Let me know if you have any luck with that haha. I'd love to be able to pull data from my F100 but it's been a nightmare trying to find software for it.like a custom data cable for my F100
Let me know if you have any luck with that haha. I'd love to be able to pull data from my F100 but it's been a nightmare trying to find software for it.
As soon as you figure them out we make up new ones, it’s part of our job security strategy!I have spent the past decade sitting in a room surrounded by you DSP dorks. Half the time - no, 100% of the time - I can’t understand a single word.
Too late, I’m afraid. I have three 4x5 cameras and one of my current projects is to mount the lens cells from a Sekor Z 180mm lens in a Seiko #1 manual shutter - I hope to finish that one this weekend.A word of caution: don’t ever get into large format, and definitely don’t buy a Packard shutter. Suddenly every lens seems like a good deal/idea/project.
Microcontroller gang rise up! I haven’t used PIC, but I’ve worked on a few AVR and ST7 systems. These days we mostly use STM32 and other ARM systems.Welcome, PIC fiddler here!
As soon as you figure them out we make up new ones, it’s part of our job security strategy!
Too late, I’m afraid. I have three 4x5 cameras and one of my current projects is to mount the lens cells from a Sekor Z 180mm lens in a Seiko #1 manual shutter - I hope to finish that one this weekend.
Let me know if you have any luck with that haha. I'd love to be able to pull data from my F100 but it's been a nightmare trying to find software for it.
And welcome
Yeah, it’s a little bit of a back burner thing but I think I found enough info on the interface to be able to write something simple if I can’t find any existing software. I’ll be sure to post something if I do get it going!
I can help with that. You probably need an Intel Windows XP VM. It sounds like you have the electrical interface part figured out, but I used the information from here to build mine:
There's third part software which has been made free, https://www.cocoon-creations.com/COCOON-NiCommSoftTALK-Download.shtml
You can also use Nikon's Photo Secretary which IIRC is findable by web search but if you have a hard time, let me know and I'll supply iso images.
I used a Nikon MC-21 data extension cable as a source for the connector, because it was the cheapest thing on eBay that had the correct connector, and a generic aliexpress ft232 breakout board for the usb-serial interface.
The only hitch for me was that the software will only use windows "COM1" or "COM2" interfaces to look for the camera, and by default the FT232 (via VM passthrough) shows up as COM5, so I had to mess with the XP device manager to rename the usb-serial device to COM1.
After all that, I'm able to reliably download exposure records from my F5 and fiddle with all the camera settings over the data cable. Note there are different versions of "Photo Secretary" for F100, F5, and maybe others, but they're all out there.
Why?
I'm not sure I understand the question. Why try to make a data interface to a camera?
Emily Cook and thinkbrown mentioned wanting to do it. You can shoot a roll of film and then download a file showing the lens and exposure data for each frame and various other things, and set some settings of the camera's behavior that can't be done on the camera, like tweaks to the autofocus behavior or metering.
Or was the "Why?" sarcastic and I missed some joke?
Maybe it was "why?" to the Windows XP VM. Either way, thanks for the info! I do have an XP VM for old vendor stuff like this already.
Depending on the complexity I may also attempt to throw together a simple open-source tool for the linux command line, since that's where I'm comfortable. For the electrical interface, I think I've got a simple workable plan - I found a few docs about it that tell me enough to build the actual cable itself. I was planning to maybe make a small hand-wired PCB with a USB-to-serial IC. I have the Nikon side of the cable already, in the form of a MC-30 cable release which I have verified has all the necessary wires inside, I just need to probe some things on my F100 to resolve some minor details that were ambiguous in the docs I've found so far, then probably order a few parts.
But first, playing with my discombobulated Mamiya 180mm lens - the manual shutter arrived today and it fits great, now I'm 3d printing a lens board and caps
For what it's worth I can at least confirm that it only needs TXD, RXD, and ground, and it's 5v signalling. Anyway welcome!
Well, what’s done is done. It starts off all innocent with a #1, then before you know it you’re like, “Yeah, it’ll fit, but the weight is gonna be a problem. Maybe I could design a support and get someone to machine it for me…”. Good luck with that.
Microcontroller gang rise up! I haven’t used PIC, but I’ve worked on a few AVR and ST7 systems. These days we mostly use STM32 and other ARM systems
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