Here it is. The first prototype.

Wow Cronix,

there`s nothing I`d like to do more photographically than have a Nikon D600 (with its much superior dynamic range) exposure bramping at sunset and sunrise.

On your blog you wrote:



Could you explain further? Is the bramping of the Nikons going to be as reliable as for the Canons (despite the well known stepped exposure problem in bulb mode)? Would the D600 be likely supported for exposure ramping with your machine?
Thanks

Wow!! Great build quality!!

I want one of those boards for my spare Pi !!

I really like the layout and the use of the new mounting holes!!

JohnB

Looks really nice! How much do you think they will retail for?

There is a big difference between how ramping can be done with a Canon and a Nikon. I will post some tests soon (hopefully this week). The D600 should work since I have tested the software with my D700 and D800.



I don't have any retail price yet. That all depends on how many features that I will add to the final board. I have a few nice ones in my head .

This is exciting, I could use a few of these.

Its almost there. I just have some issues with sourcing the final parts. Which camera are you using? USB control is fully working for the D700 and D800. Other camera's will be added as soon as I can borrow them for a few days.

The device will be fully upgradeable. That means that new features can be installed easily.

Is this Nikon Only? Or does it also work with Canon?

USB support will also be for Canon. You can even stereo ramp with a Nikon and Canon combined.

That's a really tidy design. It appears to be well endowed with sockets. What gadgets are you planning to support?

Your sample video is very smooth, especially as you've done no deflickering in post.

As a total newb, I must ask, how will bracketed shots for HDR be treated?

Awesome! I'm gonna keep a close eye on this one, looks great. If the D7000 gets supported, I'm totally up for it!
Also because you're from the Netherlands and shipping won't be a problem

I don't think that the D7000 will be difficult to integrate. Shipping is never a problem since we are always looking for the most economical way. We use several shipping companies.


I haven't looked at HDR yet. But I don't see any technical limitations to add this to the controller.

The firmware just passed the 9000 lines mark yesterday and it's not done yet. But there will be a fully functional version of the firmware when the first beta boards will be ready (in April). The first version will support a normal intervalometer and an exposure ramper with full USB support.

Very interrested too !!

But how about internal 1/3 stop limitation of Nikon firmware ?

There is no 1/3 limitation in bulb. It's much smaller and even better with the D800. These small differences can easily be overcome by creating an XMP file per image because you have enough headroom in a 14bit raw image. The controller automatically creates these XMP files for you. Here is a result that I posted in another thread. There is one big glitch at 10.5 seconds in the movie; that is due to a bug that I have already fixed in the current version of the firmware.



The exposure ramped between 0.1 and 3 seconds.
The camera was set to bulb at an exposure of 1.1 seconds.
The ISO shifted from 100 to 3200.
Interval was 10 seconds.
A total of 10 stops was ramped during a 1.5 hour sequence.

All camera settings are automatically set by the controller. No deflicker software is used. T

This looks awesome! Do you have an estimated price for the device?

Do you plan to add ND filter Swith ?

I really no not know the estimated price at this moment. The electronics design has been changed almost a 100% since I made the board that you see at the top of the thread. Many features have been added and the interface is also fully changed. I will have an estimate in a month when the new boards are fully tested.


Sample answer: Yes. But not in the first release of the software.

Hi Cronix, looks really good. Do you have a casing worked out for it?

Yes, we are planning a case for the controller. This will be a custom case due to the large number of connectors that I fitted to the final version.

This thread gave me a huge boner.

If you need anyone to beta test this with Nikon, I am in.

Can't wait for the price, I was looking to buy a Timelapseplus but will wait for this

Great! A customer . The first beta boards are gone, but I have high hopes that a first production run will be out in the field soon.

Awesome !

Do you have an idea of the price ?

I will be in NYC in a month and would like to make timelapses, do you think it'll be shipping then ?

I am sorry but there will be no units available in a month except for the units that are reserved for beta testers. Trust me. We are working hard to make the units available for a larger public.

this is fantastic, i shoot nikon and have been waiting a long time for bulb ramping hardware.

Short update from my side. I have totally redesigned the ramper and a lot of features have been added. I have just assembled and tested the first board and it looks that everything is working as it was designed. This all took a while since the user interface is now based on a full color touch screen.

We are going to test this thing thoroughly the next weeks and I will show the results of these tests on this forum as soon as possible.

This is a very bad iPhone image of the current setup.

I am very much looking forward to more!

That will be soon from now. I finally got all the hardware working. Time to go outside with this thing after almost two years of development.

That looks killer! Cant wait to see how it performs, ill be waiting to order

me too, looks awesome!!

Here is a (again bad iPhone picture) of the on screen preview mode. Touch the screen and you will get a preview image including a histogram calculated by the ramper. That way you know when to start your ramping sequence. Nikon camera's don't enable preview mode when a USB cable is connected, but I hope that this will solve that.

It's crazy seeing a touch screen controller haha... will it have precision bulb control and how does it work with ND filters? I assume it will be able to shut the display off but I have to ask haha. You can put me on the list for one. Im on the hunt for a decent bulb ramper and yet to find one with all the features and half the hassle.

There are many settings available when you want to build a proper exposure ramper. The touch screen makes it so much easier to operate the controller. Otherwise you keep pressing these small buttons that the initial design had.

I just rendered a test from a Nikon D800. To me it looks absolutely perfect. The test ran from 0.1 seconds to 3.0 seconds and the ISO was shifted from 100 to 3200. Normal exposure times were used until 1 second.

Nikon camera's, especially models like the D800, can produce great ramping sequences without artefacts. The fact that I can seamlessly use normal exposure speeds and bulb combined with ISO shifting without getting any flicker proves that Nikon camera's (at leat my D700 and D800) are very accurate.

I will try to do some more tests this evening that I will post here.

Great job!

Do you have any data regarding max and min temperatures that this touchscreen is able to operate at? I guess this might be one of the few negatives of it..!?

Here is a quick render of the Nikon D800 test.