D300 behavior

[Clutchplate]

I have a D300 with latest firmware (A1.11 and B1.11). I've tried  connecting with  both the Nikon2015 D300 and the Nikon D300 choices. 

I have set the camera mode to M (on the top LCD) and moved the dial on the left to S as instructed in the manual. 

When I use Focus and Framing, I am unable to change Exposure and F-stop. The dropdowns open, I select new values, the dropdown closes and the values revert to what they were. I noticed that they are set to what the camera is displaying in the LCD and if I use manual camera controls (wheel) and change exposure, it changes in BYN. I do see the PC on the LCD, too, and BYN does take a picture and display it, but it always uses the exposure and fstop from the camera. I CAN set ISO from BYN and it is set to the new value in BYN and on the camera.

Is this normal behavior? I don't think I should need to touch my camera to change these values....

Thanks for any help.

 

- Lutz

[admin]

Do a camera factory reset, it's worth a try.

[admin]

Send me the log file and I will take a look.

 

 

[Clutchplate]

Here is one with the Nikon D300 choice. I tried changing the exposure, fstop and ISO.

logfile-[20200508-09h57m00s806]-[52060]-2020-05-08.txt

[Clutchplate]

My Trial days are slowly but surely dwindling away.... I would like to get this resolved and figure out whether my camera is just incompatible or whether something else is broken before I buy this software.

[astroman133]

Is there a setting in the camera for LiveView Exposure Simulation? If not, it may not be possible to change the brightness of Live View frames.

[Clutchplate]

I'm not worried about the Live preview. It's not taking actual images with the settings.

[astroman133]

Oh, okay.

Go to the BYE Settings dialog and look at the Live View settings in the upper right portion of the dialog. Uncheck the Maximum Sensitivity setting and then close by clicking Save. Now does that allow you to change the capture settings on Frame & Focus? 

[admin]

8 hours ago, Cltuchplate said:

I'm not worried about the Live preview. It's not taking actual images with the settings.

I'm confused by this.  At not point did you mention that your initial issue was NOT related to live view frames but rather snapping images in Live View... or is this only when changing f/stop values form the pulldown.

Can you please confirm this? A yes or no answer to this mean a totally different thing and we can only help if we know exactly what the issue is.

Regards

[Clutchplate]

I'm sorry if I was not clear. Here is what I do and see:

• Start BYN, connect to Nikon/D300
• Click Frame&Focus, live view starts up (I hear the mirror go up)
• In the lower right (above Snap Image, Loop, Live View) it displays 1/3   4.0  1600
• I try to change the 1/3 or the 4.0 from their dropdown and the change does not stick, it remains at 1/3 and 4.0. I CAN change the 1600 ISO to something else.
• Click Snap image. It takes an image at these settings 1/3 and 4.0.
• The shutter number in the lower right has now changed to 1/6 (which is NOT what I selected in step 4)
• Click Imaging
• Leave the first line as LIGHT, BULB, Lo, 1, 1600, 0
• Add another line LIGHT, 1, Lo, - , 200, 0
• Click Preview or Start Capture
• No images are captured, I just hear two chimes.

Below is the logfile from the above sequence of events.

 

logfile-[20200512-09h04m17s428]-[50440]-2020-05-12.txt

[astroman133]

I am a bit confused by your comment that you change the shutter or aperture but "the change does not stick". Are you saying that then the dropdown collapses, the value is what it was, or does some other action need to occur before the value reverts to its previous setting?

Also, I can see an error in your log file related to setting the Mirror Lock value to some non-zero value. Per the Supported Cameras list, there are no Nikon cameras that support Mirror Lock. Set this value to zero and see if you are able to image.

[admin]

I think this could be a cache issue.

Goto Settings -> Advance Settings and clear the cache.

Also, your camera requires a serial cable for BULB, do you have one? I think your camera needs to be set to "S" for non-bulb shutter activation. 

[Clutchplate]

By "change does not stick", I meant that as soon as the dropdown collapses, the value is not changed (remains what it was).

Deleting the cache did have an effect:

• The changes in Frame & Focus still do not 'stick', but remain at their set values.
• Imaging now captures a frame when I run Start Capture, however, all images are using 1/4, 4.0 or 1/6, 5.0. I had set up two lines in the sequence with 1/200 and 1/2000.
• Camera is in M mode on the LCD, the dial that has 'S, Cl, Ch, Lv, Timer, Mup' on it is at 'S'
• If I set the camera to S mode on the LCD (Shutter priority), the values I select in the Shutter dropdown DO stick, but the aperture is adjusted accordingly (as would be expected in normal camera operations in Shutter Priority mode). However Capture makes the dial spin forever and never finish downloading.
• It's almost as if the API is not ignoring camera dial settings.
• I do not have a serial cable (yet), but all my tests are using exposure around 1s at the moment.
• I tried the 'Mup' setting on the dial, but no luck, things worked even less well (Snap Image never finishes).

[astroman133]

It seems almost like even though there are values in the Shutter dropdown, after they are selected, BYN thnks that they are invalid and reverts them to a good value. Did you disable the Maximum Sensitivity setting? If LiveView is active, it sets the ISO to maximum and the shutter to 2 seconds. This is to make it possible to see bright stars for focusing.

[Clutchplate]

Not sure why it would think they are invalid, since they are presented in the dropdown. It's more like BYN sends the new setting to the camera, but the camera doesn't set it and the next time time BYN asks for settings it gets the old value back. Note that if I change the shutter on the camera, with the camera controls, that's reflected in BYN and BYN uses those settings.

Yes, maximum sensitivity is/was unchecked.

[admin]

If the camera reverts back it means it is in a state (setting/dial?) where that particular change is not a valid one.

The flow is.

• Command sent to camera
• Camera SDK attempts to make the change <<<=== looks like this is failing.
• Camera SDK fires an event with in-camera value
• BYN update it's UI

This would indicate that some setting in the camera does not allow for this change.

If you only change the ISO, does it work?

[Clutchplate]

Yes, changing ISO works fine.

[admin]

53 minutes ago, Cltuchplate said:

Yes, changing ISO works fine.

Then the camera is in a state where the shutter speed and aperture can't be changed.

Did you clear the cache in BYN to rule this out?

 

[Clutchplate]

Yes, I did. Is there something I might have misconfigured in the camera that causes this? I removed the CF card. I did change the camera such that AE-Lock is on a seperate button instead of the shutter half press, but other than that most settings are unchanged.

 

[Clutchplate]

Ok, resetting has solved this issue. It seems to be behaving as expected. 

Thanks for your help!