Canon Eos M5

[tim]

Hi Christian
Im sure I can make wifibooth work with live view with the Canon M5, there are just a bunch of possible ways to do this...
When you start wifi booth, then press "Built-in WiFi", the next screen is the event with all the settings. Near the top there is a switch for live view. Is this showing as on?
I had assumed that the reason that wifibooth wasn't even attempting to initialize live view (which I see in your latest trace) is because it was turned off. But now I guess i'll need to look again
I made some progress yesterday around the issue that the M5 doesn't respond to Canon's traditional shutter command, need to do some testing here first

[christian]

I've double checked. The switch for live view is enabled. Do you still have the older traces where I've initialized the live view with the other app? maybe this helps.

How is this working anyway? Does the canon camera accept http calls or is this some wired UDP or TCP stuff?

[tim]

Thanks for double-checking. I'll go think about how this is happening.
It's a binary protocol over IP called PTP or MTP depending who you ask. It's an old crappy USB protocol.
Here's me analyzing your camera's deviceinfo return:

IMG_7274.jpg

[tim]

... oh and there's no documentation from canon to tell you what the codes mean (their SDK doesn't work with wireless, is closed-source, and altogether useless)

[christian]

Oh my freakin lord... is there a reason they do crap like that? I mean it's 2017 right? Rest apis and stuff

[tim]

They probably wanted to keep the same controllers in their cameras that they were already using for USB, ie. pre-wifi days. They probably have a bunch of embedded firmware work that would be non-trivial to re-implement. So, yeah, sucks to be me

[tim]

Hi Christian
There's a new build on testflight, 5186. I'm doubtful that it will get too much further, but, I did make some changes so that I hope the traces will be able to show where the error is. What's odd in the last set of traces from wifibooth you sent, is that the connection is dropped immediately after wifibooth tells the M5 to start live view. Not sure why, as the camera doesn't even respond -- in the traces from the canon app to your M5, it surprisingly seems to never need to instruct the camera to start live view, as if mirrorless cams were always in live view mode.
Anyways please try 5186 and send me new traces, AND: please grab the console logs as well. If you have xcode then you should be able to get these from window->devices->ipad
Also, please leave the live view wifibooth setting on always, at the moment turning it off will have no effect with your camera.
thanks

[christian]

Hey,

I've tested the new version. As you said, no changes.

The Wireshark capture is here: http://www.orange-coding.net/wireshark.zip
As always: Established a Wifi connection -> started Wireshark -> opened App -> connected to cam -> tried to take a photo.

To the logs. I'm sorry to say that, but there're no device logs available from Wifibooth. I've looked booth in Xcode and in the SQLite DB available here: ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/iOS Device Logs.

There were a few device logs before my debugging and I've deleted them to be sure I get the correct one but even before my delete, there was no WifiBooth Log.

What is interesting is: As soon as I hit the button to take a photo, the camera turns off the wifi.

I've now also captured the same procedure as above with the app cascable. (Where live view and taking pictures works) maybe this helps: http://www.orange-coding.net/cascable.zip

[tim]

OK 5187 is now available. This should get further I hope.
To get the console log and save it see the 2 photos below. This isn't the same as getting a crash log or device log (those are different)
Please clear the console log prior to starting wifibooth, thanks

con1.jpg

con2.jpg

[christian]

Hi,

ok, here we go again.

Same procedure (Connect-Take photo and so on)

This time, when I click on take photo, I was able to see a "live view" but it was sloooooowwww and the camera took the picture when the countdown was at 2. When it them tries to take a second picture, the camera shut down the wifi.

Just for my interest, is "normaly" the live view on the whole time or is it just visible if someone clicks on the "take picture" button?

Here's the wireshark stuff as well as the log.
http://www.orange-coding.net/wireshark.zip

[tim]

Hi Christian
Seems like you were able to take a photo, and it showed up in wifibooth, is that correct? We are getting closer..
Thanks for the console log it is very useful!

You mentioned the live view was slow, that's interesting because I see that when downloading the photo you sustained 2700kB/sec over >2MB, which is great.
Compared to the Cascable trace:
- Wifi booth requests & receives frames much faster - 5x to 10x faster
- Wifi booth gets smaller frames compared to Cascable. This might be because the live view data (is JPG data) that you took with Cascable did not compress well because it was of a complex nature (noisy/grainy etc), or, it might be because WiFi Booth is receiving lower-resolution live-view frames. Not sure.
But none of that explains why wifibooth's live view would be slower than Cascable's! Can you please tell me what you mean exactly by "slow" ? Du kannst auch Deutsch mit mir ... ich kann noch ein bisschen...

Normally the liveview turns off after the photo is taken, to preserve battery on the camera. However, your camera said "CANNOT! IM TOO BUSY!" when wifibooth tried to turn off the liveview, and stupidly, wifibooth did not try again. I will fix that. It's the same reason why I think your camera dropped the connection when you tried to take the 2nd photo: wifibooth said "start live view", and since your camera was still in live view, it threw a general error and dropped the connection. This is really annoying behavior: other cameras like my Canon 750D never drop the connection like that, they can recover from the error.

So I will make another build now that waits for live view to start/stop if the camera returns deviceBusy.
Please try the next build when you get the invite from testflight...

[christian]

Hey.

Now it works with 2 fotos, but still slow as hell. I'Ve included a video from both cascable and wifibooth so that you can see the differences.

Also I noticed: If I connect wifibooth with the camera and do nothing for like half a minute, the wifi connection fails too.
I've included a wireshark trace and logs for this as well.
For my interesst: Is there a way to keep live view online all the time?

By the way, would like to stick to english if you don't mind as this is my main language. Some of my devices are german as I was born there, but I'm not that good in speaking/writing.

The followin zip contains a video from cascable and wifibooth comparing the live view as well as logs and wireshark traces for the wifi crash mentioned above.

http://www.orange-coding.net/wifibooth.zip

[tim]

OK great news - the video was super helpful, thank you for this! it shows me a reason why I think wifibooth is so slow on your ipad: it appears your CPU is getting pegged at 100%. I don't know why.

I am up north, far away from civilization, in a small cabin by a big lake.
Looking at hexadecimal code again

EDIT - UPDATE:
OK I am trying to upload a new build now - hope I can, they are 150MB and I have poor cellular reception.

Important:
- if wifibooth still disconnects after 30 seconds, then please make another wireshark trace of Cascable just showing the live-view (take no photos), for 75 seconds
- I can't see why your CPU would be getting pegged, BUT: in the event settings screen, please turn OFF mirroring (it is on by default, and in your video i see that it is on). That might help, please let me know
- when the camera first connects, don't hit the red button until the alert goes away (gives it a few seconds to get all setup commands finished first!)

Thanks again for all your help. I am going to definitely give you a free copy of this app

[christian]

Hey,

ok, I've tested a lot more.

1) If I just let the connection between the camera and wifibooth runs without taking photos or doing anything, the connection is not dropped.
2) If I switch off the mirror function, the video is much faster and smoother.

Edit: Lol! As I was writing this report, I finally found the error why wifibooth sometimes does not take photos at all, therefor I'll now remove all I wrote here and write a new proper error report:

Error:
It took me like 2 hours and a bunch of friends to finally reproduce the problem safely. I'll take 3 photos in a row which works great. But: If I move the camera when trying to take a photo or if there's a group of people in front of the camera doing a lot of movement like jumping back and forth, wifibooth will not take the photo anymore. In fact each time, there's lots of movement while in live mode, the photo is not taken. This is happening due to the fact that the camera doesn't seem to be able to focus. Cascable has the same problem but with one difference. If I hit the shutter button with Cascable and keep pressing, it tries to refocus and then take the photo while Wifibooth doesn't do that. If the camera now does not take a photo due to the focus problem, wifibooth seems to get confused, is loading like 1 min and then get back to the main screen. I'm however able to take photos again after that.

Tried this with either shaking the camera and with a bunch of volunteers a.k.a friends. The connection dropping problem doesn't occur anymore.

Here are different traces and there logs. Included are:
Wireshark Trace from Cascable (letting it run for 75 Seconds) even though I don't think this is needed anymore
Wireshark Trace and Logs from WifiBooth Shaking camera to produce the error
http://www.orange-coding.net/wifibooth.zip

Thanks again for all your help. I am going to definitely give you a free copy of this app

I was rather thinking about donating something if you accept donations as it is not common for Indie Developers / Open Source Devs to put that much afford into an app to support just another camera, so I appreciate your work very much and do what I can to help Keep it up ma man, we are getting closer to make this work as it seems.

[tim]

so close!
Before i examine the traces (thank you): does your camera or lens have a physical switch to turn off autofocus? On my 750D it is "AF/MF". When i am using mu 750D for a booth, i set the camera on a tripod, focus where the people will stand (ie near the wall), and then put camera in manual focus mode.
Does this prevent the problem?

[christian]

Unfortunatelly, the efm lenses doesn't have that switch. This is a software switch but it is not taken into account once the cam is connected to an app via wifi.

Same story as my infrared remote control does not work if I'm connected via wifi. huge pain as I don't want ppl to step towards the ipad to take a photo.

In the case of wifibooth, I would suggest to throw a message: Something like "Hold still you idiots" (Maybe a bit more friendly)

[tim]

Haha ok. Maybe i can find a way for the cam to be told to not focus on trigger... can the canon app do that?

[christian]

Will check tomorrow, need a bit of sleep now. Report back later.

[christian]

Hey.

canon app has the same problems, but at least they throw a message. See screenshot. (By the way, plz allo png as image type for screenshots. as iphone shots are saved in that type. Otherwise ppl need to transfer png to jpg which is annoying )

[christian]

Question from my side: Is the iPhone app considered to be kind of a remote control for wifibooth? Maybe I just don't get it, but if I connect the iphone app to the ipad, the countdown is running on the iphone instead of the ipad which is odd. I would expect the iphone app is just a trigger for the ipad app...

[tim]

Ok. Re focus failure, i need a wireshark capture of this to see the code returned. Does your last packet trace have that focus failure in it? I cannot download it until 9 hours from now (no bandwidth here).

Re remote: if the ipad's red button is showing then triggerring the ipad from a remote should show the countdown on the ipad too. If the ipad's red button is not showing because someone is making a collage then the countdown doesnt show on the ipad because it would interrupt the person making the collage.

[tim]

... and 2 updates:
1) pngs are already allowed. I guess you are hitting the size limit (1.4mb)
2) thought about showing a message like the canon app. There are 2 issues: im in the middle of a redesign of the whole app, so im hesitant to change ui at all at the moment (it would be actually tricky to get right, because people stand quite far away from the ipad!). Secondly, showing this message will not help! People won't understand what they are doing wrong, won't know how to fix it no matter what the app says (trust me on this people don't read).

2 ideas:
A) if your cam gives up too fast, then upon detecting focus error, wifibooth could just immediately try again to take a photo. Not sure if the delay would make this weird.
2) how is your lighting setup? Most photobooths need either strobe flash setup syncd to the camera or an always-on bright LED light. The latter creates strong shadows which would be perfect for the Canon M5's phase-detect autofocus. I suggest you try this and see if it helps.

[christian]

Ok, well I can handle the focus problem for now with a simple note at the photobooth. Still what I would encourage you to do is to adjust wifibooth to check that a photo could not be taken and either retake the photo or skip. Currently wifibooth tries to load a photo that has not been taken and that takes about 30 seconds. After that, wifibooth jumps back to the main screen.

I guess that this behaviour is not understood by any guest.

The traces I send to you should show the problem. The log says that wifibooth seems to wait for an image with zero bytes (or something like that)

To the iphone app issue:

If I try to use the iphone app with the custom ipad version, the camera won't take photos. Also I've expected this app to just be a remote to trigger the ipad, but apparently if I hit the shutter button on the iphone, the countdown is shown on there without live view which unfortunately makes it useless for me as a remote :-/

[christian]

Would you mind sharing the current status?

[tim]

I hope to have more time this week to finish looking thru lots of event packets in your last trace for an event that means "couldn't take photo because of no focus". I'm having to manually match 100s of event codes...
Will check out iphone remote app too...