BackyardNIKON BETA 02g is ready for download.

[admin]

BackyardNIKON BETA 02g is ready for download. 

 

Change log (from BETA 02f)

- bug fix: Live view on D3/D3s was not working due to a non-seekable memory live view stream on this model.  I'm hoping my change will solve this issue as I do not have a D3 to confirm.

- bug fix: Planetary jpgs were not always copied in the download folder.

- bug fix: Spot histogram was not always showing.  I'm hoping my change will solve this issue as this issue was random and difficult to reproduce.

- bug fix: BULB over USB on high-end models was not working.  This fix was tested with a D810 but

should work for D800, D600, D610, etc...

- bug fix: Planetary encoding background process no longer prevent image download in image capture.

- bug fix: Software version and software date fix in exif date.

- bug fix: Wrong filename sequence was used in file name.

- change: Drift Alignment box grid now displays a target circle as well.

- change: Low disk space warning is also display on screen in addition to the log file.

- change: Extended the beta key until late-December.

- added: Mirror-lock using SERIAL CABLE only.  I was not able to make it work over USB cable <_>

- added: The active thumbnail in the thumbnail strip is now highlighted.

- added: Battery percentage in the camera information center for most models.
- Testing on XP, Vista, W7, and W8

 

This BETA 02g will NOT overwrite your current BETA 02f installation.

 

http://www.binaryrivers.com/download/setup-BackyardNIKON-v100-BETA02g.exe

 

PLEASE REPORT ISSUES using BETA 02g in this thread.

 

Thank you,

[Crunchmeister]

Just out of sheer curiosity, how far along would you rate the development of BYN to be towards a complete V1? Of course, there's no rush. I'm sure we're all happy to use the very functional beta. But just curious.

And the day you officially release, I can guarantee you I'll be amongst the first to purchase my license for it!

[admin]

Just out of sheer curiosity, how far along would you rate the development of BYN to be towards a complete V1? Of course, there's no rush. I'm sure we're all happy to use the very functional beta. But just curious.

And the day you officially release, I can guarantee you I'll be amongst the first to purchase my license for it!

 

This is the last leg of the race.

 

I'm trying to coincide the release of BYN v1 and BYE v3.1 as one big release because I'm also updating the web site to have a more uniform site/store/download/forum all integrated, including a license activation server. 

 

Long story short I would like both to be release no later than the end of December.

 

Regards,

[whwang]

Hi Guylain,

 

I can confirm that 02g works with D800.  I can take series of bulb exposures via USB.

 

Now, there is another issue that I would like to report.  I have been using this firmware hack

to restore the true dark level and linearity of D800:

https://nikonhacker.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2195

This firmware hack had been discussed for a few times on the CN forum.

 

The problem I have is, after using this, BYN no longer works with the hacked D800.  It freezes

right after a new image is taken.  The above firmware hack has two additional outcome:

1. the image size becomes slightly larger than D800's native image size.

2. D800 can no longer generate JPG images.  Only NEFs are produced.

I am not sure whether either of this causes BYN to freeze.  It will be great if BYN can also

work with a hacked Nikon camera, since such hacking is very essential for getting precision

dark subtraction and flat fielding.  Please feel free to let me know if there is anything I 

can help on improving this.

 

Cheers,

Wei-Hao

[Crunchmeister]

Very nice. I hope you meet your deadlines. You seem to have a pretty ambitious project on the go here. I'll wish you the best of luck on the timeline (knowing full well how things go with programming) and on the launch of the site and license servers. I don't have to wish you luck and success on your product, however. Your product is already amazing.

[SteveRosenow]

I certainly hope that before the big release, the UI tweaks are made to eliminate references to Canon and EOS. 

 

[admin]

I certainly hope that before the big release, the UI tweaks are made to eliminate references to Canon and EOS. 

 

 

Which one to you mean?

 

 

[SUNJiaLin]

Nihao Wei Hao,

Could you give us the link of CN, before applying this hacking on my camera, I would like to read a bit more...

Didier S-C

[whwang]

Hi,

 

The most appropriate thread on CN is this one:

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/461871-nikonhacker-close-to-black-point-hack-on-d7000/?hl=+nikon%20+hack

 

These two threads are highly related:

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/408187-nikon-d7000-read-noise-gain-and-thermal-noise/?hl=nikon%20dark

 

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/420186-d800-nonlinearity-issue/?hl=%2Bnikon+%2Bdark#entry5884470

 

One thing you want to know is that this hack will not permanently change your camera.

Once your camera is turned off, it forgets about this hack and goes back to normal next

time you turn it on.  So this is pretty risk-free.

 

Cheers,

Wei-Hao

 

 

[cdnpilot]

I read your notes on fixes and I tried Beta-g last night with my D3s - nothing changed still does not show live view.

[admin]

I read your notes on fixes and I tried Beta-g last night with my D3s - nothing changed still does not show live view.

 

Crap, I thought I had it. 

 

[Techie talk ON]

From the error log you sent me the issue seems to be that the D3 and D3s do not create seekable memory stream data from live view and therefore can not be read to reconstruct the image.

 

I'll try another method to transform the non-seekable stream into a seekable stream.  Once I succeed at that I think/hope the live view stream will work.

[Techie talk OFF]

 

Thanks for testing BTW.

 

Regards,

[Heno]

D600 test

Just tested my D600 with thw new release. There seem to be an issue with the downloading of images. When I set "Save to camera" the bulb seems to work fine, but when "Save to PC" is in use, the camera only takes one image. Estimated time (for the session?) is 16:47 although I only set up 6 frames, each 3 seconds in two series. It then times out after 122 seconds trying to download.

Please let me know if there are any changes I could try in settings or otherwise.

 

Helge.

[Heno]

D600

A brief update. Checking the camera, there are no images stored on the camera from the session above.

I also tried to change the download folder before I set "Save to PC". Then suddenly the camera cooperated and took all the images, but no images were found in the download folder when the session completed.

 

Helge.

[admin]

D600

A brief update. Checking the camera, there are no images stored on the camera from the session above.

I also tried to change the download folder before I set "Save to PC". Then suddenly the camera cooperated and took all the images, but no images were found in the download folder when the session completed.

 

Helge.

 

Save To Camera DOES NOT work with any models, I will probably remove this function all together for BackyardNIKON.

 

Send me the log files, images should be in the download folder.

 

Regards,

[Heno]

I found this strange so I did it all one more time. No images on the PC, no matter which folder I use for download. But probably even stranger: There are no log file! All are old files from tesing 02f. No file with todays date!

I will restart my PC and start from scratch.

[Heno]

OK, I found the problem. The program must be run with administrator rights, otherwise no files will be saved. I now got all the images as expected.

I realised the admin issue when I noticed a tiny message in the log window saying the the Plan was not saved due to inufficient rights. That kind of error message should have been displayed in a pop-up window. My humble opinion and valid for any error message. A warning could very well have been displayed if the program is started without sufficient rights.

So, all in all, EON is OK with D600.

[admin]

OK, I found the problem. The program must be run with administrator rights, otherwise no files will be saved. I now got all the images as expected.

I realised the admin issue when I noticed a tiny message in the log window saying the the Plan was not saved due to inufficient rights. That kind of error message should have been displayed in a pop-up window. My humble opinion and valid for any error message. A warning could very well have been displayed if the program is started without sufficient rights.

So, all in all, EON is OK with D600.

 

Woa... BYN does not require admin rights at all, you must have something else that causes admin rights to be required.... but what... I dunno.

 

Did you select a download folder on a drive you have no rights by any chance?

 

Regards,

[SUNJiaLin]

Thanks a lot,

Merging BYN and this hack will bring back Nikon cameras in the compettion with Canon, and I hope will bring good benefits for everybody ! (Pro Canon & Pro Nikon)

Didier S-C

[Heno]

Nope. It's my PC. I,m the only user and the owner. When looking at user rights in the program properties I see that user "Helge" has very limited rights while Admin has all rights. I don't know why and it's outside my PC competence. But I managed to give user Helge all rights (I think) so next time it should work as intended.

 

Helge,

[admin]

Thanks a lot,

Merging BYN and this hack will bring back Nikon cameras in the compettion with Canon, and I hope will bring good benefits for everybody ! (Pro Canon & Pro Nikon)

Didier S-C

 

I'm not entertaining any use of hacked firmware, I'm have a very hard time just keeping up with the actual Nikon SDK as-is just to support most models.  Introducing a hack would be suicidal for me right now <_>

 

Regards,

[astroman133]

It must be the permissions that are on the folders where BYE downloads and copies images, so you may need to change the permissions on those folders rather than elevate your user permissions.  If your download folder and your BackyardTEMP folder are in the default location, C:\Users\<Your Username>\MyPictures then you should not have a problem because you should have full file permissions (read, write, execute, delete) for all the folders under that folder.

[s3igell]

It seems that the most prudent action, before messing with the User Rights or the Application Executable Rights, is to go through a Clean Installation to a New Directory using your normal User Login.

 

Failing that, I'd look at the Existing Rights on the Directories in Question (Right-click for Properties using Explorer).

 

As Guylain stated, BYE/BYN requires NO Admin Rights - No Elevated Rights at all...

[SUNJiaLin]

Hello Guylain,

I catch very well you developper point of view.

But, catch also Nikon DSLR user's point of view, it seems to solve bad astronomical reputation of Nikon's camera.

Maybe just to get in touch with Nikon Hacker team or vice-versa could solve the "wall" ...

Didier

[Heno]

Hi, and thanks for the advice. I'm no computer geek. 


This laptop has always been acting strange regarding permissions (in my ignorant world), but I belive I cracked it. I first tried to change the folders properties. That caused a whole heap of error messages. So I desided to set user "Helge" as the owner of all files and foldes under that user. God knows how many changes were made. SYSTEM was the current owner. I hope I did not break anythig. I then went back and changed the folder properties and this time I could do it without any error messages.
EON is now able to save the images without starting the program as administrator.

On my other PC everythig worked as you would expect from first try.

Would it be an idea to force required permissions during install procedure and not rely on inheriting the a folder above? As you have now seen, that will not always work. But this is ofcourse an odd case also.

[whwang]

Hi Guylain,

 

It is totally understandable that you want to focus your limited time on the standard models.  I would do the same if I were you. 

 

However, here I have a feeling that the problem is quite minor.  When I hook up BYN with the hacked D800, everything works (including live view, and triggering the camera to open/close its bulb shutter), except that BYN crashes after the camera sends back the image it took.  Perhaps BYN hangs when it found out the image has a different dimension than the native size and hang?  Or perhaps BYN asks the camera to send back NEF+JPG but only gets JPG and it thus hangs?  If it is just small problem like this, maybe fixing it (or just let BYN bypass these and continue the session) is not a major task in my naive mind.

 

Do you mind if I still send the log to you so you can take a look?  If it's not obvious where the problem is or if the fix is not trivial, then don't waste any of your time on this.  On the other hand, if you find the problem solvable in a small amount of your time, then many people will appreciate this.

 

Cheers,

Wei-Hao

 

 

 

[admin]

Hi Guylain,

 

It is totally understandable that you want to focus your limited time on the standard models.  I would do the same if I were you. 

 

However, here I have a feeling that the problem is quite minor.  When I hook up BYN with the hacked D800, everything works (including live view, and triggering the camera to open/close its bulb shutter), except that BYN crashes after the camera sends back the image it took.  Perhaps BYN hangs when it found out the image has a different dimension than the native size and hang?  Or perhaps BYN asks the camera to send back NEF+JPG but only gets JPG and it thus hangs?  If it is just small problem like this, maybe fixing it (or just let BYN bypass these and continue the session) is not a major task in my naive mind.

 

Do you mind if I still send the log to you so you can take a look?  If it's not obvious where the problem is or if the fix is not trivial, then don't waste any of your time on this.  On the other hand, if you find the problem solvable in a small amount of your time, then many people will appreciate this.

 

Cheers,

Wei-Hao

 

 

 

Since I use the Nikon SDK to communicate with the camera I'm strictly limited to its native api calls <_>

 

As for images, BYN does not poll the camera for images to download, the camera fires and event with either an image point or 2; then a single command is used to download the image.  It looks to like the hack is causing internal errors/issues with the sdk... just a guess though.

 

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

 

If you select RAW only does it work?

 

Regards,

[whwang]

Hi Guylain,

 

The log files are attached.  I changed both the on-camera setting and BYN's setting to raw only, but the same problem still happens.  An additional observation is that not only BYN is unable to proceed after the problem, the camera itself also freezes.  The camera no longer responds to its own shutter release button even after it is disconnected from the computer.  Only a power off/on can bring it back.  So something is happening inside the camera when there the trouble appears.

 

Please see from the log if the source of trouble is obvious.  If not, please don't waste much of your time on it.  I don't want this to impact the normal development of BYN for the support of standard/unhacked Nikon.

 

Cheers,

Wei-Hao

logfile-[20141128-16h40m34s623]-[3068]-2014-11-28.txt

logfile-[20141128-16h40m39s474]-backgroundworker-[4012]-2014-11-28.txt

[bruciesheroes]

Hello,

 

first of all thank you for this great piece of software! I just wanted to report that in version G my Nikon D800 connected via the supplied USB cable does succesfully complete bulb exposure plans. I haven`t tried any imaging including dithering yet but i suppose that should be working too. I have two questions: As i read and verified, the "save to camera" feature is not working. Do you think it might ever work or is there a fundamental problem? My last question is a feature request that most likely will be out of your reach, but anyway: Is it possible to increase the integration time(thereby decreasing the refresh rate) for each frame during live view? This would be very nice to focus on fainter stars or while working with really narrow band filters.

Thank you again for your efforts! I can`t wait to buy this software

 

best regards

[astroman133]

I do not have a Nikon, but am guessing that most of the tools and features of BYE will be present in BYN.  Have you tried the "Star HD" enhancement tools that are available while on the Frame & Focus screen?  Since the refresh rate is not changeable via the SDK, tools like these try to accomplish what you are suggesting.  They are described in the User Guide.

[admin]

Hello,

 

first of all thank you for this great piece of software! I just wanted to report that in version G my Nikon D800 connected via the supplied USB cable does succesfully complete bulb exposure plans. I haven`t tried any imaging including dithering yet but i suppose that should be working too. I have two questions: As i read and verified, the "save to camera" feature is not working. Do you think it might ever work or is there a fundamental problem? My last question is a feature request that most likely will be out of your reach, but anyway: Is it possible to increase the integration time(thereby decreasing the refresh rate) for each frame during live view? This would be very nice to focus on fainter stars or while working with really narrow band filters.

Thank you again for your efforts! I can`t wait to buy this software

 

best regards

 

Yes, BYN has over 95% of BYE's funcitonality... but a few selective features I was not able to figure out yet; and 'save to camera' is one of them <_>

 

Regards,

[bruciesheroes]

Thanks you for your answers. I somehow overlooked the "Stacking Tool" in the "Frame and Focus" section. Now i just hope for better weather to try it out