Canon A640 ?'s

[dreslism]

Nice shot DJ, got the moon and all. How many shots is that?

[AZ ChopperCam]

5 but I was excessively overlapping. The continuous drive mode on this thing is blazingly fast!

[Tonystott]

got the camera ready to fly today. Made a servo trigger mount out of some scrap carbon. Attaches to the camera with a rubber band.

haven't shot aerial with it yet (tomorrow if it's not windy) but I did do some ground shooting with it.
Did you grow it especially for your lovely neighbour? :lol:

[AZ ChopperCam]

Did you grow it especially for your lovely neighbour?

she's been especially quiet since the call from my HOA director a few months back. Although I have been sticking to my self made agreement of not overflying of pointing my cams at her house.

:?

[dreslism]

Normal lens or your wide angle?

Is that right from your house?

[AZ ChopperCam]

normal lens. Wide converter and adapter have yet to arrive. Yes this was shot directly above my house. If I'd have panned left a little bit more you'd have been able to spot my Taylorcraft parked out on the ramp at the airport. ;)

[dreslism]

Yes this was shot directly above my house. If I'd have panned left a little bit more you'd have been able to spot my Taylorcraft parked out on the ramp at the airport. ;)

Did I ever tell you I hate you? :mrgreen:

No freakin fair that you can pop up in your driveway and shoot the mountains.

I did not realize you were that close to the airport.

You could pop up and do security survailance on your plane right from your driveway.

I wonder how my plane is doing now... Yep, still there.... :lol:

[rerazor]

Is she hot??? :WOW

[AZ ChopperCam]

not even close

[GGoodrum]

Here's a quick pano I did yesterday with the A640/wide angle lens combo. I did no color correction or any other editing of the shots at all. Just straight from the camera into the stitching softqare. What it shows is that the amount of resolution you have to work with when you have a whole pile of 10 MP shots to work with. :)

http://www.tppacks.com/Panoramas/House-Coto.htm


The view is about 50-60 feet up, just over the back of my house. I had the tilt angle messed up a bit and it didn't point straight down enough, but other than than that, it went pretty smooth, and only took a couple of minutes to get the shots, form start to finish. The winds were starting to pick up so I didn't want to take too much time. :shock:

Anyway, I'm loving this camera! :) I'm sure with even just a bit of "tweaking" in Photoshop, the quality would be even better. The resolution blows me away. There's about 25 10MP shots and the intermediate TIF file is about 350 mb. The QT .mov file ends up being about 75 MB. Normally, I think I would scale this down a bit, but I did this solely as an exercise to test the limits.

-- Gary

[rerazor]

Very impressive. Are you standing where the Tppack logo is?

Was this using the askman 360 mount on your L10?

[GGoodrum]

Yeah, I'm on the patio in the area that didn't get enough coverage in the down tilt. Yes, Logo 10 with the PanCam mount. I took off from the grass area and just went straight up and then back over the house a bit. The wind was gusting a little, so I didn't try cal'ing the AP2000i, but I did have it engaged. I had started to do this from the front, in our cul-de-sac, but then decided the view would be more interesting from the back, and I didn't feel comfortable flying back there from the street. Anyway, I did cal the AP-2000i out front and it wasn't too far off. Still with the gusting, it didn't matter as I still needed to keep control. Actually, it wasn't that hard to handle. When it was steady, I just flipped the pan switch on and hit the trigger button. With the A640, you can program the continuous shoot mode to take up to 10 shots with a single press of the shutter button. It is pretty easy to hit the pan switch and the shutter button in one quick motion, so I didn't really have to take my hand of the right stick but for a about a second, or less.

Anyway, it takes some practice, but this is definitely something you can do solo. The Logo 10 is small enough to do this in a relatively tight area like this. No way I think I would try this with one of the Raptors, though. It would handle the wind better, for sure, but it is still a lot bigger machine. For higher shots and/or farther out, the Raptor is the obvious choice, but these kinds of shots are why I really like the L10 size.

-- Gary

[AZ ChopperCam]

Damn Gary! that is great!!!!!!

[askman]

that is very good. good job. looks like things are coming together. :) that took a while to download though. :)

[GJestico]

Well I gotta hand it to ya that is good work. How do you avoid getting a large chunk of the Tail rotor in one of the pics ?

[GGoodrum]

Well I gotta hand it to ya that is good work. How do you avoid getting a large chunk of the Tail rotor in one of the pics ?

I had moved the tail slightly, once I started panning. Not by design, but the wind was tricky, and it was easier to hold after I moved. Just a little gust really. :) The tail usually just comes into play in the top portion of one shot, when the tilt angle is in the middle, and then I just Photoshop it out. The trick is doing the upper shots. ;)

-- Gary

[dreslism]

Nice Job Gary!

[Art-Tistic]

Happy New Year Guys!!!

Can anyone tell me what size the the external power jack is and what polarity it uses? (eg... tip (+)) thanks for the help!

Regards,
Anthony

[AZ ChopperCam]

4x1.7mm + tip

[Art-Tistic]

Thanks DJ!

Hope 07 kicks for you!
Regards,
Ant

[Art-Tistic]

Is anyone using the blip switch with an A640? I can't for the life of me get it to take a pic. The instructions say to have the unit in playback mode and that's the only way I've gotten the unit to reconize the cam but it shoots a pic that is black and there is no display on the LCD.......what gives?

Regards,
Anthony

PS I've tried uploading the latest software/firmware revision and still get the same results????? My Optio was much easier to use :arggg:

[dreslism]

I have the blip unit running with my A620. Took about 2 months of constant prodding to get the guy to get the thing going.

It may be possible you're the first to use the blip on the A620.

Yeah playback mode is what you need to leave it in. On the A620 there was no video out at first, he had to fix it with the latest firmware, but it sounds like you have tried that.

I think you would power up your Rx first, which would power up your urbi, then with your camera in playback mode, turn on your camera. The urbi will then connect, and then your lens should come out of your camera.

On the A620, it supported auto, tv, av, and manual, but defaults to Tv mode.Below are instructions to get it into other modes.

Here were the last instructions I got from Ben the creator.

==============================
Connect your camera as normal.
When the URBI powers up, and after it has connected with the camera, you will see the GREEN led will be indicating the camera mode using flashes.
It always starts on Mode 2.

1 flash = AUTO
2 flashes = Tv
3 flashes = Av
4 flashes =M

If you push the button briefly (less than one second), the mode indicator will cycle. It's a bit glitchy for some reason, and I'll fix that later.
When it is displaying the mode you want, HOLD the button for more than 1 second, then release. This will set the camera.
The GREEN LED should light solid and the camera is ready to use.

On your heli/model the URBI starts up in mode 2 (Tv) as normal. If you trigger 1 shot using the R/C it will jump straight out of this setup mode.
It saves you pushing the button if you are going to use Tv mode.

I've tested it on the A620 and verified the video out is still working. Please give it a test before you head out into the field with it, of course.

[AZ ChopperCam]

Anthony, make sure you set your Tv mode for 1/1000 shutter speed AND turn on Safety (under the main menu towards the bottom) then save the settings. I suspect you make have a really high shutter speed with safety turned off and your image is severely under-exposed

I just got my Blip today. just hooked it up to my A640 and it works great, BUT

I dislike the fact that it has to be in playback mode because I lose the onscreen display. I like seeing the pics remaining countdown and I also like to see my shutter speed. I know it defaults to Tv and as long as Tv has been saved with the desired speed it'll be ok, but something about seeing it on the display makes me feel good inside.

I also dislike the how slow it is in continuous drive, but it's easier than rubber banding a servo to the top as I have been doing.

I'll use it for a few weeks and see if I end up going back to a servo.... time will tell.

[dreslism]

I think DJ is probably right, if your exposure is not setup right, and your in your office taking picts, the default is TV mode, so it will happily crank you out a black screen. Try setting it to another mode to test it like auto mode or something.

Same complaints here DJ.

I bought mine when they first came out based on claims made by the creator. "Shoots as fast as your camera allows." Sorry, not even close to holding down the shutter in continuous. When it first came out, it cycled about once every 5 seconds. After riding him and complaining he got the A620 down to about 1.3 seconds for every shot.

What rate does yours cycle at?

I also like the OSD stuff. Fill your card up and see what happens. Before with a servo I would get memory card full error written on the screen.

My 6 year old running the camera could look at the downlink and say Dad the card is full.

Now you get nothing. Ben said there is nothing he can do about it. When it goes into remote mode using PTP protocol then it is what it is.

Anyhow, I HATE!!! servos, that is why I bought this think out of the shoot.

Now I'm flying around my DSLR so I don't use this as much.

I'll use this on my logo as I won't carry the DSLR with my logo.

Anthony, you running yours on your logo also? (I think I recall a post from you about a new logo not too long ago.)

LOL, logo's and A620-640's for everyone!!! It is a nice, affordable, reliable and well producing package.

[Art-Tistic]

yep, on the logo Scott. I love the little heli. I'm also starting to build my custom vario silence. It's a "love-child" of of DJ, Askman and mine...Pics will have to wait. I've got a convention in FL next week and I have to put together a memorial video for my high school sweetheart. I found out yesterday that she died suddenly of a brain anuerism on New Year's Eve. She just turned 39 and has 4 young children....Guys life is too F-in short!!! Don't let BS swarm your lives....breathe and live loose.

Health & Happiness!
Regards,
Ant

ps the problem was just as DJ said, too high exp with safety off.