Intervalometer Issues

[Bill.Richards]

I just purchased BYE recently and was excited to use it this past week while shooting the Perseid meteor shower with my 6D Mark II.  However, I encountered two major issues, both with the intervalometer feature:

1) I had it set to save images to both the camera and the PC.  After each exposure, there was a 7-9 second delay before the next exposure would start.  Since I was doing 20 second exposures, that means my shutter was open less than 60% of the time and I missed a LOT of meteors.  That's a huge problem as it wastes precious dark sky time.  Why does it take so long?

2) Thinking that the file transfer was the culprit, I changed the setting to save the image on the camera only and restarted the intervalometer.  It would take the first exposure and then hang forever, showing a "Busy" status.  I had to kill BYE and restart it to get out of this condition.  I tried it several more times, all with the same result.

The (highly programmable) intervalometer was the primary reason I purchased BYE.  Yes, there are other nice features but I really need this to work without more than a 1-2 second gap between exposures.  Has anyone seen this behavior and/or know what can be done to fix it?

[admin]

What do you mean "Intervalometer"?

What version of BYE?  Always provide the full version number.

[s3igell]

While the 6DmkII has a USB2 Port which has a theoretical max Transfer Rate of 50MB/s and each CR2 file should be 40-45MB for about 1 sec download time, the Camera Transfer is nowhere near that fast.  The actual Transfer, if it matches other Canon DSLRs is likely 3-4 sec.  And on top of that, there are delays while the DSLR announces through the SDK that an Image is "Ready to Download" and another while processing and performing the Transfer which BYE requests via the SDK.

Unfortunately, most Cameras are NOT as fast to Output a completed file as one would think.  In part this is because there is more going on in the Camera than most expect, including generation of the embedded JPG (even when Output format is only CR2) and attachment of other metadata.  It is also because Canon (and many other USB bus devices) drive the bus at only a fraction of it's max speed in an effort to prioritize successful transfer over speed.  (Yes, the internal Frame Rate is 5-6 exposures /sec, but that is at the benefit of a Gigabyte of onboard RAM connected to the processor and the ability to multitask across multiple images before writing them out of that buffer.)  Most likely, you will want to revert to a true Intervalometer rather than BYE's Capture Plan for cases where you cannot accept the inter-frame process delays.

[Bill.Richards]

It's version 3.1.18.  The intervalometer is what BYE calls the "Capture Plan Center".

The first attached image shows my settings.  The second attached image shows what happens after the very first exposure completes.  It hangs at this point indefinitely and cannot be aborted or recovered.  I have to Kill BYE and restart everything.

[admin]

Please download 3.2.0.  Save to card only was fixed.

Regards,

[Bill.Richards]

3 minutes ago, s3igell said:

While the 6DmkII has a USB2 Port which has a theoretical max Transfer Rate of 50MB/s and each CR2 file should be 40-45MB for about 1 sec download time, the Camera Transfer is nowhere near that fast.  The actual Transfer, if it matches other Canon DSLRs is likely 3-4 sec.  And on top of that, there are delays while the DSLR announces through the SDK that an Image is "Ready to Download" and another while processing and performing the Transfer which BYE requests via the SDK.

Unfortunately, most Cameras are NOT as fast to Output a completed file as one would think.  In part this is because there is more going on in the Camera than most expect, including generation of the embedded JPG (even when Output format is only CR2) and attachment of other metadata.  It is also because Canon (and many other USB bus devices) drive the bus at only a fraction of it's max speed in an effort to prioritize successful transfer over speed.  (Yes, the internal Frame Rate is 5-6 exposures /sec, but that is at the benefit of a Gigabyte of onboard RAM connected to the processor and the ability to multitask across multiple images before writing them out of that buffer.)  Most likely, you will want to revert to a true Intervalometer rather than BYE's Capture Plan for cases where you cannot accept the inter-frame process delays.

In most cases, I don't need the files to be transferred to the PC.  And when I do, I would be perfectly happy to have the JPG only.  But BYE is transferring BOTH.  That's why I tried telling BYE to keep the images on the camera only, but that causes an unrecoverable hang, as illustrated in my previous post.

I wanted the intervalometer features in BYE because it allows for complex sequencing, which my regular intervalometer does not.  So I need this to work...

[Bill.Richards]

7 minutes ago, admin said:

Please download 3.2.0.  Save to card only was fixed.

Regards,

I just downloaded 3.2.0 and verified that save to camera only works - it no longer hangs and the inter-exposure gap is now only 2-3 seconds, which is fine.

Would it be possible to add a new option where the user can save only the JPGs to the PC?  That would still allow for viewing, focusing, etc, but would minimize the amount of time for file transfers.

[admin]

Then you're back to the original 7-9 seconds... can't have it both ways.

Your options is save to CARD or SAVE TO PC, or both.  Then you choose the image quality RAW and/or JPG in the settings window.  You can't have RAW save to card and JPG save to PC.  You need to choose your poison

[astroman133]

OK, as stated previously, Save To the camera's memory card functionality was fixed in BYE 3.2.0. If you don't want the free upgrade, then you can add a delay between exposures.

If BYE is transferring both CR2 and JPG files it is because you have asked it to transfer both file types.

The speed of saving to the Camera only is controlled by the speed of the camera and the speed of the SD card in the camera. With my T5i, it takes about 1.25 seconds to save a completed image to the memory card. I bought a fast card.

Also, BYE's capture plan is mis-characterized as an intervalometer. An intervalometer cannot display your image on a 15" screen or save raw, JPG and TIF versions of the image on your hard drive, or trigger dithering between images, or platesolve to perform precise centering. The list goes on and on.

[Bill.Richards]

11 minutes ago, admin said:

Then you're back to the original 7-9 seconds... can't have it both ways.

Your options is save to CARD or SAVE TO PC, or both.  Then you choose the image quality RAW and/or JPG in the settings window.  You can't have RAW save to card and JPG save to PC.  You need to choose your poison

I don't want it both ways - I just want a really short inter-exposure gap (which can be done without savings any files to the PC) or minimize the gap by saving the JPG only to the PC and it sounds like there is already a setting to do that by selecting the right image quality - is that correct?

[admin]

Just now, Bill.Richards said:

I don't want it both ways - I just want a really short inter-exposure gap (which can be done without savings any files to the PC) or minimize the gap by saving the JPG only to the PC and it sounds like there is already a setting to do that by selecting the right image quality - is that correct?

Yes, goto settings and set the image quality to JPG only instead of the default RAW+JPG.

However, for astro images you should really be taking RAW images.

[Bill.Richards]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

Yes, goto settings and set the image quality to JPG only instead of the default RAW+JPG.

However, for astro images you should really be taking RAW images.

Yes, of course.  I want the camera to store BOTH Raw and JPG, but I only want BYE to transfer JPGs to the PC for viewing to reduce the transfer time.

[astroman133]

That is what you cannot do. Store both image types to the memory card, but only transfer JPGs to the PC. I do not know if the SDK would allow it, but you should create a post in the Feature Suggestion Box Forum to create the enhancement. Please provide the reason for your request, as outlined in this thread.

Thanks!