Why does BYN crash when I try to shoot with my Nikon 1 V3?

[vidrazor]

So I just bought BYN because it states it can work with the Nikon 1 V3. However when I connect to it, although it recognizes the camera, and the FRAME AND FOCUS control works, the CAMERA INFORMATION CENTER is listing incorrect information. I have the camera set to manual, the shutter to bulb, and the ISO to the base 160. As you can see in the first screen grab below, that's not what BYN lists.

When I try to shoot the generic sequence that the program starts with by hitting the START CAPTURE button, BYN crashes, as you can see in the second screen grab. Also note the estimated finish time for a one second exposure. Occasionally it doesn't crash, but it just hangs there, the wheel on the upper right just goes round and round and it lists some crazy estimated finish time for a 1 second exposure.

The camera originally had version 1.11 firmware, I updated to version 1.12, but it still does the same thing.

So, any clues?

Thanks

[vidrazor]

...BTW, I also tried it on the Windows 10 laptop I actually intend to use in the field, and it makes a valiant multi-minute effort to shoot and download a 1 second exposure, and then the program just disappears without a trace. No crash box error, nothing, just goes "poop" off the screen.

[astroman133]

So you said Frame & Focus works. Can you see the LiveView frames in the main part of the BYN window?

Have you tried temporarily disabling your anti-virus software? It could be preventing BYN from working.

Is the memory card in the camera empty, or nearly empty?

Have you tried non-bulb exposures?

Also try shooting RAW only, not RAW and JPG.

The BYN log file can be revealing. There is a post that describes How To send log files to Support for analysis. Don't send all of them, just the latest when it crashed is fine.

 

[vidrazor]

The camera IS set to RAW, BYN lists that. I have no antivirus software. I don't know what you mean by LiveView frames, when I hit frame and focus, I can see an image.

[admin]

18 minutes ago, vidrazor said:

The camera IS set to RAW, BYN lists that. I have no antivirus software. I don't know what you mean by LiveView frames, when I hit frame and focus, I can see an image.

Do you have mirror lock enabled?  If yes turn it off and try again.

[astroman133]

With the Image Quality setting, it does not matter how the camera is set. BYN changes the in-camera setting based on your selection on the Settings screen.

Here is what I meant by LiveView frames.....When BYN is on the Frame & Focus panel and LiveView is active, you should see what amounts to a movie of the camera's field-of view. This movie is a sequence of short duration still images or frames that are updated every few milliseconds, perhaps on the order of 15-20ms. BYN displays these as fast as the camera provides them.

There is also a Snap Image button on the Frame & Focus panel that lets you take longer duration, low quality JPG images. I did not want to assume that you were saying that Snap images was working when you said Frame & Focus works. You should also be able to see the live "movie" capability.

One thing that new users don't understand is that there are subtle differences between camera models. Newer models have new capabilities that may need to be dumbed down in order to work with BYN. This is usually NOT a BYN limitation, but a limitation of the Nikon SDK that BYN uses to control the camera.

According to the BYN Supported Cameras page, the authors tested BYN with a 1V3, so the combination has been proven to work. If your setup does not work then it is likely a bad cable, or one or more settings in the camera that are causing BYN to misbehave.

[vidrazor]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Do you have mirror lock enabled?  If yes turn it off and try again.

No, mirror lock is not enabled, as you can see in the screen grab. The V3 is a mirrorless camera.

 

1 hour ago, astroman133 said:

According to the BYN Supported Cameras page, the authors tested BYN with a 1V3, so the combination has been proven to work. If your setup does not work then it is likely a bad cable, or one or more settings in the camera that are causing BYN to misbehave.

That's all very nice, but the program obviously sees the camera, so the cable, which is new, is fine. The settings are all default. The camera is set to manual, bulb, and base ISO. I just loaded the BYN program, connected the camera, and and picked the V3 driver. It's obviously controlling the camera so I can activate the frame and focus button, and I can see what the camera is seeing. I cannot change any of the settings in the Camera Information Center, and BYN sets what you see in the camera.

Once I close the frame and focus and I try to take a frame or execute a sequence, all hell breaks loose. It either just hangs and the little circle goes around and around, and the estimated time is obviously incorrect, or it just plain old crashes.
 

[astroman133]

The settings in the Camera Information Center are not changeable from that panel. Those settings are what is currently active in the camera. For example, the CIC may show the ISO to be 1600, but if you change the ISO setting in the lower right to 800, when LiveView is not paused, the value in the CiC will change to 800. If you power down the camera, disconnect it from the PC and power it back on the ISO will be 800.

Once I close the frame and focus and I try to take a frame or execute a sequence, all hell breaks loose.

I don't know what you mean! How do you "close frame and focus".  Do you mean Pause LiveView or select Imaging, or something else? Please be more specific about what you are doing and seeing. Saying that "all hell breaks loose" is not something that I can try to duplicate or tell you how to workaround.

When you are trying to take an image, do you hear the shutter open and close? Does the image get downloaded to your PC? Downloaded images initially are stored in the BackyardTEMP\Download folder. Then they are moved to the folder location that is specified by the Download folder setting. Do you have any images there? If not it could be that your anti-virus software is preventing the images from downloading. You can test this by temporarily disabling the A/V software and if that works by whitelisting BYN in your A/V program.

We are not looking over your shoulder and only know what you tell us. Please be as specific as possible with your descriptions.

Thanks!

[vidrazor]

OK, so I figured I'd try something different. I changed the QUALITY in the SETTINGS box to IN-CAMERA. I set the CAPTURE PLAN CENTER to save to CAMERA. I set the ISO to base 160,  and a 60 second exposure via BULB. The camera was physically set to manual, bulb, ISO 160. I hit the START CAPTURE button and the sequence is executed, the program doesn't crash, it doesn't lock up, and successfully  executes the sequence...

...BUT NOTHING IS SAVED TO THE CAMERA'S MEMORY CARD!

Other than my sanity, what am I missing here? Once again, take note of the estimated finish time...

 

[vidrazor]

1 hour ago, astroman133 said:

I don't know what you mean! How do you "close frame and focus".

The frame and focus button lightens up when you press it. Then the image pops on the screen, with the focus crosshairs and box. I press the frame and focus button again, and the image preview goes away. So I "close frame and focus". However the frame and focus button remains light colored, as if it's still active, I forget if I press it again and it darkens, or perhaps pressed on the imaging button and it finally darkens. Once it darkens, I press the start capture button, and all hell breaks loose, as in the program gives me a ridiculous estimated finish time for a 1 (or any) second exposure, it either hangs indefinitely and then crashes, or the BYN program just crashes immediately and disappears off screen. As you can see above, I performed yet some additional, different tests, with additional very dissatisfying results.

So here's the deal. I have 3 Nikon bodies, A Nikon 1 V3, a Nikon D5100, and a Nikon D600. Of the 3, ONLY the D600 did everything you would expect it to when I executed any of the commands. It saved to the computer. It saved to the computer and camera card. It saved to camera card only. I execute the sequence and didn't crash, and it didn't hang. Any parameter change I made reacted exactly as you would expect it to.

Now, we can excuse the D5100 because apparently it needs a second cable to function properly within BYN.

What's going on with the V3?

[astroman133]

Comments on your previous test with In-Camera Quality and Save To Camera.

1- You said that the capture executes and but that no image is saved to the camera's memory card. How did you verify that?

2-  I don't get your point about the estimated finish time. Here is what I see: you are 8 seconds into a 60 second exposure, not a 1 second exposure. The Duration in the Capture Plan Center is 60! The current time is 22:56:23 as displayed on the title bar next to the padlock icon at the top  right. The estimated finish time is 23:57 displayed in 2 places and is sometime in the next minute. This all seems reasonable and correct. What point are you trying to make?

Now to your most recent post...

OK, so you are talking about LiveView Pause and Resume. Thanks for the clarification. With my Canon camera when I Pause LiveView, the image stops updating it doesn't go away. The LiveView button darkens and the button's icon changes to a Resume triangle immediately when I press it. I would expect that BYN would react the same way.

When I switch from Frame & Focus to Imaging, the Imaging screen the image display area of the Imaging panel is black. This is normal behavior.

Your comment about the ridiculous finish time when imaging is not supported by the previous screenshot, which is correct. You may be mistaking the meaning of the finish time. It is clock time, not elapsed time.

Does your 1V3 save images to the camera's memory card when you use it untethered? If so, I don't understand why it would not save to the camera with BYN, since the image saving process is totally within the camera. There have been some past issues with BYN when the user chose to save both RAW and JPG. There was also an issue with Save To Camera where BYN would try to take the next shot before the camera was done saving the previous image. I thought that these had been resolved.

The D5100 should function perfectly well with only the single USB cable as long as you don't try to shoot BULB exposures. Timed (non-BULB) exposures up to 30 seconds should work just fine.

I hope that the authors request that you send them a log file from when "all hell breaks loose". It help to explain what is happening.
 

[vidrazor]

2 hours ago, astroman133 said:

You said that the capture executes and but that no image is saved to the camera's memory card. How did you verify that?

Well, the capture sequence executes, and it doesn't hang or crash. It goes through it's motion and then stops. But nothing is written to the camera's Micro SD card, even though everything is set to store on the camera's card and not on the PC.

 

2 hours ago, astroman133 said:

Does your 1V3 save images to the camera's memory card when you use it untethered? If so, I don't understand why it would not save to the camera with BYN, since the image saving process is totally within the camera.

Yes, the camera works as it's supposed to when you just use it by itself.

As best as I can deduct, BYN communicates to the camera enough to know what it is, is able to execute live view, and to be able change setting parameters like shutter speed and ISO. But that's it. It never actually controls the camera to take a shot. That's the aggravating part, BYN sees it, changes parameters, gives you live view, does everything but actually CAPTURE THE IMAGE, either to the computer or to the camera. I don't know what other setting the computer or camera need in order to make this happen.

The camera list states the camera was tested. How? Did it work? Did they actually run through a capture session with it, together with a mount and other peripherals, or did they just plug it in and saw they could see the camera, change parameters, and open live view? If they were able to execute a complete capture session, capturing, downloading, dithering, plate solving, etc., I would really like to know HOW?

[astroman133]

Looking through old posts in this forum it seems as though others have had similar issues with the 1V3, going back a couple of years. The others apparently gave up trying to solve their issue or solved it and never reported back here with how they solved it. Guylain fixed one issue, but there may still be more with this camera.

[admin]

The Nikon 1 V3 was tested by a customer and reported that everything worked as expected.  I do not own every model out there, so I rely heavily on users to report back their findings, such was the case with the 1 V3.

 

Send me the log file, and I'll take a look, maybe there is something in there that will be revealing.

 

 

 

 

[admin]

20 hours ago, vidrazor said:

No, mirror lock is not enabled, as you can see in the screen grab. The V3 is a mirrorless camera.

 

Ummm. That may be the cause, actually.  I had to implement a special setting inside BYN when I added support for the Z series as they were the first mirrorless I had on hand for testing.  I just registered that same setting for the 1V3, essentially telling BYN the camera is mirrorless.

Try this download and see it makes a difference.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlkpoKUiQwwzmcAwD04N-W1RZCZLYA?e=D3aeZU

 

 

 

[vidrazor]

15 hours ago, admin said:

Try this download and see it makes a difference.

Well, didn't crash on my Win 7 workstation, but it didn't record data either. Same old thing. It crashed immediately on my Win 10 laptop when I started the sequence. The laptop is the computer I plan to use BYN with, and the computer I use for astrophotography. I ran the generic sequence, just changed the ISO to the base 160. I'm submitting the last log files from each computer.

[astroman133]

Your symptoms are too vague. You said "it didn't record data". Presumably you mean that the image was not saved. Where did the setting say to save images? PC? Camera" Both? Were you saving RAW? JPG? Both? Where did you look? The BackyardTEMP\Download folder? The BackyardNikon\Download folder? the camera's memory card?

The combinations from the possibilities of storage location and image quality are many and could fail for different reasons. That is why providing as much information as possible is helpful to solving this.

In case you did not already know...in the BYN Settings there are two important folder locations that you must specify. The BackyardTEMP folder is one and the other is the Download folder.

The BackyardTEMP folder must be on a local, always available, hard drive. You must not specify a shared network drive, a thumb drive, or a cloud drive for this location. Under the BackyardTEMP folder is a Download folder. This is where BYN temporarily stores the images that are downloaded from the camera.

When images have been processed by BYN they are moved to the Download folder. I use BackyardEOS and my Download folder is specified as D:\My Pictures\BackyardEOS. Under that are the date folders where I have configured BYE to save my images. There are also folders for Planetary images and stored Capture Plans (I have a Premium license).

If you have told BYN to save images to the PC then first you need to look in your Download folder and perhaps in the corresponding dated folder. If no images have been stored in the Download folder then you need to look in the BackyardTEMP\Download folder. Also remember that depending on your Windows folder options that the file extension may not be displayed for known file types. This means that you may see "Target" instead of "Target.JPG".

[admin]

Thanks for the log file, unfortunately no good trace in there.

At this point, I would need a 1V3 for testing  There must be something different for this model in how the takepicture command is sent.... somehow it appears different from all other models, including mirrorless.
 

[admin]

BTW, keep it as simple as possible when testing, you're all over the place.

Also, always try RAW only and save to PC only (never card) when testing/troubleshooting  

Again, I think I'm at a point where I would need a 1V3 for testing.

[vidrazor]

16 hours ago, admin said:

Again, I think I'm at a point where I would need a 1V3 for testing.

No problem. I really want this to work. I bought both the V3 and BYN to work together. Let me know where to send it and I'll send you my V3 and you can use it to troubleshoot the problem.

[admin]

3 hours ago, vidrazor said:

No problem. I really want this to work. I bought both the V3 and BYN to work together. Let me know where to send it and I'll send you my V3 and you can use it to troubleshoot the problem.

Where are you located?

[admin]

I see you're in the US from your profile.  Send me an email to support@otelescope.com and we'll figure out the detail... it needs to be well documented/declared to make sure I (or you) do not pay customs from USA to Canada and then back

[vidrazor]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Send me an email to support@otelescope.com and we'll figure out the detail...

OK cool, let's see if we can get this duo working together, for me and every other V3/BYN owner out there. 🙂