Gus S Calabrese wrote:
> On 2006-Jun 27, at 04:56hrs AM, xkrja wrote:
>
>
> Hi Jan,
> the thing is that I'm trying to find some kind of general solution  
> that can
> work for many different cameras and brands. That is for cameras that  
> support
> USB control of course. Hopefully, when I have the hardware, its just to
> write different software for different cameras.
>
> All major brands (Olympus, Canon, Nikon) have freeware/software for  
> creating
> your own software for controlling the camera from the PC and I hope  
> to get
> help from that.
>
> Would you mind supplying some URLs for the freeware software ?
> AGSC
>
> Gus S Calabrese
> Denver, CO
> 720 222 1309     303 908 7716 cell
> I allow everything with  "spamcode2006"  in the subject or text to  
> pass my spam filters
>
>
>   
You might have a tough job, dependent on what you are trying to 
accomplish. If you plan
to control a camera in the field, like to take security or animal 
pictures, you might be disappointed.
When I looked at that a few years ago, the USB channel was only used to 
pull pictures from the
camera, nothing else. I was not aware of any digital camera whose USB 
port allowed you to actually
snap pix with it. But then, I am an ole guy and sometimes fail to pay 
attention...

There are two major issues when trying to use a digital camera for 
security or animal purposes. The
first is that the camera tries to shut itself off all the time with a 
3-5 min timer. The way you can prevent\
that is by toggling the focus ring (the first contact when pressing the 
"shutter button", partially depressed).
So, now, the camera is still on, so far so good.  Now you need to 
actually press the  shutter button to
get a picture taken. Some  cameras have LANC capabilities, such as SONY 
VTRs and Video cameras.
A few have the capability of being driven by a remote IR switch . Both 
LANC and IR are easily handled,
but the inexpensive cameras require you to get inside the camera to make 
hard connections, a tough problem.
The way we did it was to use optoisolators to isolate the camera signals 
from the control board.

Is Olympus still making cameras? I thought they got out of that business...

--Bob
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist