What is your top use case for the CA6?

[Maurice]

What type of photos do you most want to take with the CA6?

[Chris Wilkinson]

Sports, specifically cycling - and then studio water drop and sound trigger.

I'm a mountain biker and a photographer, I like to ride a little more than I like to make photos in mosquito infested woodland.

So to do both, I setup a laser trigger on a race course in the woods once using the Nero V1.  It worked OK, but, it had limitations that made it unreliable, also features no adjustable parameters. 

The laser would easily get out of alignment and stop working - there was no sensitivity adjustment, no remote laser receiver, no "ignore trigger for Tms" to prevent multiple shots as rider's wheels and bike fame broke the beam.  Nero lacked flexibility and turned out to be a collasal waste of money - I wish I had found the CA5 before I bought the Nero, and so I've been waiting for the CA6 since.

Anyhow, multiple cameras, angles and flash trigger for when a rider breaks laser would be super awesome.  I'm looking forward to water drop and sound trigger in-studio as well.

Thanks for your work on this.  It would be great to have CA6 in hand for the 2018 cycling season.

[Maurice]

Hi Chris,

I got a nero for testing a long time ago.  It wasn't really even comparable to the CA5, and the CA6 is way beyond the CA5.  It's a neat little gadget, but totally doesn't work for high speed photography.

The sound module is much improved over what was in CA5.  Much more sensitive on quiet sounds and has a better dynamic range of controls.  The droplet module I'm still working on.  It will be a little better than CA5, but won't be a huge step forward like some other modules.

There will be a laser trigger with all the delays and duration controls you are asking for (and more).  But, I'm working on a new module that uses pulsed IR with a remote transmit light station that is specifically targeting your mountain bike crossing a line case.  I'm calling this the "Beam Module" since it emits beams of IR light.  It is much easier to align than the laser trigger.  I did a prototype and it proved it will work, but had some issues.  So I need to do a new prototype to make sure I can solve all the issues I saw in the first prototype.  I'm hopeful it will be perfect for your kind of use case.  This IR module is probably going to be the last module I'm working on for the CA6 (I have 6 other modules that are already working great).

[Chris Wilkinson]

Wow, that sounds so great!

I've said it once, I'll say it again, take my money! haha 

[Paul Purdom]

#1)   Lightning

#2) Timelapse with ability to trigger in intravolmeter and additional signal from sensor

#3) If Its able to mix in with 2-3 stepper motors use it for timelapse with slider and panning

#4) finish line trigger...Soccer shots, nesting birds, humming bird, cars, bikes

[Maurice]

Thanks for the feedback Paul.  Out of the box it handles 1,2, and 4.  #3 is certainly something it can handle, but it would need a new menu and module to control the stepper motors.

[Greg Penner]

I'm hoping to use the Camera Axe as a motivational tool for both photography, programming and hardware development.

Chimed in here because I like Paul's #3. I've started playing with steppers and plan to use the Axe to further automate my focus stacking rig and from there hope to attempt the slider/panning option. Currently using Nema17 steppers and the EasyDriver for exploration, thinking it should work well with the DEV module of the Camera Axe for starters.

1) Projectile

2) Water drop

3) Saved for Paul

4) Flying insects/birds with a cross censor setup

[Wilfred Francis]

Hi Maurice

Really looking forward to getting my hands on CA6. I assume I will be able to connect to most DSLRs, in my case Canon EOS 40D, 77D and 80D (?)

1. Garden birds and insects in flight, with Mr Penner, using a cross beam.

2. Stacking

3. Water drop

4. Time lapse

Wilf

[Maurice]

Greg, that's also a good list.  #1 and #2 will work.  #3 I mentioned above.

Flying insects and birds are pretty different.  I really think the single IR module I used for birds works pretty good.  Sure there are some extra photos, but it's not too bad.  If you had a cross sensor for birds it would really limit the number of photos taken.  For insects, I've seen some pretty amazing rigs in the past, but haven't make one myself.  I think you'd either want to do a cross laser sensor, or a cross laser reflected sensor with a lens to focus detection (second option is probably better, but harder to setup).  The reflected version would first pulse one laser and see if it detects and then pulse the other and see if it detects.  The circuits used in the projectile sensor would be a good starting point.  For insects you'd probably also want an external shutter to get shutter lag down to 1-3 ms.

[Maurice]

Wilfred, this list has been mostly discussed, but stacking is new.  Would this be a single stepper motor that adjust the height of the target so you could then stack the photos in software?  Or do you mean something else here.

[Greg Penner]

Wilfred, Maurice.

Attached is a photo of what I plan to setup with the Axe. A precision rail would be better but this works for me. In the Axe I hope to set a start, stop, step distance as well as delay length. The camera will then be advanced in small amounts, followed by a settle time for shaking and then a photo. Repeat until end point is reached. I've been working on this concept with Canon's MPe-65mm and am anxious for the Axe6 to bring it together.

[dml...@gmail.com]

Greg, Wilfred, etc.,
I like your use cases, too, and have a suggestion, too.  I've successfully used focus stacking that Magic Lantern adds to most modern Canon bodies.  It does exactly what Greg wants, but by using the camera's internal focus stepping of the lens instead of moving the camera.  It's an option you might want to try, but it would also certainly be fun to use the CA6 to automate the stepper on a focus rail.

My top use cases for CameraAxe are:
 - Lightning
 - Water Drop photography with multiple solenoids
(I've used my CA5 for these, but CA6 will improve things)
 - Birds in flight with the new beam sensor (CA6)

Dan

[Greg Penner]

Thanks Dan. I'm using Helicon Focus with a phone or a computer connected to my camera since Magic Lantern is not available for my camera.

I shouldn't have pictured the lens I did with my rail because I don't use that lens on it. I use the Canon MPE-65mm which does not focus, you have to move the camera around to focus. It doesn't even have manual focus. I take a series of 100 pictures for less than a half inch depth of field. (0.02mm per shot at 5x magnification)

From what I've read, anything bigger than say the size of a pea, is best done with the method you described.

Maurice, sorry if I've led this off topic for this section.

Greg

[Maurice]

This is all good info.  Thanks for sharing!

[Wilfred Francis]

Maurice

This would be a single motor to move the camera to change focus and then software for stacking the images. This would be for macro of 2x or more. My experimenting has be with a diy slider, CA5 (intervalometer), a 40D and a MPE 65 mm lens. Did try the stacker module in the CA5 software V5.5, with out success, however, I must point out that I did not spend a lot of time working on iit. With the CA6 and a dedicated focus motorised focus rail should, hopefully, make life a little bit easier. The CA5 intervalometer method worked pretty well, about 80 % success. Helicon Focus is my software.

Dan: I have found that the distances covered by a macro stack does not make much difference to the focus, whether you use camera move or the the lens focus. Ideally, it would be great if one can use the lens to focus, however,the MPE 65 mm does not give me that choice.

Wilfred

[yves louis]

1) Water drop with multi-valves (x3) 

           I am already using the CA5, but I have some intermittent contact issues with the mechanical micro-knobs used to set the parameters. I can't wait the CA6 for web-based configurator :)

2) capture flying bats using laser

3) would like to use the CA6 to drive a macro-rail with motor for stacking (Insects)

4) projectiles (occasionally)

[Maurice]

For the bats I think the Beam module would probably be easier to setup than a laser trigger, but either would work.

Sounds like a lot of interest in stepper motors.  That's something I'll need to think about making a module for. Most likely it will be like the valve module where you can drive a few motors with a single port.

[Paul Purdom]

more detail about purpose #2)

Imagine you're doing a daytime time-lapse of a thunder storm, but want to make sure you can get as many lightning bolts as possible,

Having a menu program that shots every 2 secs (or less often) and will also take input from the light sensor to trigger on sensor input from lightning bolts.

I'd use 2 secs or less so my DSLR has room for the buffer to take additional shots (1 sec is too often, 2 secs would probably not fill the buffer, unless the storm was rocking it!)

Now combine that with a slider with panning motion and we're ROCKING IT! =)

[Paul Purdom]

I'd be glad to help with the menu and testing, after the project gets rolling out to folks.

[Maurice]

Something like that would probably be a special menu or maybe an extension to the intervalometer.  The way the intervalometer currently works is it starts working after a trigger event.  So in your cause it would see lighting and then you could take multiple photos.  You are requesting that intervalometer works constantly in the background and then the trigger event can adds extra photos.  I can see your argument, but that does feel like a pretty rare case and in your case it isn't needed if you like the results of the lightning menu (that is up to you and something you'd need to try out).

[Paul Purdom]

Its getting close, I think it will make it!

Paul

[Maurice]

I hope so.  It would be great!