Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Richard on May 7, 2012 at 1:06pm

Hi James, Cheers for the info, that is very helpful. I have been doing some playing around with the camera taking pics out the window, but its getting dark here, so its difficult to monitor results. I have just changed those three settings as you suggested. And when i look at the meta data of the photos, it says the ISO is on ISO200, and the shutter speed is 1/250, ISO is set to Auto in the normal camera settings, but I cant seem to find an option to set the ISO to auto in the CHDK menu. 

That's plenty for me to go on, and hopefully the next set of photos will be a lot better!

Thanks for your help!

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 8, 2012 at 1:42pm

More Blurry photos:-(.

I went out again this afternoon to take some pictures, it was quite light with blue sky between the clouds. I had some mixed results. I used the following settings on the Canon CHDK Ixus 80,

CHDK Alt Menu

Disable overrides - [Disable]

Include AutoISO & Bracketi [o] (solid circle)

Override Shutter Speed - [4]

Value Factor [1/1000]

Shutterspeed enum type [Factor]

ND filter state [On] I also tried in and out, with fairly similar results

Override Subj Dist [0]

Value Factor (mm) [off]

Override ISO Value [0]

Value Factor [Off]

Clear override values@start [o] - solid circle

Enable Fast Ev Switch [  ]

Step Size (1 EV)? [ 1/3 Ev ] 

CHDK Custom Auto ISO Menu

Enable Custom Auto ISO [  ] - (No value or dot, so I guess i don't need to show those settings)

Normal Camera Settings

ISO - ISO Auto (I also Tried  ISOHigh) - they are the only 2 options

AF Frame - AiAF

Digital Zoom - Off

AF-assist Beam - On

Review - Off

Review info - Off

IS Mode - Continous

Okay - here are the pictures with Picture attributes

First picture, a bit dark, I think I had the ND Filter state On for this one

Picture 2

A bit lighter, Think the ND Filter was on Out for this one

The Mount was the same as before, therefore I guess there must be a lot of vibration coming through to the camera. I will add some foam in between the camera and the plane to give a softer mount to hopefully get rid of the burriness.

I also had more power system issue, he motor is stuttering, and running very rough, which leads me to believe there could be a problem with the Motor or ESC. Either way, I am going to replace both with some higher quality units. 

I am sure there a [plenty of nice 300w 1000kv motors that will turn a 10 x 7 nicely on 3s, as this does seem to have enough power. draw 25amps on WOT, but cruises on less.

I also bent the front nose wheel beyond repair due to a hard landing, the power stopped and the airspeed was a little low into wind, dropped like a stone! The rear aluminium struts also bent badly. 

Back to the drawing board!! - thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by James on May 9, 2012 at 1:37am

Good morning Richard, 

the factor 4 * 1/1000 gives you shutter speed 1/250 which is a bit low, but i didnt new your area solar radiation also i didnt gave attention to your camera model (80is), ND filter doesnt make any difference fo 80's.  

So give it a try with factor 2 (speed 1/500) or 3 (speed 1/330).

the usage its better explained here: CHDK Shutter Speed Overrides Explained 

The best way to check the camera-mount-vibration-motor combination, is to make a flight and record the highest quality video possible and then interpret the video to see what's the weakest link. ie check image quality when motor is on or off, when your are full throtle, when you glide-try to listen for air-dynamic noise etc

the CG camera is convenient but its very close to your motor.

check my first test with my 100is video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-jWwYr0Ugs 

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 9, 2012 at 7:53am

Hi James, 

Thanks for being so helpful! I would be a bit lost without some of the valuable information you have shared above! 

I will hopefully give it a try tonight with the above settings if the rain stops, I have also read the link above regarding the CHDK shutter-speeds, I am beginning to understand what a shutter speed and what an ISO is!

I will try a video first, and note whether the video is blurry when the motor is on. I have just fitted a new motor, the old motor was stuttering. and I think creating some torque roll and unwanted vibration. The new motor seems much smoother, I do need to repair the undercarriage as I had a bit of a hard landing yesterday, better than bent cracked foam though! 

I have had a look at your first video with the 100is. It looks very sharp indeed. I have a 120 is coming. Maybe that will be better than the 80 and give a better ground resolution if i get the vibration issues sorted. 

I have tried setting a 1/4000th shutter speed, but the camera seems to only take a maximum of 1/1500th. 

RE: ISO, I have set the ISO to auto, but have just discovered that i can set the ISO manually, is it best ot manually set the ISO? I have also set the focus to infinity. 

I have a good feeling about the next flight... fingers crossed! 

Thanks again :-)

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Permalink Reply by James on May 10, 2012 at 1:20am

your welcome!!

I have tried setting a 1/4000th shutter speed, but the camera seems to only take a maximum of 1/1500th. 

Men! thats near sun exposure!! I think the optimum for 80is is 1/400 and still will be darky.. so try 2 or 3 factor with 1/1000 (i think 3 its the closest to 1/400) 

from the factory camera settings set iso to auto, canons have very fast and accurate iso selection. 

And of course infinity zoom, (sorry i forgot that) 

If you find out it works, then you can enable super-fine quality from ckhd menu. 

i tested this settings without foam dampening, straight from my gimbal , in airspeeds speeds: 20kph up to  62kph @ 100m & 200m Alt.   and i had 80% usable photos, when i closed the motor, photos was 100% crystal clear! 

Plz, i have questions too, did you find any way to engage ckhd from bootable card? its a b...h unmounting and mounting the camera everytime

Good luck!! 

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 13, 2012 at 10:22am

Hi James, I have posted my latest results below.... they are much better :-).

Plz, i have questions too, did you find any way to engage ckhd from bootable card? its a b...h unmounting and mounting the camera everytime

I have not found a way to do this with the Ixus 80. however there is a way to do it with the newer cameras so it automatically loads CHDK on boot. I have an IXUS 120is in the post that i picked up cheap from ebay, I think that camera has the capability to boot CHDK every time. I will let yo uknow if i get it to work, 

R

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 10, 2012 at 2:47pm

@James, Cheers for the info, I have had a play around with those settings, and on 1/400 the camera still seems to blur, maybe im being a bit voilent with the camera whilst taking test shots. I had planned to go out tonight and give the plane a fly with the camera on those settings, but it was a tad windy (37mph!).... I flew the plane anyway, but didnt bother with the camera! The flight is quite interesting! 

Fingers crossed for the weekend! I did however try some 1/1500 shots on 400ISO with fairly good results, i'll be taking a video with the camera to eliminate the motion blur/vibration issues next.. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 13, 2012 at 10:15am

Better Aerial Photo results & Photosynth

Update - Tried the recommended settings on the is80 camera.

• 1/500 shutter speed
• Auto ISO Auto
• ND Filter to out
• count down script

It was a fairly sunny afternoon so i think that helped... the low altitude photos came out fairly blurred, but as the altitude increased, and turned off the motor, the photos came out quite clear, I still need to sort out the mount, as there is definitely too much vibration causing blurry photos, regardless of altitude.

I uploaded the non-blurry pictures to microsoft photosynth, it did a fairly good job (91% synthy!) of stitching them together.. Its quite interesting, and can be found here

The better pictures... the camera selected ISO-80 for this one

Next Steps:-

• Make an internal roll/pitch Dampened servo controlled mount to ensure vertical photos every time
• Making the plane semi-water-proof, just in case it lands in water - as i fly close to water most of the time.
• Add the APM2 to this airframe and tune the PIDS

Thanks to everyone who has helped me get this far! 

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Permalink Reply by James on May 14, 2012 at 12:07pm

Wow!!you are Very very good pilot!! Airfframe also conpenshated the wind, while kept nice penatration-beside the huge dihedral.
Iam glad you finally set up your cam, very good photos& synth. Everything now points motor vibes..

Iwould suggest. Make a hole for the lense & a good dampened case for the cam inside. Until the camera code release, you will have less drag, weight, vibe and setup issues. Yesterday i removed my inside gimbal because it costed me 110gr and mounting delay for no reason

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 14, 2012 at 2:16pm

Cheers James, I think I need a more powerful motor (maybe ~600W!) if I am going to fly the plane in more than 40mph wind, as it was flying backwards!

As i didn't have much time tonight, and the conditions look favorable for tomorrow, I have quickly removed the camera plywood enclosure from its previous location, and added two 4mm strips of foam tape, and velcro to the mount, which should hopefully dampen the motor vibration,

I will be trying again tomorrow evening, if this works, I will then do what you suggested, and move the camera inside the airframe, I would like to build a lightweight easily accessible internal gimbal. 

I may get a CAD program and design the pitch/roll internal gimbal. Normally i get straight in and just start cutting wood, but for something fairly technical like this, i would like to draw it out first.

I'll post tomorrow results if they are any good!

I am going to try to record the altitude and flight tomorrow, so i can see what height I am taking the photos at, do you know if I can simply power up the APM2 (not connected ot any surfaces yet) and will it record the flight onto the card for me to view later on Google earth?

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 15, 2012 at 2:32pm

Hi Forum - 

I am a step further tonight - I have stitched together 180 aerial photos with microsoft ICE - to create this Aerial map .. the original image is extremely high resolution. I have considerably downsized it in order to upload it to the internet...

The foam tape on the mount worked okay, but still blurred 20% of the images.

Also, for some reason, some of the images have been stitched a bit strange, eg. the road at the top of the picture, i guess i need to orthrecitfy, or at least shoot straight down to ensure this doesnt happen......thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 16, 2012 at 3:33pm

The weather has been so nice, I havent had time to make any improvements to the camera mount, or fix the undercarriage, which is totally bent after a few helicopter landings on the cliff tops, I stand by my theory though, the undercarriage breaks, stopping the plane from breaking! 

I have ordered a nice rear undercarriage set made of Carbon fiber, and the nose wheel should be easily fixable...

So instead I went to my local cliff tops and took around 500 aerial photos - of which circa 250 were usable, I let ICE do the stitching, the ortho errors are still there, as is the blurriness in some pictures. Will be working on the Roll pitch gimbal as soon as we get some bad weather and its not flyable! 

I am quite happy with the results, a bit more interesting than green fields!

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