Canon DSLR auto focus issues

Hello!

I could really use some advise as the auto focus issues I currently experience have already ruined two perfectly good nights and I do not want to spend another night trying to get it right.

My setup:
Ubuntu Mate 16.04 on Raspberry Pi 3 B+
The Pi is running headless and I am connected via VNC
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM
The camera is connected via an active USB hub
No mirror lock

The settings in Ekos / INDO are standard AFAIK. The values for pixel pitch and sensor size are set.

I can capture an image, select are star and run the Auto Focus. It will go through a few steps and either be successful or not but that really does not matter because the stars will still be out of focus. I have increased the values for max travel and steps (as shown on the tutorial video) to no avail. The process will finish successfully with the stars still out of focus, decreasing the values for max travel and step will let the process end up unsuccessfully (and also out of focus stars).
The image takes so long to load on the Pi that the built-in LiveView is unusable. I even tried to focus in and out manually and I do spot a difference when changing focus but I did not get it right.
I have used LiveView on the camera itself to get it focussed as good as possible but I think it was not enough for auto focus to work properly.
Does anyone had similar problems and a solution for me? Is there anything I am missing?

Best regards from Germany,
Dominik

Not the answer you are probably looking for but, I suggest a bahtinov mask and maybe using the manual controls to drive the focuser.
Edit: There is also step speed to consider, that can be changed in the INDI driver panel. You need the slowest speed for the finest adjustments.

Jasem, we had been working on focusing some time ago and while it wasn't perfect, it DID sort of work. indilib.org/forum/ccds-dslrs/3938-focuss...anon-lens.html#30003 Last week I wanted to use my 300mm tele and found it did no longer work AT ALL. The lens did not move, no matter what I did. LiveView enabled, focus in, focus out, INDI panel buttons, all without effect. I tried again today with no success. The only button that ONCE does something is the autofocus button in INDI panel. It triggers an autofocus attempt and a beep. When you press the button again, it fails and an error is reported: 2019-02-25T15:50:23: [ERROR] camera_get_config failed: -110

Logfile attached.

Hello,
I just tried the focus module with my canon 600d. I have pretty much the same problem: With live view disabled, the focus in and out buttons do not have any effect on the camera at all, though indi reports a focus puls of 100ms. When I enable live view, the focus buttons lead to the same error message as reported by Herrhausen, but: now the focus is definatly changing in spite of the error. I can see that in the live view and I can hear the focus motor. As soon as I turn off live view, the focus buttons do not change the focus position any more, though indi now reports succesfull focus movements.

When I set the autofocus in the indi panel while live view is turned on, the effect of the buttons seizes. Instead, something is happening inside the camera itself: The camera does not respond any more. No more live view, no more capturing. The live view of the camera itself - unplugged from the usb - seizes working. On and off is not enough. Only when I remove the battery, the camera returns to live.

Waht can I do to get the focussing work properly?

chengel wrote: Waht can I do to get the focussing work properly?

Frankly: Nothing.

I gave up on Ekos+Canon lense. It's never been a priority and probably never will. The best thing you could possibly do is use a Bahtinov or Cuzdi mask, direct your lens at a bright star, activate the cam's Live View 10x magnification and focus manually.

Hallo,
thank you, Jasem.
As suggested in the link you posted, I can get the focus buttons and the auto-focus working by activating the viewfinder mode in the action panel of the indi Canon driver.
Maybe the focus module could be set to do this by default in case the camera itself is selected as focuser?

Two more observations / suggestions:

- the overall image brightness of the frames I take in the focus module seems to be varying in steps from bright to faint, just like the aperture or the exposure time were changing. Maybe it is just the way the image is displayed that changes, maybe it is really a change in the captured flux. The latter may affect the calculated hfr without a change in focus position, at least if the center of the star gets near saturation. It would be good to be able to control not only iso and exposure time, but also the aperture of the camera. I tried to fix the aperture in the camera property panel. Whatever value I choosed, the variation in brightness of the focussing frames remained.

- I think in APT they do the DSLR auto-focussing completely in live mode, which might be a good approach at least for sufficiently bright stars.

knro wrote: If anyone knows a way to do this reliably from gphoto2 let me know.

One has to enter viewfinder mode -> In gphoto --shell this is done by the command "set-config /main/actions/viewfinder=1"
Focusing can then be done sending commands

set-config /main/actions/manualfocusdrive=0 (will move a tiny step towards nearest)
set-config /main/actions/manualfocusdrive=1 (will move a small step towards nearest )
set-config /main/actions/manualfocusdrive=2 (will move a large step towards nearest)

set-config /main/actions/manualfocusdrive=4 (will move a tiny step towards infinity)
set-config /main/actions/manualfocusdrive=5 (will move a small step towards infinity)
set-config /main/actions/manualfocusdrive=6 (will move a large step towards infinity)