does any one know haw to control a Nikon camera via usb like in “Camera Control” that’s open source? i want to make an app that can take 5 exposures as fast as it can for taking HDR photos
(Nikon D40)
email me at hvhaxor@gmail.com if you have any info
THANK YOU

Posted at 5:37 pm on Sep 17th, 2008 by biozz

I have the same camera it rocks and I would love something like this

Posted at 8:16 pm on Sep 17th, 2008 by generic

@biozz

You don’t need a fast succession of shots for HDR, you need to bracket your exposures. AFAIK the D40 doesn’t have AEB(odd), so you’d need to either bracket yourself, which is easy, or put something together that will bracket for you.

Posted at 9:44 pm on Sep 17th, 2008 by Jesse

From the looks of it, the DS just seems like an overweight wired remote. It’s connected to the Canon’s N3 plug, which is only good for anything you can do with the shutter button.

In order to do “tethered shooting” you’d have to connect to the USB port of the camera and either use Canon’s protocols for remote shooting or a PTP compatible application like gphoto on Linux.

The only thing cooler about this than using a simple DIY wired trigger is that you can have it time your shots and, as you mention, a possible audio trigger in the future.

It would be cool if someone came up with a remote capture solution for, say, a PDA with USB host functionality or an UMPC.

Dave

Posted at 11:07 pm on Sep 17th, 2008 by Dave Van den Eynde

This might be useful if it would support time-lapse on a point and shoot (aka something you would leave outdoors remotely and doesn’t have time lapse).

Time lapse is important for many things, excellent hack (although I would rather see support on a GBA because I am sure it has the power to do it :P )

Posted at 11:42 am on Sep 18th, 2008 by nubie

@Jesse
my problem is both that when i change the exposure it moves the camera a bit and that i need to take 5 shots adjusting the exposure in each one manually takes awhile and things like clouds dear and debris move fast if wind picks up and i need all of the objects to be all the same in every photo so i need it done in less than a second

Posted at 12:51 pm on Sep 18th, 2008 by BiOzZ

@nubie
For Canon point & shoot cameras, you can use CHDK (http://chdk.wikia.com/) to upgrade them to do HDR bracketing and timelapse photography plus more. CHDK is a firmware hack that boots off the SD card (no change to firmware flash is done).

Unfortunately if you have an DSLR then the porting is still in progress (looks like 40D will be first to be ported) – for more info see
http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/board,33.0.html

You can hack your own features onto your camera by building it yourself (gcc) or writing your own scripts (using either lua, or a retarded basic).

It is a great community of developers hacking on a bunch of different features for their cameras!

Posted at 9:12 pm on Dec 19th, 2008 by robocat

I have found that the settings in Photomatix are quite useful in fixing any issues with moving objects, along with some Photoshop touchups, they come out pretty well. Unfortunately, I have been a little lacking in the “Upload to my website” category of life…. Perhaps tonight, a Red Bull and an all nighter of HTML… The girlfriend is not going to be happy tomorrow…

Posted at 12:44 am on Dec 20th, 2008 by Jacob