Remote Control your DSLR with Linux and Android

Beside being a linux fan, I'm also a long time amateur photographer, since the time of film and fully manual SLR, yes, I'm used to camera controls and manual focus....

Today, as I was quietly at home, and wife and kid were already in bed, I decided to take some macro shots. But before, I wondered if there was any free or open-source software so I could connect the camera to the computer and shot it from there.

I already knew Nikon's Camera Control Pro 2 (which costs something like 180$), and its only available for MAC and WIN (as usual), I even started downloading the free trial to test on virtualbox, but never got there....

For Canon lovers, there is also some proprietary software...

So I start investigating (as usual), and I found gphoto2, which is a command line utility that uses libgphoto and can control your camera using PTP (picture transfer protocol) which I found out its an International standard.

As I wanted to see the photos as soon as they were shot on computer, and I wasn't in the mood for a Script session, I investigated and found out this GUI that work with gphoto:

- gtkam - old user interface, lack of function (for me) - not very good
- digikam - for KDE, I'm a Gnome and Unity user...  - not for me
- and DARKTABLE, which is the software I use for RAW processing....

all software its on repositories...

In Darktable I just need to presss Remote Control, and all configs from camera are there. Aperture, shooting mode, speed, EV control, timers, Bracketing (for HDR), etc, etc. 

My camera is a Nikon D3000 that does not have live view on camera, and it doesn't work neither on Darktable, but I believe others will do, but after each shoot the photo appears on computer screen which is very handy and much better then camera screen.

I know, that you will say that this is not very useful, as you wont carry your laptop around while taking photos.... But you can take your phone, or you tablet.....

So the best and cheapest and free and open-source alike software for Android was DSLRDashboard, its on Google Play, however as my tablet was not compatible (dont know why), I went to https://code.google.com/p/dslrdashboard/ and made the download and installation.

For Android beside the USB cable that comes with your camera, you will also need a OTG cable.

As you can see, Linux is easy, and Android too....

And yes, I took the Macro Shoot with the PC and Ubuntu...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57895878@N04/8599564200/in/photostream/lightbox/

PS: The Nikon software said that it don't have support for my camera...

Help on Insys WV2251ELQL - Ubuntu Drivers

As I wrote on my previous post I have a new latptop with Ubuntu (from retailer), but I had a few problems..... But they are now solved, and I hope that this could help other that could run into similar problems.

After updating the kernel on my new laptop Ubuntu 12.04.2, I realized that I lost the drivers (not in kernel) for:

- Wireless
- Card Reader

After some investigation:

- lsusb returned me the wireless hardware 0bda:8723 Realtek Semiconductor Corp., and I figured out the this new card don't have drivers on realtek site yet, but I found this page around...

http://askubuntu.com/questions/139632/wireless-card-realtek-rtl8723ae-bt-is-not-recognized

Just follow the How-to on how to download and compile the driver and instalation, it will work fine... 

If you want to upgrade your computer maybe you should download this stuff first, or you will end up just like me with a cable close to the router....

- lspci returned me the card reader hardware Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5289 (rev 01).
As before this drivers are not on kernel, however, this is an Ubuntu reported bug which as a solution.
Just surf to :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/udisks/+bug/971876, and follow this instructions to execute in command line.

wget http://planet76.com/drivers/realtek/rts-bpp-dkms_1.1_all.deb
sudo apt-get install dkms
sudo dpkg -i rts-bpp-dkms_1.1_all.deb
echo 'DRIVERS=="rts_bpp", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLASH_SD}="1"' | sudo tee -a /lib/udev/rules.d/81-udisks-realtek.rules

After that you need to reboot and the card reader will work fine....

Linux is not hard, and I try to make it easier for everyone...

My new Ubuntu Laptop Windows Free

Today I bought my 2nd Laptop windows free. The first one was a few years ago, the Asus eee 701.

This one is a Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and it is made in Portugal, at Inforlândia (Insys).
Its a 15.6" low end desktop, With Intel B830 at 1,8Ghz a 320Gb SATA HD, wireless, a chiclet keyboard, and a integrated graphic.

Its nice for the price and it comes well configured, just updating, and copying my home folder from my old main laptop.

This machine was bought in a retail shop, and beside this one the other laptop with ubuntu was just an Asus netbook. Coincidence, there was a couple looking at it, and the first question to the seller was "how do I connect this to internet". Off course they could not answer.

My conclusion is that people want to try new stuff, but the brands must give at least some little formation to the sellers, so they could sell a new product that they don't know. 

This netbook that couple was looking at had a price better then windows had, and they just wanted to use some web apps. I was tempted to interfere and give some advice, but meanwhile the box with my laptop arrived and I was really in a hurry, maybe next time I visit the shop...

In a world of MAC's and Windows, there is place for Ubuntu (for the non-technical) that is sure.....