Autofocus during liveview

[emavgl]

Hi, thank you so much for the project. I am trying to create a home-made photobooth and I want to use my E-M10 Mark III. The live-preview and photos work great. The only thing is that the livepreview seems very out of focus, I am wondering if there is a way to trigger auto-focus.

[joergmlpts]

My TG-5 does not have a command for triggering auto-focus. I would suggest this approach:

• Familiarize yourself with chapter Sending Camera Commands, get your camera's command list and look for a command that triggers auto-focus.
• Explore the auto-focus trigger command thorougly with command-line options.
• Finally, add code to liveview.py for triggering auto-focus.

[emavgl]

Thanks for the comment :( I tried to explore the commands but I did not find anything that seems to work while doing the liveview. Thanks anyway!

[joergmlpts]

One more thing: When using my TG-5 in low-light situations, I've noticed that the live view image is in focus, but the picture I take is not. The solution is simple. I just add more light. Maybe that's the issue with your photobooth.

[emavgl]

Thanks. I haven't yet tried to take a picture with low lights. I'll give it a try

[joergmlpts]

Maybe the low-light idea is not it. A better idea is to look into the code that takes the picture:

        if 'shutter' not in self.commands['switch_cammode'].args['mode']:
            # Camera does not support shutter mode; use record mode.
            if self._action_begin(self.CamMode.RECORD):
                if not self._camera_status.liveview_active:
                    self.start_liveview(self.DEFAULT_PORT, self._camera_status.liveview_lvqty)
                    self.send_command('exec_takemotion', com='starttake')
                    self.stop_liveview()
                else:
                    self.send_command('exec_takemotion', com='starttake')
                self._action_end()
        else:
            # Camera supports shutter mode.
            if self._action_begin(self.CamMode.SHUTTER):
                time.sleep(0.5)
                self.send_command('exec_shutter', com='1st2ndpush')
                time.sleep(0.5)
                self.send_command('exec_shutter', com='2nd1strelease')
                self._action_end()

My TG-5 supports shutter mode and calls two commands. First, it calls 1st2ndpush, waits 0.5 seconds, and then calls 2nd1strelease`. I suppose the 0.5-second delay is meant to allow the camera to autofocus.

Your E-M10 Mark III does not support shutter mode and only calls one command: starttake. There may be another argument for exec_takemotion than starttake that you need to call first, followed by a wait time before calling starttake.

To get to the bottom of this issue, use Olympus's OI Share app on your phone. Tap "Remote Control," connect to your camera, and trace the communication between the app and the camera. This will show you the commands the app uses for autofocusing and taking images. You can trace the communication with Wireshark, but you will need to borrow or buy a Wi-Fi adapter that supports monitor mode.

[emavgl]

No actually the E-M10 Mark III supports the shutter mode and the photo are taken with this code are in perfect focus

            if self._action_begin(self.CamMode.SHUTTER):
                time.sleep(0.5)
                self.send_command('exec_shutter', com='1st2ndpush')
                time.sleep(0.5)
                self.send_command('exec_shutter', com='2nd1strelease')
                self._action_end()

Problem is just on liveview - however, if I start the command olympus-liveview and I put it to drivemode to record / or movie (I don't remember) the quality is way better than normal live-view. The problem with that is the image ratio is different, the zoom is slighly different and therefore when taking the picture, the result is different than what the user sees during the preview.

[joergmlpts]

Do you have the same issue with the Olympus OI.Share app and remote control? If not, it may be worth tracing the communication between the app and the camera.