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Lens lock? I want lens to stay extended and never retract.

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Lens lock? I want lens to stay extended and never retract.
« on: 14 / February / 2012, 02:03:05 »
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Hi all,

I'm new to this place. I'm a college student and just took my first embedded systems software course. Would be fun to join in on the CDHK dev action someday!

So my question: is it possible to make it so the lens never moves? Not even on startup / power down?

Why would I want to do this, you ask? I'm flying an ELPH 100 around on an RC helicopter. There is an amount of vibration present in video that I can never tune away because the lens is wobbling. I am considering gluing it open (extended) in such a way that it doesn't wiggle, eliminating the play it naturally has.

Some more detailed observations of camera behavior:
-The lens stays extended if you power off by opening the battery/card door.
-When powering on from extended, however, the lense retracts halfway and extends again.
-If you hold the lens extended with your fingers while it tries to move, it automatically shuts down and tells you to start. 'Lens error / Will shut down automatically / Restart the camera'. Therefore, I can't just glue it open now.

If this type of control isn't a feature already already, perhaps it would be possible to add a menu item, etc., or else completely disable lens movement.

The simpler option that would work for me, though, is just disabling the automatic shutdown + force-restart feature. I could glue it open then, and operate the camera as usual. The servos would eventually fail, but that's ok. This would work fine for me - I have nicer cameras, this one's sole purpose in life is to fly on this helicopter and give usable footage, and if it doesn't do that it's useless to me. I am of course willing to give up zoom, as gluing necessitates.

I'm totally new to CDHK but intuitively I wouldn't be surprised if it already does this? I looked through the manual, didn't see anything, though. If not, how hard would this be for someone with experience to code?

Thanks for your help,
Josh
« Last Edit: 14 / February / 2012, 02:06:49 by Dune »

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Offline reyalp

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Re: Lens lock? I want lens to stay extended and never retract.
« Reply #1 on: 14 / February / 2012, 02:18:14 »
This is not currently possible with CHDK, and will probably require significant hacking if it's possible at all.

There have been a few threads about doing lens mods. Mostly these are from people who want to remove the lens completely, but some of that might be applicable. See http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php?topic=6725.60 for example.

edit:
Are you certain it's the lens that's causing your problem ? Even if you glue the external bits down, there's probably still stuff inside that could move around (the IS stuff, for example)

A better solution might be a more vibration damping mount.
« Last Edit: 14 / February / 2012, 02:24:23 by reyalp »
Don't forget what the H stands for.

Re: Lens lock? I want lens to stay extended and never retract.
« Reply #2 on: 14 / February / 2012, 02:58:31 »
Thanks for your reply  :)

You're right, it could be the IS. I'm not sure. I heard from someone on a copter forum that lens wiggle was the culprit; I should press him further and see if he knows what he's talking about.

I'm currently looking into a better way to mount as well. Was posting here hoping to attack the problem on 2 fronts. Well, good to know! Most people use GoPros for this sort of thing, and from what I can find after a quick search, GoPros don't have optical image stabilization. So if all my mount efforts fail, it could be either one. I really don't want to use the GoPro though - I'm shooting video at night, which the GoPro sucks at.

I should just follow through with the mount tweaks and see if that does it. I'm being a bit cynical here...but being cynical helps get results sometimes.
« Last Edit: 14 / February / 2012, 03:04:34 by Dune »

 

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