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| Multican v0.0.5 | USB remote control tool for Canon EOS class cameras
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Copyright (c) 2006 Jindrich Novy (jnovy@users.sourceforge.net)


Contents
0. Introduction
1. Which Canon EOS cameras is multican able to handle?
2. How to use it?
3. Which functions are supported?
4. Script format
5. Example script
6. Known Bugs


0. Introduction

The purpose of this utility is to give an user a possibility to control
Canon EOS class cameras remotely. Multican uses its own implementation
of Canon communication protocol, i.e. it doesn't use the Canon SDK
(Software Development Kit) libraries, which are neither multiplatform
nor open-source.


1. Which Canon EOS cameras is multican able to handle?

Multican can handle Canon cameras that use class 4 communication
protocol (300D, 10D) and newer ones that use class 6 communication
such as 350D, 30D, 20D, 5D. Multican won't work with 1D Mark II since I
had no luck to investigate the communication format properly. It also
won't work with 400D because Canon introduced a significantly
incompatible protocol with previous models. Currently 300D, 350D, 20D,
10D, 5D cameras are tested.


2. How to use it?

To keep multican focused on its functionality it doesn't use fancy
GUIs, but a simple commandline interface.

If multican is invoked without any argument, it detects all known
attached Canon EOS cameras and reports their status, such as camera
battery status, owner name and camera serial number. Then it starts a
sample remote controlled shooting sequence, where there will be taken 3
shots with various Av, Tv and ISO parameters, storing the results on the
internal camera compact flash card.


3. Which functions are supported?

Several remote control functions are available in scripts, they are:

- setting image quality [quality=fine-l|fine-m|fine-s|raw-fine-l|...|coarse-l|...|raw-coarse-l|...|raw]
- setting shot mode (single, multi, self-timer) [sequence=single|multi|self-timer]
- setting beep [beep=off|on]
- setting exposure measurement area [auto-exp-mode=spot|middle-spot|middle|integral]
- setting white balance [white-balance=auto|sunny|cloudy|art-light|flour-light|flash|manual|shade|color-temp]
- setting autofocus mode [auto-focus=af-one-shot|ai-servo|ai-focus|mf]
- setting ISO sensitivity [iso]
- setting aperture size [av]
- setting shutter release speed [tv]
- setting exposure correction [exp-corr=-2.0|-1.6|-1.5|-1.3|...|0.0|+0.3|...|+2.0]
- releasing shutter (currently only allows to store the image on CF)


4. Script format

The script format consists of list of commands, one per line. The
general format is:

<time> function=value

if the function takes an argument or

<time> function

if it doesn't take any argument. The <time> is in a format of HH:MM:SS
and is set relatively to the sequence start. The processing of any
script starts when multican is launched, all cameras for which the
script is written are detected and ENTER is pressed to start the
sequence.

Empty lines are ignored and '#' denotes that the rest of the line is to
be ignored (comment).

The problem of assigning a particular camera to a script is solved in
the way that a serial number of the a camera is associated to the script
in the way that the script file name contains a serial number (always
consists of 10 numbers) of the particular camera at the end of the
filename. So a sample name for such script could be:

scr-5D-0460286741


5. Example script

Here is one example script for EOS 5D, scr-5D-0460286741:

#
# test script for 5D
#

# time sequence begins:
00:00:00.000	tv  = 125
00:00:00.000	av  = 5.6
00:00:00.000	iso = 100
00:00:00.000	shot
00:00:02.800	tv  = 60
00:00:02.800	av  = 6.3
00:00:02.800	iso = 200
00:00:02.800	shot
00:00:05.600	tv  = 30
00:00:05.600	av  = 7.1
00:00:05.600	iso = 400
00:00:05.600	shot
00:00:08.400	nop


6. Known Bugs

The timing in the script strongly depends on the camera type and CF card
which is used to do shooting. This is to be tested by multican user
himself. If too short times are described in the script, the
communication may hang or may skip some commands. Thanks to camera image
caching, the shooting rate could be set even under 1s if only several images
are taken since the most of the EOS camera models contain an image
cache, so that the images are stored into a queue and written to the CF
lately.

Note that the remote control won't work with all modes that are set on
camera, because sometimes the camera refuses to perform several remote
control commands because of its settings. The ideal mode for remote control
is if the camera is in the full manual mode (M) and the objective auto-focus
is switched off. Note that the Canon EOS cameras won't communicate at all
if you set on mirror lockup.

The known bug in this multican release is that cameras need to be
switched off and on again when a scripted sequence is finished and a new
one is to be done. This is likely caused by the fact that the communication
is not correcly terminated in the actual multicam release.

You may also want to run multican as root to have proper priviledges to
access USB devices.