I bench-tested the hot-shoe enhanced camera trigger logging today to ensure I had it right. My findings did not agree with the wiki - nor some other comments I’d heard off- line.
I use a Foxtech Map-02 (Sony A5100 internals) with it’s hot-shoe lead connected to Aux-5.
I have these parameters:
CAM_FEEDBACK_PIN=54 (Aux-5)
CAM_FEEDBACK_POL=1 (Trigger High)
I set LOG_DISARMED=1 so logging would happen on my workbench without arming my copter.
I powered up the copter and triggered the shutter 11 times with the hot shoe connected to Aux-5.
I then disconnected the hot-shoe lead, and triggered the shutter 10 more times.
The result in the log was 21 TRIG messages.
There were no CAM messages even though I’d triggered the shutter 10 times with the hot-shoe disconnected.
The wiki says that ArduPilot logs TRIG messages when it triggers the camera - and CAM messages when detecting shutter triggering via the hot-shoe.
This clearly does not happen. When I deactivated hot-shoe detection by setting CAM_FEEDBACK_PIN=-1 The result was CAM messages in the log - and no TRIG messages.
I checked logs from over a year ago when I wasn’t using hot-shoe operation - and those logs also show CAM messages only - so there doesn’t seem to be any recent firmware changes.
In addition to making sure my understanding of hot-shoe signaling and logging works, I have two additional questions:
QUESTION 1:
In my first test above, I disconnected the hot-shoe lead half way through the shutter operations. All of the operations however record a TRIG message. Is there any way to detect if the camera shutter was commanded but nothing was recorded from the hot-shoe? (hot shoe failure)
QUESTION 2:
I’ve seen comments over the past year of ArduPilot’s interpolation of GPS geo-position when the camera shutter operates between GPS location messages. This is particularly important for RTK operation using a hot-shoe. Can someone please verify that this interpolation is occurring?
I know this was a lot from one post - but I thought it made sense to keep it all together. Thank you for looking through this post - and any help you may be able to offer.