Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v4.9 - page 31 - Completed and Working Scripts - CHDK Forum
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Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v4.9

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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #300 on: 22 / April / 2015, 08:27:01 »
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Quote from: jvall503 on 22 / April / 2015, 01:32:01
Yes exactly! Either that or be able to run the script for 24 hours a day if that is easier. I would prefer to use this instead of the batter intervalometer due to the safety feature of a reset hour in case it stop working properly.
Probably better that I just change the unexpected behavior.

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Also, you may find this interesting. Using a multimmeter and external battery, I tested the the amount of current the camera drawn from the camera using different display blanking settings (with a Powershot D30). They were as follows:
None: .3-.34
LCD: .24-.27
BkLite: .28-.31
PlayKey: .11-.20
That's consistent with what I reported here :  Battery Intervalometer and what was reported here : Camera Power Consumption.  One of the reasons I reported shot counts as a function of shot rate and time was the large variation in current flow reported in the actual instantaneous current draw reported in the bugspatter documents.  I wanted real world numbers that mattered ( i.e. how many picture can you take with a fresh battery).

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As shown, the PlayKey setting draws the smallest amount of current, but an odd observation was it would turn the screen off and the after it took its first picture it would turn the screen back on and it would stay on.
You've hit on the same bug that janetteFromLafayette reported a couple of posts earlier in this thread.  I'll fix it in the next release.
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #301 on: 23 / April / 2015, 21:30:50 »
Quote from: jvall503 on 20 / April / 2015, 16:18:27
Do you think it would be difficult to change the script so that it allows shooting throughout the entire night time, and does not reset at dawn? if not, do you have any other suggestions of what I should do?
<snip>
What I am looking for is just for the camera to turn off the LCD between shots at a 2 hour interval, from about 17:00 to 7 the next day for as many days as possible, while keeping the LCD off when not taking pictures in that interval.
I finally got a chance to look at the question of the script starting shooting at a later hour than it stops (i.e start at 5 PM and stop at 8 AM).  It turns out the script handles this correctly.  However, several things in the post quoted below confound this.

Quote from: jvall503 on 13 / April / 2015, 17:55:28
I am now trying to experiment with the time setting, such at start at 17:00 and then end at 7:10. The reset hour is at 2 by the way.
In this case,  the 2 hour interval is causing confusion - see below.

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The test started and the odd parts are: it took its first shot an hour late (18:00), it took the last shot at 22:00 which is before 6:00, and the LCD didnt turn back off sometime around 18:00.
First of all,  when you select a  2 hour interval,  the script will try to shoot at 2:00 AM, 4:00 AM, 6;00 AM ...  8:00 PM, 10:00 PM.    The interval is always sync'd to the real time - not to the time after the script starts.  For a 1 hour interval,  the script will shoot at the top of every hour - and for a 30 minute interval it shoots on the hour and on the half hour.  This was done on purpose to give repeatable and know shot times.

So when you started the script at 5 PM the first shot will not happen until 6 PM.    Likewise,  when the new day started,  the shot at 2:00 AM does not happen if the camera restarts at 1:50 AM.  Your log file did not show any times after the camera reset - did it actually continue shooting>? 

Note that the reset time is coded to start 10 minutes before the hour selected in the script parameter for reasons that escape me at the moment but probably relate to not trying to restart exactly at midnight.

Also, it looks like I may have a special case at 00:00 (midnight) where that shot gets missed.  The day rolls over before the decision to take the last shot of the day happens and the new day does not recognize 00:00 as a valid shot time.  - I will look at that.

I also think your other bit of confusion was from the bug mentioned in a previous post when using  "Playback" mode power saving during day shooting times.    I'll fix that one too.



« Last Edit: 23 / April / 2015, 23:58:37 by waterwingz »
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #302 on: 24 / April / 2015, 20:09:57 »
Script version 2.5 released at the download link .

Has the fix for using Playback mode to save power while in Day mode (i.e. shooting enabled).   Also has a fix to shoot at midnight if the setup parameters call for that.
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Offline afleishman

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #303 on: 26 / April / 2015, 13:37:12 »
I am going to be deploying some cameras (g12 and sd1400) to monitor bird nests on a cliff side and I would like to try using your Ultimate Intervalometer script.  I am interested is fixing the focus ( I think this will help extend battery life) because the camera and the subject (the cliff face) will not be moving the focus should not change.
 
I am new to coding in lua, and after reading various threads, I would appreciate some advice as to where to start.

I have already modified your script to allow intervals down to 1 second, however because it takes longer than 1sec to focus and take/save a picture the best shot interval I have achieved is ~3sec (19-22 pics/minute).
However, this was a simple edit and when I started playing around lower in the script I ran amuck rather quickly.

Goal:  1) on first shot obtain focus
          2) use set_focus() so that focus does not change (or another method)
          3) use this same focus until script is interrupted

This would save battery I would hope and may let the photo interval be reduce to <3sec.

My other thought would be have it focus every x shots (maybe 100 or 1000?) instead of every shot.
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #304 on: 26 / April / 2015, 14:50:59 »
Quote from: afleishman on 26 / April / 2015, 13:37:12
I am going to be deploying some cameras (g12 and sd1400) to monitor bird nests on a cliff side and I would like to try using your Ultimate Intervalometer script.  I am interested is fixing the focus ( I think this will help extend battery life) because the camera and the subject (the cliff face) will not be moving the focus should not change.
It will help a bit with battery life. But not much more than 5% would be my guess.   I assume you are going to use an external battery and maybe a photo-voltaic panel to keep it charged?

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I am new to coding in lua, and after reading various threads, I would appreciate some advice as to where to start.
That's probably the best part about CHDK scripts. You usually don't have to start from scratch - modifying an existing script is almost always easier.

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I have already modified your script to allow intervals down to 1 second, however because it takes longer than 1sec to focus and take/save a picture the best shot interval I have achieved is ~3sec (19-22 pics/minute).
There are a couple of other tricks you can do to shorten the time per shot but nothing will get you much under 2 seconds (unless the camera is setup to shoot in continuous mode - which has its own problems).

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However, this was a simple edit and when I started playing around lower in the script I ran amuck rather quickly.
Goal:  1) on first shot obtain focus
          2) use set_focus() so that focus does not change (or another method)
          3) use this same focus until script is interrupted
This would save battery I would hope and may let the photo interval be reduce to <3sec.
As it happens,  I have been testing a new version of the Ultimate Intervalometer (v3.0).  It includes
  • some code cleanups that should make it more robust
  • the ability to take three exposure bracketed shots rather then just one shot at each interval  (think HDR)
  • fixes to the "Set Focus at Infinity" functionality
There were many changes to the Manual Focus functionality for scripting  when CHDK 1.3.0 was released.  I'm finally getting around to including that in the new version of the script.

You are welcome to a a beta copy of the v3 script if you are interested.  It runs reliably - I'm just tweaking a few response speed things and polishing stuff that nobody will ever notice ;)

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My other thought would be have it focus every x shots (maybe 100 or 1000?) instead of every shot.
In your case,  you probably just need to do a "set_aflock(1)" every so many shots (and delete the set_focus() stuff completely).  Calling  "set_aflock(1)" will cause the camera to refocus and lock the setting each time it is called.  Note that some cameras will crash on a set_aflock() (e.g. the sx50) so a little testing would be a good idea.
« Last Edit: 26 / April / 2015, 14:53:01 by waterwingz »
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Offline jvall503

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #305 on: 27 / April / 2015, 02:09:26 »
I am so excited to try the new script out! I cant thank you enough for all your help waterwingz. Hopefully should be all smooth runnings from here!
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Offline jvall503

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #306 on: 29 / April / 2015, 04:20:47 »
Hey I was messing around with the new update, and for some reason when I start the camera in playback mode it almost instantly shuts off. Each time the last thing the long registers is that it is switching to playback mode. I have to use the on switch to turn it back on. It has no indication that its blanking the display (from what I can understand), so the camera being a powershot d20 should not be the issue. Here is log of the file from two runs:

Wed Apr 29 01:04:28 2015; === Started: 01:04 ===
Wed Apr 29 01:04:28 2015; CHDK 1.4.0 d20 100b Apr 15 2015
Wed Apr 29 01:04:28 2015; CHDK version 140 okay
Wed Apr 29 01:04:31 2015; starting a new day
Wed Apr 29 01:04:31 2015; start time : 01:00 stop time : 08:00
Wed Apr 29 01:04:36 2015; Shot; 1; tv:1/13; t363; a387; s795; b-116; V4060; T26
Wed Apr 29 01:05:46 2015; set shooting mode off
Wed Apr 29 01:05:46 2015; switching to playback mode
Wed Apr 29 01:06:33 2015; === Started: 01:06 ===
Wed Apr 29 01:06:33 2015; CHDK 1.4.0 d20 100b Apr 15 2015
Wed Apr 29 01:06:33 2015; CHDK version 140 okay
Wed Apr 29 01:06:36 2015; starting a new day
Wed Apr 29 01:06:36 2015; start time : 01:00 stop time : 08:00
Wed Apr 29 01:06:40 2015; Shot; 1; tv:1/8; t300; a387; s795; b-204; V4055; T27
Wed Apr 29 01:07:51 2015; set shooting mode off
Wed Apr 29 01:07:51 2015; switching to playback mode
 
Thoughts?
Thanks!

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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #307 on: 29 / April / 2015, 08:40:51 »
Quote from: jvall503 on 29 / April / 2015, 04:20:47
It has no indication that its blanking the display (from what I can understand), so the camera being a powershot d20 should not be the issue.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple.  When the script switches the camera into Playback mode, it also calls the set_lcd_display( ) function to turn off the display and maximize power savings.  This works quite well on my cameras.

So if the D20 has a problem with the set_lcd_display( ) function then using Playback mode will definitely trigger it.  Did you try the simple test script that I posted earlier (  link ) ?

Can you obtain a ROMLOG.LOG file and post it here?

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when I start the camera in playback mode it almost instantly shuts off
When the script enters playback mode and blanks the display, it will appear the camera is off.  If you use the Status LED script option you can tell if it is actually off or just idle.

Finally, I've also attached a script test version that uses a set_backlight( ) rather than set_lcd_display( ) when the script switches to playback mode.  Does that work any better?  (albiet with slightly higher power consumption).

Edit :  looking at the code again,  we may need to add a sleep in between changing shooting modes and disabling the LCD.  The camera reports being ready  (via get_mode( )  ) but maybe it really is not ?
« Last Edit: 02 / June / 2015, 08:20:27 by waterwingz »
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Offline jvall503

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #308 on: 04 / May / 2015, 16:37:12 »
Hi
that makes sense to me about the playbackmode function. i tested the simple script earlier and it seemed to work fine. here is a copy of the ROMLOG

Edit :  looking at the code again,  we may need to add a sleep in between changing shooting modes and disabling the LCD.  The camera reports being ready  (via get_mode( )  ) but maybe it really is not ?

[/quote]

That makes sense to me as it is an almost instantanous shut off. It doesnt even seem to give time to register a picture.

Thanks again!!
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: Ultimate Intervalometer - a script for shooting over a long duration - v2.0
« Reply #309 on: 04 / May / 2015, 22:44:56 »
Quote from: jvall503 on 04 / May / 2015, 16:37:12
that makes sense to me about the playbackmode function. i tested the simple script earlier and it seemed to work fine.
But did you try the ult_test.lua script I attached to my previous post?  It is not the small test script you refer to.  It is a version of ultimate.lua that uses set_backlight() rather that set_lcd_display() when it switches to playback mode.  I'd be very curious to know if it works on your camera.
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