Still photo optimization

[perapera]

I am looking for a still photo solution. Budget up to 200EUR,
FOV<100deg, weight<150g, RAW ability. It is highly desirable to have
scripting ability, for example: timelapse with different exposures and
ISOs repeating continuously.

One option is the new HawkEye Firefly X 90deg (Ambarella H22/Sony
IMX377), and I hope that extra price is worth (compared to 8SE
90deg). Though I am not sure if it is really fully scriptable.

Still, I keep wondering if I could do a better job by pairing some
cheaper camera, but still good dynamic range, and replace its stock
lens with some bright lens. There are 4-5mm M12 lens on aliexpress
for 30$ - 80$. Supposedly F/2.0 available, or even F/1.8. Faster
shutter speeds would help me a lot. Are those lens sharp enough
though? I have found some framegrabs from 4K videos and it looks
promising, so maybe.


Funny side question, what will look less ugly: ISO3200 with good lens,
or ISO400 with low res "starlight" lens?


Any thoughts or recommendation? Either on camera or lens.
Thanks!

[nutsey]

what will look less ugly: ISO3200 with good lens,
or ISO400 with low res "starlight" lens?

Both would look quite bad.

[perapera]

Hmmm. Are those "starlight" lens on aliexpress really that low res? Some youtube videos didn't look that bad to me.

[nutsey]

I've got several of them (fisheye, 4mm and 6mm). All are good enough for 1080p video, but not suitable for 5+ MP stills due to low resolution.

[perapera]

nutsey: I know you had plans to make tests of bunch of lenses. But that is a lot of work. Would it be maybe possible that you dump somewhere whatever still images you have so far from various lenses?

[nutsey]

This would make any sense only for stills captured with the same cam in similar lighting conditions and with manual exposure. This is exactly what I was planning to do.

[petesimon]

I think a Canon or Nikon photo camera that can be programmed or automated via buttons or via a Wifi or USB connection would be best. Unfortunately I am unaware of which camera model to look for because most of those are beyond my $ budget.

[perapera]

I think a Canon or Nikon photo camera that can be programmed or automated via buttons or via a Wifi or USB connection would be best. Unfortunately I am unaware of which camera model to look for because most of those are beyond my $ budget.

I was perhaps not clear. This is a script I used this morning with my Xiaomi Yi:

# !!!!!! *** USE NORMAL PHOTO MODE *** !!!!!!!
# enable scene mode: portrait[14] (uses bit longer exposures or lower iso)
#t cal -sc 14
# turn off de-noise (there is already de-noise applied before this, even on ISO100):
t ia2 -adj tidx -1 0 -1

while true
do
# 1361=1/198s -->
t ia2 -ae exp 0 1361 0
lu_util exec 'sleep 0.1'
t app key shutter
t app key shutter_rel
lu_util exec 'sleep 3.3'

#THIS IS ISO100
t ia2 -ae exp 100 0 0
lu_util exec 'sleep 0.1'
t app key shutter
t app key shutter_rel
lu_util exec 'sleep 3.3'

#THIS WOULD BE FULL AUTO
#t ia2 -ae exp 0 0 0
done

The above script alternates 1/198s and ISO100 every 3.4s. For about 1-2 hours. Then I review the sequence and pick a few good stills. Why? Light is changing and action was also changing. Bit slow, then bit faster. Logic is that either ISO100 will capture what I need, or shutter priority 1/198s will. This works most of the time for me. Actually I wish I could do this also on my big Panasonic camera.

Would it be possible to do the above or similar script on Firefly X? Or Firefly 8SE, or 9?
(I am not sure, but it looks promising to me after skimming through some topics on this forum.)


Xiaomi Yi is great camera. It served me well. But it is slow. Especially with RAW. It cant dump RAW faster than 9-10s. And FOV is too big for my taste. And I also have some strange bugs: while doing the above script sequence if I turn WiFi on, and then off, it just stops dumping images.

[nutsey]

Would it be possible to do the above or similar script on Firefly X? Or Firefly 8SE, or 9?

I've just released MOD3 custom firmware for Firefly 8SE with manual exposure scripting support.

I don't know if it can be done with Firefly X as I don't have this camera. Firefly 9 is not capable of such scripting at all.

[perapera]

That is great about Firefly 8SE!
I now realized that scripting is more of an accident + hacking work by community.
Firefly X also has H22/IMX377 like SJCAM SJ8 Pro. I am now browsing forums to see if the latter supports scripting. Doesn't look promising so far.

[nutsey]

I don't think IMX377 has any noticeable advantage over IMX117 for stills.

[perapera]

Thanks nutsey. Plus 8SE is significantly cheaper So yeah, I will now buy one.