Control your GH3 from a Web Browser - Now with video !

Lufthummel

With my G6 I've had the same problem. Maybe I've to "ping" the camera during the live view?

Paroma

@maxbogue: this sounds very interesting! How fast can the FZ1000 shoot with your script? I mean how much time does it take i.e. to take 10 shots at different predefined focus settings? I do panoramic Gigapixel photos, sometimes with focus stacking. speed would be important in that case.

maxbogue

@Paroma: Actually my script trig a slow focus move and a picture every 250ms. But that was set arbitrary as it way fast enough for my use. As the camera can do 12fps, it guess it could go as fast as 90-150ms per focus+capture but I don't think it is necessary as with the actual speed, lets suppose you want 20 pictures for a stack which is huge, it would take only 5sec to proceed.

The only drawback I found to this approach is that focussing range give a lower depth of field then moving the camera (As it is limited to the focus range, rather than the tripod range.) However the result is awesome as the camera is absolutely steady.

You can open my web page, without connecting it to the camera first. You will see how it works. It run in a batch also. So in the web page you set the interval between two focus stacked picture. This is handy for video or for panoramas...

maxr

Case pips are focus stacking, an easy way to blend the images in PS CS4 and up =)

melihdummy

Hi,

After I saw the great efforts from lenuisible, I remembered my old VB6 program from 2001 (13 years ago!) to control my beloved Casio QV3000.. I thought "why don't I adapt the program for Lumix cameras?".. Then I went into the code and changed the software..

I have a Lumix FZ1000 but it should work with variety of lumix cameras with wifi capabilities. I don't know how zoom or focus work with interchangeable lens cameras, if you try, then let me know..

It is a quick and dirty version, for now:
no live view, 
no picture preview or download, 
you have to enter your camera's IP address manually
You can only change focus, zoom, aperture, iso, shutter speed and exposure compensation
you can shoot video and take pictures.
error checks are not complete, so sometimes (but not frequently) it hangs.

...But my software was for a different purpose.

You can record commands (like recording macro in Excel), then play them back as many times as you want. For example, you can record the following actions: 1. change focus a little bit 2. take a picture.

then you can repeat this sequence 10 times .. and you got a bunch of pictures ready to blend for focus stacking..

You can also use the program for video to adjust the focus at specific times. Just rehearse the scene and record the focusing actions, then repeat the sequence for the real video..

You can download the program from http://www.dijitalakademi.com/lumixcontrol.zip

You can save the sequences, and you can merge saved files, or repeat those files one after another. For example if you make a timelapse, you can change the camera settings after 7:00 pm to adjust the low light..

The image below is a small help for the program.

And you can watch a short video from here: http://www.dijitalakademi.com/P1640788.MP4 which is shot by the program after I recorded the actions. You can fine tune the action timings after you record them.. It generates this file (if you save the sequence)

length of action (ms) | delay between two actions (ms) | action
 234 | 2730 | Record Start
 1400 | 3401 | Focus Tele Fast
 3400 | 3400 | Focus Tele Slow
 3588 | 3121 | Focus Wide Slow
 1731 | 3167 | Focus Wide Fast
 62 | 0 | Record Stop

you can tweak every number after you record it, so you can precisely fine tune the focus, timings etc.. If you lower the values above the focus buttons, you get smoother focus transitions.. but lower than 50 might cause the program to hang. If it happens, simply kill the process and relaunch it. Remember, the distance between camera and computer (if you use direct connection) or router (if you use your network) greatly affects the performance of the program.

Enjoy...

Regards,

Melih

starios

I hope sometime to be able to set focus points in camera, like those some wireless ff keep in memory, and the camera to focus without gaps through wifi (for shooting video). Probably this would be a hack in firmware of the camera in combination with the wifi remote control. I don't know :(

maxbogue

@melihdummy this looks amazing unfortunately I was not able to install your application. It keeps saying my files must be updated. Even if I do the update and reboot as asked, the application wont install...

Any advices?

Being myself also a old VB programmer I was wondering if you be like to share your source with me so that I can do some experiments.

Thanks

onobody

GH4 Camera Control and Video Preview on OS X: Results - Very Good!

I searched for hours trying to find a way to get the Panasonic Image App on a Windows 8 Tablet or my Mac before I stumbled across this. I'm so glad I found it.

This browser based software is like Panasonic Image App for OS X or Panasonic Image App for Windows.

Equipment and Software Specs:

GH4 with v1.1 firmware
Lumix 12-35 lens with 1.2 firmware
OSX Yosemite 10.10.1
MacPro 5.1 (Mid 2010 12-core)
32GB RAM
Safari 8.0.2
Comcast Arris TG862G wireless router with default settings.
v.04 software

Procedure:

Downloaded the v.04 file and unzipped it. (The instructions for how to do this are VERY unclear and easily took the most time)
Downloaded and installed the latest Java (8u25).
Connected the GH4 to the Comcast wifi. (There are 10 other devices on this WIFI)
Found the IP of the GH4 in the router control panel under "Connected Devices"
Opened requests.html from the v.04 download in Text Edit (set to view html as code) and did a "find/replace" search to replace the IP address throughout the document with the IP from the GH4.
Opened "Control.html" (if you get to this step quickly enough, the camera won't have timed out of wifi waiting for the "Image App" to connect
Opened UDPServer.class
Switched back to Control.html in Safari
Clicked "recmode"
Clicked "Start Stream"

Voila! Very hassle free.

Tested successfully:

shutter speed
aperture
iso
focus
start record and stop record (by using the playmode button).
Live view worked flawlessly for the 20 minutes I used it. It was necessary to click "Start Stream" after using the "played" button to stop recording. The resulting 4k video files on the camera did not show any errors and played back normally.

I did not test the other functions.

Wow I would love to see this polished up. Combined with Melihdummy's focus control, easier install, and a pleasant interface (Which I would love to help with) and you would have a highly desirable, (salable if you care) product. What a great start. Thank you for writing it.

residentjack

I got this to work with my LX100, but the screen size in the live view is very small. I am using a PC. Any idea how I can adjust the code to maximize the live view image? Thanks

cloudnein

Attached is a Python "security camera" program; it uses PIL to look for motion (simple image deltas with a dumb rolling average.) Run this from your Dropbox folder and, viola, free cloud-based security solution.

Anyone know the protocol for deleting pics off the camera? I haven't been successful in sniffing network traffic between the app and my camera.

For now I just download but never delete; be sure to clear your card every so often (format does the trick.)

Edit monitor.py to set your IP's and run it...It'll show the rolling averages and tell you when it's capturing.

duelago

@cloudnein Cool script. I just tried it from my Raspberry Pi and it detects motion fine and takes pictures with my GX7. Question: How do I setup the script so the pictures download to my Raspberry from the camera? Right now the script says downloading, but nothing happens. Some kind of SOAP module for Python I need to download?

TIA, David

duelago

@cloudnein Kind of solved. Transfering pictures work (but really slowly) when I only shoot jpegs. Fun script. :)

sksmaa

Must be a very strange question to many. But I could not figure out from where I can download this. Can some one point me to the right place to download this? Thanks.

thenetstriker

I've just uploaded a new app to the play store. The app uses dlna to get a list of images from the camera and synchronizes all images to the Android device:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.masshardt.dlnacamsync

POTENT

Hello,

We are using Panasonic Camera - HC-V550M(FULL-HD). We have done the steps given for the JAVA program to run on Windows8. We are able to connect to the Camera using the Web commands. Also JAVA program is running and UDP port also created. But the Video or Picture is not streaming using Liveview.

We would like to know the reason ? We have checked on Ubuntu machine in Terminal we are getting streamed data in UDP port. But we are not able to get in JAVA UI.

Thank you.

vyskocil

Hello,

Has someone figured out how the GPS data log recorded on a smartphone is uploaded to a lumix APN which support geotagging with the help of Image App ? My plan is to record a GPS log on a dedicated device (a USB keylogger or a Raspberry Pi board with a GPS) and then upload it with the right protocol to the APN.

Thanks !

bugme

Hi, has anyone thought about impersonating a Panasonic Camera with a software solution?

What would be needed besides a web server and and cam.cgi implementation? What DLNA parts would have to be implemented?

For instance, does anyone know how the official Panasonic Image App scans for a camera?

Gonx

Hello there. Im really appreciate all great work you have doing. Im flying with a octocopter with my gh4. And luke to control exposure and iso ass well as focus and record remotely. Thinking to use arduino or raspberry pi.have some of you doing something like that? I do not need video feed. Thanks in advace

cloudnein

@lenuisiblelenuisible - dumb question...I see live view quality (vga/svga) in the screenshots but not in your UI's...Happen to know what URL format to turn on svga live view?

cramcam

I am currently working on a solution for the hc-v727 All the stuff from "allmenu" works. The problem is that the camcorders seem to use a slightly different video protocol. The best i could imagine would be a way to get a 720p video feed over the local network like it can stream to ustream via stupid panasonic services.

Btw. Has anyone an idea how to change the localisation to unlock the 60hz modes?

cloudnein

Hi all, I've updated my code significantly, mainly to improve reliability.

But also I've added SSDP for camera IP address discovery and I've added a call to

http://<IP>/cam.cgi?mode=setsetting&type=liveviewsize&value=vga

to switch the live view to VGA resolution.

Enjoy!

kolinko

thanks, this is such a great progress! Did anybody manage to run it on a Macbook??

cloudnein

@kilinko - you will need to install PIL...easiest is to install brew (http://brew.sh) and "brew install home-brew/python/pillow" (note the instructions at the end for adding the brew-installed Python libraries to the Python library system path.)

Once you've done that, you should be good to go. (Will likely need to modify monitor.py to specify your IP address too...)

kolinko

thanks @cloudnein ! If I'll get a Gh3 or gh4 then I'll try it.

t11

Hello, in this thread I found most of the info for coding a download images script for the GF7.

It works on debian GNU/Linux but should be easy to add other posix systems.

Hopefully it will work also on GH3.

Look at the first lines and configure it for your network.

You can do the network setup by other means and comment the step into the file.

This script is a rough version. Maybe I will work on it in the future and develop it in a public repository.

Please re-lauch it a few times in order to get the multi-step auth working.

And let me know if there are smart solution for syncing the camera images using free software!

Enjoy!

Howdy, Stranger!

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