HDRI Community

<Reserved to post about the AVR controller>

Here is the development platform I am using to write and test the code on.  The development board is an Atmel STK600, a STK500 can also be used.  I am running an ATmega 644 uC 44-TQFP @ 20 Mhz.  The 44 pin uC is used to have more IO pins for debugging but a smaller IC can be used.  I hope to upgrade to an xMEGA running at 32Mhz, it is much faster and lower cost uC.

Hardware:
- ATmega644 uC, on a Atmel STK600 dev board
- The USB controller is a FTDI Vinculum VNC1L, I am using the VDIP2 board for testing
- To the right is a FTDI FT232RL USB to UART for high speed terminal debugging, I was unable to get a clean serial signal from the STK600 at speeds over 57600 baud, I am running the UART at 250Kbaud

In the video you see an 8 second exposure to show how the code keeps checking the camera events info until it sees the shot has finished.  The second part is a 7 shot HDR bracket, the code commands an exposure time, fires a shot, waits for the shot to finish and then repeats for each shot in the bracket.


Open in YouTube to see on screen annotations with short descriptions of each part
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGAHeJVDePk

saweeeht. this makes me very happy

I'm really interested in OCC, but have been intimidated by the technical challenge of building it (and the pace of development I've observed here!), and concerned about the shutter speed limitation.

Am I right in guessing that this USB interface could remove the shutter speed limitation? That might help me overcome my fear and try building it if this gets worked out.

it will enable the shutter speed to be used at your fastest shutter speed - technically (easier said then done - and im not saying 4-8 thousandth of a second is a good thing), but there is no reason why it cant.

i think the hard part is changing the shutter speed for the next exposure of the sequence and getting this to tie in with the camera(s) because all cameras have different FPS e.g.

i think the 1ds mk3? (or is it the 1d mk3? yes the APS-C size sensor not 35mm) does 10 per second and mine (500D) can squeeze 3.5

im thinking that the ui might have to be changed to accommodate this new factor for the speed that the shutter is going to be popping out at

all i was thinking is, a on a screen before you see bracketing ui on the occ bracketer. there could be a "what camera are you using" dialogue box

witch will utilize a Vlookup (Excell) sort of command where it will dig out the fps of the camera, and how many frames the camera can continually shoot. till it has to release its buff. so the usb wont swamp certian cameras or be too slow for others.

on this page you could also integrate the save speed of the camera.

like what CF or SD card speed you have and change the save speed times accordingly. 

i will grab the data for all the CF cards you guys have(and cameras) and collate it into a table of FPS and savespeed times.

(I will dig the data if you want)

for instance it could look like this?

       Select Camera
|----------------------| /\
|          7D            |                      
|----------------------| \/

   Select Data Storage

|----------------------------| /\
| CF- Sandisk Ex60 mbs| 
|----------------------------| \/   

so its just select camera, chance save speed (write speed because it sometimes causes issues with slower rated CF and SD cards)

it will still need to utilize the shutter cable release that the system has now for longer than 30s exposures but this means the camera will be far more EFFICIENT. and faster at shooting off your bracketing sequence

so there would be 2 cables comming out of the one OCC


rant over... was that a rant or a continuous prose...? anyway i thaught i would feed that to you guys

15 minutes of writing for nothing. phhft.

how are you comming along? have you encountered any problems Luke? anything you are stuck with now?

yessss, i thaught you said weekend. my mistake.