Bolt trigger module test results (bolt_rec.mo)

[mk11174]

Well if I had the choice, I would rather be waiting for lightning in Florida, it's gotta be better than the usual UK weather,,, grey, grey, a bit more grey,,, oh and maybe a touch more grey just in case its not GREY enough.

Hmmm, having just had that the grumble, the sun came out

That sucks, sorry man, today looks like a bad day for me, storms are forming East of me and moving away.

By the way, I forgot 1 thing during setup, when you turn your trigger on and you are aimed at your sky and you notice your graph looks really high no matter what you do, just cycle through your ISO speed one time and bring back to ISO 100, that will I guess recalculate it and bring it to a normal level.

This only has to be done once after a cam restart when you go to use the trigger, I guess a minor bug but easy to fix with once cycle of the ISO while aimed at your sky. I found it out by accident while doing flasher tests when I first started using the trigger.

[1%]

In the U.S. the 4th of july is coming up... I bet this would work for fireworks.

[mk11174]

In the U.S. the 4th of july is coming up... I bet this would work for fireworks.

Heck yeah it will, I will be using it, I will use my T1i for stills so I don't miss out on them cause night stills are always cool, but for Raw video I will test the trigger out on the T2i. Hopefully I get the usual amount of people around my area shooting them off.

[mk11174]

The setup I use and trigger module is working on the 5d Mark II I have a friend that got his first bolt today, now he just needs to get a big storm to get huge bolts captured cause he has the nice views for it.

[1%]

I wonder if its better to reduce the scan width and increase the number of scan lines.. why is it so large?

[deletedAcc.0021]

Is the bolt module available for the 600D?

[mk11174]

I wonder if its better to reduce the scan width and increase the number of scan lines.. why is it so large?

Not sure but it works well so maybe best to leave as is?

[1%]

Its 6K wide. The sensor isn't that wide.

[g3gg0]

Its 6K wide. The sensor isn't that wide.

the width is the maximum possible width, not hardcoded
bars will be up to 6k pixels wide.

[mk11174]

Is the bolt module available for the 600D?

You can try the version I am using, I know it works on the 5D2 and my 550D just fine.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1zlb14yee6brlx4/ML_600D_July_1_2013_Bolt_Rec.zip

[1%]

Yea, I was just going to cheat and use your modules on 6D. I have to load them and make sure there is no api version conflict.

With max res at 6k, its not going to try to allocate 5*6K lines of memory, is it? Otherwise it would be better to halve that number.

*they loaded just fine.. has memory hack in this one so I have 255MB to play with.

[g3gg0]

With max res at 6k, its not going to try to allocate 5*6K lines of memory, is it? Otherwise it would be better to halve that number.

it is

[mk11174]

Yea, I was just going to cheat and use your modules on 6D. I have to load them and make sure there is no api version conflict.

With max res at 6k, its not going to try to allocate 5*6K lines of memory, is it? Otherwise it would be better to halve that number.

*they loaded just fine.. has memory hack in this one so I have 255MB to play with.

ok,  I set it to 3000 and my flash tests seem to all still work the same so i guess its fine to change it 

[Kim.dh]

For some reason I am unable to start raw rec using a flash test using the latest build. The small recording indicator goes from "off" to "on", but no video or silent pictures are recorded. 550d in video mode with raw rec and bolt set to ON.

[mk11174]

For some reason I am unable to start raw rec using a flash test using the latest build. The small recording indicator goes from "off" to "on", but no video or silent pictures are recorded. 550d in video mode with raw rec and bolt set to ON.

Bolt Trigger does not work with latest build, look at my last 550D link to download a working version it uses the older raw rec with the bolt trigger before pre buffering because pre buffering does not work with our cam correctly unless you shoot at 640x360.

Here is another version me and a friend with a 5D2 are using that I customized for us.

This version merges Raw_Rec and Bolt_Rec into one, so do not turn on the Raw Video with this, Raw Video is for just Raw video. To get the trigger on, just turn on Bolt Trigger and it will work, I took away some menu options in it because we will never change them, they are set for max res, we only use it for capture the main strike of day lightning plus 1 extra frame. It works gret.

I also added code to auto set shutter speed, iso, and kelvin to correct settings to get the best results, just be sure to be in 1920x1080 30P Canon Movie Mode and turn on FPS first and set to 14.985 Low Light. Then turn on Bolt trigger and you are ready to go, just tweak the trigger value right above the graph so you dont hear the detection beep I added and your good to go, just press Record button.

I also added an option to see the scan line positions, they can be turned on or off. I added them because it is useful to know where the scanlines are for ocean lightning, you want to try to cover a bigger area but if you set to many lines, I have a max of 6 lines, but if you set to many your lines will pass in a bad area where the whitecaps of the waves will fire off the detector, so seeing them allows you to either choose a differ amount or just move cam.

I set all the bet settings I have found to work best for day lightning and is less hassle when trying to set up for a fast developing storm, and every feature that we wanted, we added as we used it.

The beep will help you know when you got one or it will tell you if you have to adjust your cameras aperture to expose correctly again as sky goes dark and light.

In this zip file you will get all the files you need for 550D and I have ettr, the latest raw video, and of coarse the custom bolt trigger.

By the way, I merged trigger with raw module because when your trying to setup for an exciting storm and your heart is pumping, it is really a pain messing with 2 modules, and also if turned off in the wrong order when they were separated it was causing assert errors, so now that they are all in one, I have them turn off in a certain order so no more assert error.

No pre buffer because the sd card cams dont work good with pre buffer for bolt trigger.

The raw record I merged into it is the version is from right before Alex added the new variable buffer method.

If this version is not to your liking then look for my earlier post with a link to the other version.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/b7w12i1905y5msn/ML_550D_July_10_2013_Bolt_Trigger.zip

[gerk.raisen]

@mk11174

Could you please post a diff file of your changes against the standard code?
I think can be interesting to have a look to your code

Thank you.

[mk11174]

@mk11174

Could you please post a diff file of your changes against the standard code?
I think can be interesting to have a look to your code

Thank you.

Hmm, not even sure that would work because I merged 2 modules into one, so if I diff from the bolt_rec, you will only see how I added raw_rec code to it but not see the changes that had to be made to the raw_rec part of the code to make it work.

[Yuppa]

@mk11174

FYI

Build: BOLT_RAW.MO from ("ML_550D_July_10_2013_Bolt_Trigger.zip") + latest compiled RAW build for the 60D.

Seems to work fine with bright light (desk lamp) testing--no lightning here in P'cola Florida right now, bummer.

One ?: is the 1 pixel (or so ) white screen border necessary?  I only ask because with the default ML screen layout, the white border at the top flickers from the audio level bars refreshing.  No biggie, just seems unnecessary as the resolution isn't customizable (that I know of).

Thanks to you and g3gg0 and 1% and...

[mk11174]

@mk11174

FYI

Build: BOLT_RAW.MO from ("ML_550D_July_10_2013_Bolt_Trigger.zip") + latest compiled RAW build for the 60D.

Seems to work fine with bright light (desk lamp) testing--no lightning here in P'cola Florida right now, bummer.

One ?: is the 1 pixel (or so ) white screen border necessary?  I only ask because with the default ML screen layout, the white border at the top flickers from the audio level bars refreshing.  No biggie, just seems unnecessary as the resolution isn't customizable (that I know of).

Thanks to you and g3gg0 and 1% and...

The white border is from the Raw Code not really necessary just didn't think of removing the code for it, but yeah, the version I made from the 2 is not customizable only because for me and my friend we always wanted the highest res possible and since we are only grabbing 1 or 2 frames from the trigger at a time even our slow sd controllers handle that fine, plus less menus to mess with.

I know not everyone will like the idea of not being able to adjust the res if they want it lowered but this module was tweaked to our liking but I do like sharing so I wanted to give others a chance to use it to just hoping they are ok with the way I set it up from both codes. All should work good as long as you don't try using the Raw Video module with the bolt trigger because then you are trying to run 2 Raw modules at same time and it is built into the trigger, so just please keep Raw Video off when turning on Bolt Trigger.

The Raw Video module is untouched though, that is straight from the source. So you have full abilities if you want to record regular Raw video.

[mk11174]

This is my friends latest Day Lightning capture with 5D2, he is getting more storms then me so far this year, but I know I will get mine soon. He used the bolt trigger version I just posted with the merge of Raw_Rec and Bolt_Rec.

[g3gg0]

nice

do you have the frames before and after too?
worth a video?

[mk11174]

nice

do you have the frames before and after too?
worth a video?

No, he uses the code that I use which does not have prebuffer so no frames before, but he has the frames after, we only record 1 post frame but the trigger records all the strikes anyway, this one struck a few times after but they are nothing to look at only the main connection shows the cool branches so he dont keep anything else.

He knows nothing about ML so to help him use it I wanted him to have the same build as me to better teach him as we go.

He like me, also uses a video cam at same time for video.

[mk11174]

Here is the video cam version of the bolt, just an 8meg clip, cool thing you will hear the beep going off for every flash which is the beep I put in the code of Bolt Trigger when a detection is made. It went wild on this bolt, so ever beep means 1 frame plus post was captured.

http://www.mediafire.com/watch/x43z1h7544x5cdc/2013-07-08-01-crop-direct_stream.mkv

[mk11174]

One ?: is the 1 pixel (or so ) white screen border necessary?  I only ask because with the default ML screen layout, the white border at the top flickers from the audio level bars refreshing.  No biggie, just seems unnecessary as the resolution isn't customizable (that I know of).

Here is the module to get rid of the crop mark line.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/tzug8nbf2p37lza/BOLT_RAW.MO

[Yuppa]

@mk11174

RE: removal of white border (resolution indicator),

WOW...looks really good now!

Awesome, and thanks.

PS: I have no issue with resolution adjustment.  The 60D has a big buffer and bigger (resolution) is better IMO (and simplifies things, too).  And yes, I only have one (RAW or BOLT) on at any one time.