Time lapse, but with manual shutter release? - Script Writing - CHDK Forum
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Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?

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Offline m32825

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Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« on: 21 / November / 2008, 18:13:11 »
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I want to make animations where I take a frame, move a toy car a bit, take a frame, etc, etc.  Kind of like what the built-in time lapse movie feature does, only with a manual shutter release for each frame instead of a fixed delay so I can take as long as I want to get everything right, then take the shot.  I have an SD1100 that I've installed CHDK on, is there a way to leverage the existing movie capability, or do I have to take separate shots and combine them offline?

    -- Carl
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Offline fudgey

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #1 on: 21 / November / 2008, 18:31:18 »
You have to encode the movie outside the camera. The quality will be superior to camera movie mode.

I believe you don't need a timelapse script for this, just regular remote shutter operation should suffice?
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Offline hotvedt

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #2 on: 21 / November / 2008, 18:39:02 »
But i've been thinking, chdk now has "fast video control" that makes the user able to pause and continue recording.
Would it be possible to use this via script, or somehow modify it so it takes for example one frame then pauses again?
So that the movie-mode really can be used to create time-lapse-videos.

But of cource from a quallity point of view, this is probably the worst way to do it.
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Offline reyalp

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #3 on: 21 / November / 2008, 19:04:39 »
Video control is hack, even by CHDK standards. I don't think you could do it with the kind of precision required. In any case, as fudgey points out, it's far better to encode your video on a PC. You won't want to use mjpeg as your final video format anyway, as it's only benefit is being relatively easy for the camera to encode.



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Offline m32825

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #4 on: 21 / November / 2008, 23:42:06 »
Thanks for the responses.  I was hoping to leverage the built-in capabilities for activities with kids.  Where kids are involved, the more instant the gratification the better.  We watch what we create on the camera, then delete them when we're done.  We use the two-second time lapse mode right now, but we get caught in the shot a lot so I was hoping for a manual shutter release hack.  If anyone has a brainstorm on this topic I'm interested, in the mean time I'll learn more about the high-quality path.

    -- Carl
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Offline fudgey

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #5 on: 22 / November / 2008, 03:18:47 »
Video is just a dump of successive LCD live view images compressed to MJPEG. Quality wise this image is much worse than a 640x480 photo from the same camera. There are complete threads about this on these forums, but to be short it's a whole another mode in the CCD, and things like bright lights or high contrast edges confuse it greatly.

Now, if someone wants to use the camera as a webcam without stressing the shutter mechanism, the live view image could be saved to a file (actually I think the motion detector debug functionality can already be used for this in scripts, possibly accompanied by Lua file rename), but not compressed to MJPEG which is what you would like to see happen.
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Offline m32825

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #6 on: 22 / November / 2008, 09:57:32 »
Thanks for the additional detail on how video works, I have a better idea of what is going on now.  I was wondering why I never heard a shutter when doing timelapse and that explains it.

I agree with you about the limitations of this approach to capturing video, it's definitely not something you want to do where quality counts.  On the other hand, we've got this capability that's already there to grab video and stuff it into a file, and there's a hook that waits for an event between frame grabs (wait one frame, wait one second, or wait two seconds).  If we could grab the hook and point it to our own event, like USB remote trigger, we've created a tool that people will figure out creative ways to use.

I appreciate all the effort that has gone into CHDK, it's a wonderful package and the enthusiasm of the development community  comes through loud and clear.  Keep up the good work, guys!

    -- Carl
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Offline gtrecordings

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #7 on: 22 / November / 2008, 20:52:22 »
i was thinking... if you made a usb-foot pedal remote, if you were sitting at a table playing it would be really quick.   just a though for having the kids around.
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Offline m32825

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Re: Time lapse, but with manual shutter release?
« Reply #8 on: 22 / November / 2008, 23:13:26 »
Yes, got a cable headed my way for a USB remote project over the upcoming long weekend!

    -- Carl
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