Canon DSLR + ImagesPlus

This post is coming after a long set of troubleshooting exercises along with what is hopefully a happy ending.

The Canon-supplied software for computer control of the camera will only talk to one camera at a time. You can’t even launch two instances of it. Aaarrgh! Well, actually not that bad since I wasn’t planning on using the Canon-supplied software. I purchased by DSLRFocus (bundled with my two DSUSB controllers from Shoestring Astronomy) and ImagesPlus for camera control. I’m happier with ImagesPlus at this point mostly because of it’s focusing tool which will do everything except turn the focus knob for you (and would do that if you have an ASCOM-compliant focuser). But this is not a review of DSLRFocus vs ImagesPlus….

As it turns out, ImagesPlus 2.75 can’t do two cameras at once either. You can launch two instances of ImagesPlus and, so long as you have an appropriate shutter control for each camera, you can fire their shutters independently, but each hangs when attempting to download images. That means you can sort-of control two cameras if you have one or both store their images internally (on the compact flash). Oh, and it can’t work with two DSUSB controllers for the shutter. There’s no way to distinguish which is which and it would appear that the last one wins.

However (happy however), Mike Unsold has been hard at work before I encountered this problem and already has a beta test of the next ImagesPlus release which is using the latest and greatest Canon development kit which does allow for the control of two cameras. He’s added me to the beta testers list, so I’m going to try to give it a whirl, problem tomorrow. Too many things stacking up here before we leave….