen on camera came back on and can see same in BYE live view screen. Am also able to focus as expected. I disconnected and repeated this sequence to ensure it is the way to turn on Live View. It worked a second time as well. Not what I expected but it works.

Now onto the BYE freeze problem. Once focused I took a picture & BYE froze up after downloading image and displaying it. Abort does nothing. In closing BYE, it says its busy capturing, do you want to close? I answer yes and it closes. Have to restart all over.

Looks like I'm slowly sorting my way through this but am a bit frustrated so far. Suggestions on this freeze up?

Thanks!

PS, I watched the 2-hour BYE introduction video on YouTube before touching this software. Really thought I was ready to dive in after seeing it.

Edited July 31, 2017 by 956bestred
Added PS comments

[admin]

You are ready to dive in... the freeze seems to be a bug introduced in 3.1.12.

You can download 3.1.11 and I believe you should be fine until I fix this bug.

Regards,

[956bestred]

11 minutes ago, admin said:

You are ready to dive in... the freeze seems to be a bug introduced in 3.1.12.

You can download 3.1.11 and I believe you should be fine until I fix this bug.

Regards,

Thank you sir! 

I'll give this a try at my next opportunity and post results.

Assuming most of my issues so far are related to me having older camera. 

[astroman133]

The camera's LCD display does go dark when the camera is connected to the PC. This is normal behavior. You should not have LiveView active on the camera when you connect to the PC. Once BYE is connected with the camera going to Frame & Focus will automatically activate Live View and display the LiveView image on the PC screen.

 

 

[956bestred]

22 hours ago, admin said:

You are ready to dive in... the freeze seems to be a bug introduced in 3.1.12.

You can download 3.1.11 and I believe you should be fine until I fix this bug.

Regards,

 

22 hours ago, 956bestred said:

Thank you sir! 

I'll give this a try at my next opportunity and post results.

Assuming most of my issues so far are related to me having older camera. 

I downloaded 3.1.11 and it did resolve the BYE freeze up issue.............Thanks!

[956bestred]

22 hours ago, astroman133 said:

The camera's LCD display does go dark when the camera is connected to the PC. This is normal behavior. You should not have LiveView active on the camera when you connect to the PC. Once BYE is connected with the camera going to Frame & Focus will automatically activate Live View and display the LiveView image on the PC screen.

 

 

I've spent that past 90-minutes trying various combinations of camera power off before connecting to laptop, power on, camera live view on and off as you've suggested. None of them result in the behavior that you've suggested. I did find that one of these combos resulted in the live view being on in BYE and off on camera LCD which will help me conserve camera battery power. Beyond this, I'm still pushing the start/stop button on the camera in order to turn on live view in BYE. Seems to be no other workable solution here.

[astroman133]

So with the camera turned off, you plug the USB cable into the camera and the PC and then turn the camera on. Put the camera in Manual mode.

Start BYE and press the Connect button while choosing the Canon driver. BYE completes the connection and you are in Imaging mode.

Finally you click on the Frame & Focus button. You should hear the mirror flip up and begin to see LiveView frames displayed in BYE.

What doesn't work for you?

Unless your camera works differently from mine, you will not see LiveView images on the LCD display AND in BYE at the same time. In fact, the LCD display should be totally dark. If it is articulated, you should fold it against the camera so it does not let any light out. Also, with the LCD display off, the camera will operate cooler.

[956bestred]

22 hours ago, astroman133 said:

So with the camera turned off, you plug the USB cable into the camera and the PC and then turn the camera on. Put the camera in Manual mode.

Start BYE and press the Connect button while choosing the Canon driver. BYE completes the connection and you are in Imaging mode.

Finally you click on the Frame & Focus button. You should hear the mirror flip up and begin to see LiveView frames displayed in BYE.

What doesn't work for you?

Unless your camera works differently from mine, you will not see LiveView images on the LCD display AND in BYE at the same time. In fact, the LCD display should be totally dark. If it is articulated, you should fold it against the camera so it does not let any light out. Also, with the LCD display off, the camera will operate cooler.

Rick, Thank you for your responses. Your confidence has helped me work through this.

Today I changed a couple of settings on the camera. I also received a new cable, longer one for use with my telescope. Not sure which of these two did the trick but the camera began responding as you have described. I really thought it was strange that live view was displaying on both the camera LCD and BYE at the same time but no longer the case now. 

As a new user of BYE its difficult to ascertain what is directly controlled by the camera's settings verses what BYE controls and automates. I think I have about 5 to 6-hours of tinkering in BYE at this point and now have a much better understanding of both ends of the equation.

Plan to connect to my scope next and take some test photos during the daytime. Hasn't been very good seeing conditions here of late so won't do any night sky shots for awhile.

Clear skies to you and thanks again!

[astroman133]

I'm glad that you are up and running.

You will likely find that with the camera in Manual mode, that you can control all the necessary functions from BYE with no need to go back and forth between BYE and the camera.