We're still moving forward!
Hello again! It's been a while! I've been hard at work on new features and camera support -- mainly focusing on bulb-ramping and Nikon support. Here's a summary of where things are at.
Camera Support
Nothing's as quick as I would like, but a lot of progress has been made. The USB interface for the variety of cameras out there is very complex and inconsistant, but I've learned a lot. I was able to borrow a USB protocol analyzer for a few weeks and that helped me reverse engineer a few more commands I was needing for both Nikon and Canon.
Canon is very well supported now with the latest firmware. Nikon support is much improved and most work via USB, but there are still a few issues with bulb-ramping which I am working to resolve as quickly as possible. Thanks for your patience on this one!
Once everything with Nikon is looking good, I'll turn my focus to USB support for additional brands that offer USB control (there's actually not that much else out there). Let me know if you have a camera besides Nikon or Canon that you know has support for tethered shooting and I'll put it on the list.
Firmware Updates
Now that the firmware is reaching a more stable point, I'm going to try to start being more careful with releases. While I always test them before release, there's always things I could miss, especially with so many camera types. A good example of this were some issues that came up in the recent 20130515 release. I'll now new issue new releases under "beta" status and after they been out in the field a few days, I'll either change the status or fix any bugs that came up. That way, if you're depending on it for production use, you can wait and get the stable releases.
I'll also setup a twitter feed for new firmware notifications. I don't have it set up yet, but I'll announce in an upcoming update. Right now, you can always check for the latest firmware at http://firmware.timelapseplus.com. Also, if you have the Timelapse+ Remote iOS app, you'll receive a notice if you're firmware is out of date when you connect.
Documentation
The current documentation can be found at http://docs.timelapseplus.com. Again as much of my efforts have been put in the the firmware development, I'm lagging a bit in documentation. To help with this, here's a PDF guide for the Auto Bulb Ramp feature: https://www.timelapseplus.com/manual/TLP_Day2Night.pdf
Sample Videos
I'll be up north this weekend and assuming the weather is good, I'm hoping to come back with some nice sample bulb-ramps! The views from my roof are getting a little old... Speaking of time-lapse samples from my roof, check out the new page at https://www.timelapseplus.com/#videos
Roadmap
Going from here, besides keeping up with any issues and furthering camera compatibility (which at the moment is the main priority), here are some features on my list to add:
- ND Filter Support (Add/Remove)
- Manual ISO change for bulb-ramping with cameras not supporting USB
- Interval Ramping (with keyframes!)
- Focus stacking (like HDR, but with focus)
- Focus ramping via keyframes
So as you can see, there's lots of room to grow! No promises as to when they will be implemented...
Thanks!
Thanks again for your support, patience and encouragement -- it's been an exciting project and there's still a lot to look forward to ahead!
Elijah