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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Pentak K30 anyone have any luck getting it working?

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Karl,
see updates below :
1) Can you check to see if it downloaded any images to your device? The log seemed to indicate it did, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean anything. - On some of the tests yes it downloaded an image

2) If you start the driver in M mode, and never switch to another mode, what are the results? Inital test at 1.5 seconds shutter opened and closed for 1.5 seconds but it got stuck in waiting to download image. I aborted that attempt and tried 2 seconds, shutter fired what sounded like twice and then opened for 2 seconds and closed, but the downloaded image seems to be from the first shutter snap as the image was perfectly exposed and not over exposed at 2sec and 800iso. Repeated 2 second shot, again shutter sounds like it fired twice. Tried 31 second exposure and counter started at 31 but finished downloading after 2 seconds even do shutter was still open must have read from buffer. tried it at 30 seconds max exposure for manual mode, again it completed after approx 2 seconds and read from buffer, once 30 seconds elapsed shutter closed.

3) If you haven't already, could you by chance download pktriggermode by itself and let me know how that works with your camera? The driver is just wrapping the code for pktriggermode, so if you've used pktriggermode before and it worked, then we're having a driver problem. Otherwise, there's a fundamental problem with pktriggermode, and there may not be much I can do. I cant seem to download pktriggercord for ubuntu says package is not available, i had tried it in windows a year or 2 ago with no success, but if needed i could try it again in windows

log file attached from test

File Attachment:

File Name: Pentaxtest2.txt
File Size:38 KB


Thanks,
Lenny
3 years 9 months ago #55382
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Okay, seems like it's not getting that initial image from the buffer correctly (it thinks its a 0 size image), and from that point on the buffer is lagging behind one exposure. That gives me a few ideas to test at least.

It might be helpful to at least see what you can do with pktriggercord on Windows. That will give us a baseline of what we should be shooting for with the K30 here.
3 years 9 months ago #55389

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So i tried pktriggercord on windows, it dosent recognise the camera model in the json file. So its not able to change mode or set bulb settings. So when camera is in Manual mode It works fine i can take pictures of various lengths up to 30 seconds with out issue. If i knew how to get it to recognize camera model then maybe i could test changing the settings. If i start it up in Bulb mode it gives an error as sen in attached image
3 years 9 months ago #55441
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Thanks. That's strange that it's not recognized in bulb mode, as the K-30 is listed as supported (as opposed to partially supported) on the pktriggercord website. I'll work on trying to get M mode to work for now, and then see what I can find out from pktriggercord about the bulb mode problem.
3 years 9 months ago #55443

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So i managed to get the camera to be recognized by editing the JSON file, So the version of PKtriggercord is 0.85, I downloaded the git from github.com/asalamon74/pktriggercord and had a look at plsr.c and got the hex address for the K30, once I updated this the camera was recognized and the settings showed values for the bulb configuration where as before it was unknowns.
See attached
If i started up the camera on U1 or U2 I was able to configure these to any mode I wanted, except Bulb. Every time I switched to Bulb mode or tried to start up in Bulb mode I got the error posted in my last post on referring to line 2240, which in looking at pktriggercord.c on github is actually referring to line
2304 and this function
G_MODULE_EXPORT void user_mode_combo_changed_cb(GtkAction *action, gpointer user_data) {
    DPRINT("user_mode_combo_changed_cb\n");
    pslr_gui_exposure_mode_t val = gtk_combo_box_get_active(GTK_COMBO_BOX(GW("user_mode_combo")));
    if (!status_new) {
        return;
    }
    assert(val >= 0);
    assert(val < PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_MAX);
    if (status_new == NULL || val != status_new->exposure_mode ) {
        pslr_set_exposure_mode(camhandle, val);
    }
}


So i think the problem is in plsr.c where it dosent determine the camera has actually been put into bulb mode.
pslr_gui_exposure_mode_t exposure_mode_conversion( pslr_exposure_mode_t exp ) {
    switch ( exp ) {
 
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_GREEN:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_GREEN;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_P:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_P;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_SV:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_SV;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_TV:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_TV;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_AV:
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_AV_OFFAUTO:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_AV;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_TAV:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_TAV;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_M:
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_M_OFFAUTO:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_M;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_B:
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_B_OFFAUTO:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_B;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_X:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_X;
        case PSLR_EXPOSURE_MODE_MAX:
            return PSLR_GUI_EXPOSURE_MODE_MAX;
    }
    return 0;
}
3 years 9 months ago #55445
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made some progress was able to get pktriggermode to allow bulb mode by setting plsr_model.c line 981 to
{ 0x12f52, "K-30", false, true, **true,** false, false, false,

How ever when I take a picture the shutter fires and closes and then the countdown starts so its like it dosent know to hold the shutter open......
3 years 9 months ago #55621

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So, I spent a little time looking into this today, and found an old issue report for the K-30: github.com/asalamon74/pktriggercord/issues/13. Doesn't seem like good news for the K-30. I'm not sure if they ever found a fix for it. I saw your issue request there as well. Maybe someone will respond.

Meanwhile, based on the results so far, it seems like it may be possible to get something working for M mode at least. Are you capable of checking out my fork and compiling from that? It'd make the testing cycle go a lot faster and avoid unnecessary commits upstream.
3 years 9 months ago #55667

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I made some changes to the driver. They should be in the nightlies as of a few hours ago. I think they may solve the problem with non-bulb mode, and if we're lucky, maybe even make a difference with bulb mode. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks,
Karl
3 years 9 months ago #55803

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Hey Karl,
Sorry for the delay is responding, I can check out your fork and test as needed sure no problem. So based off the latest update you did I tested Manual mode and was able to take multiple pictures below 30 seconds with out issue. I then set the camera to bulb mode and tried taking some picture above 30 seconds. It was successful but there was a positive the sequence executed as planned however the shutter didn't stay open. So as you know the camera has 2 bulb settings press and hold or press to open press to close. Would it be possible to write a function for the K30 to fire the shutter at the start of the sequence and fire again at the end and i could set the camera to the second option and test this?

I tried taking a picture with an exposure longer than 30 seconds in manual mode but it just defaulted the timer back to 30 seconds, it did complete the 30 seconds exposure though so that's a win.

Thanks,
Lenny.

File Attachment:

File Name: Pentax_Log.txt
File Size:72 KB
3 years 9 months ago #56047
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Lenny,

Since you've already compiled pktriggermode and tested the change in pslr_model.c, perhaps it's easiest to keep working with pktriggermode directly to see if we can find the right solution. I think it'll be easier to mess around with the cli (pktriggermode_cli.c). My first thought is to try calling pslr_shutter again before calling pslr_bulb at the end of bulb_old. So to be more specific, try adding "pslr_shutter(camhandle);" between lines 339 and 340.

My next thought would be to force the K30 to use bulb_new instead of bulb_old.

If you can do either of those, let me know how it goes, or let me know if you need more direction.

Karl
3 years 8 months ago #56198

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Hi Karl,
Sorry I missed this post and only got around to testing it today. So I added in another
pslr_shutter(camhandle);
and ran a test. initially the camera just fired the shutter when i looked at the logs i could see it didnt detect debug mode. So i changed line 981 in pslr_model.c to
{ 0x12f52, "K-30",        false, true,  true,
and tested it again. This time the camera fired the shutter however it reports an error in the pslr_shutter function, after the requested time expired the shutter fired again and the image downloaded. I tried this again by changing the camera bulb mode setting from press and hold to press press, however this time the camera fired the shutter but held it open, after the 35 seconds had elapsed it went through the pslr_shutter function but never fired or closed the shutter. the camera then went into a loop trying to download from the buffer and stayed like this until i manually pressed and closed the shutter. At which point it downloaded the image.

I tested the camera with the new bulb function, again on first attempt it didnt recognize the camera was in bulb mode and I needed to change line 981 in pslr_model.c to
{ 0x12f52, "K-30",        false, true,  true,
again.
This time when i tested the camera it recognized the camera was in bulb mode but said it was not supported as there where no settings in the JSON file again the shutter fires instantly the camera did not wait the requested time and the image downloaded instantly.
I tried adding some settings into the pentax_settings_json but i couldnt get the camera to change its behavior.

File Attachment:

File Name: penatx_tes.txt
File Size:4 KB

File Attachment:

File Name: penatx_tes.txt
File Size:4 KB


Log file attached for old bulb mode.
3 years 8 months ago #57360
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