Came Readme

About Came

Came.exe is control utility for digital cameras that use the Fujitsu SparcLite Microprocessor. It can change the digital camera's configuration, take pictures, and download pictures.

All cameras that use the SparcLite Microprocessor can be controlled with the same commands.

Requirements

Windows 32bit (Windows95/98/NT etc.). Came will NOT work with Win32s.

Computer Used for Testing

WindowsNT4.0SP3 PentiumPro 200MHz AT Clone
The following digital cameras WILL WORK with Came:: Agfa, EPSON, Nikon(Coolpix900), Olympus, Sanyo

Appendix 1 : How to set baudrate to 230Kbps ?
Appendix 2 : About camera.ini file
Appendix 3 : Don't recommend message

History
Copyright and Notice

1 Getting Started

Copy Came.exe and the rest of the included files to the folder of your choice (default is C:\Program Files\Came\), then place a shortcut to Came on your Desktop. Came works as standalone utility, no DLLs or other drivers are needed (be sure that the camera.ini file is located in the same folder as Came.exe). After startup you are presented with the window as seen above.

To get started using Came with your camera you should:

Turn off the digital camera and connect it to the computer's serial connection as usual
Turn the digital camera on and set it to the 'take picture' mode
Click the B:Get button on the Came screen or press ALT-G key

If you can't seem to make the connection to your digital camera, manually select the A:Com Port setting to the actual Com port to which your camera is connected. Baud Rate setting has no meaning at this time. The other menu settings can't be changed until the connection with the camera is established (except for the Create HTML index feature in download menu).

2 Configure menu

If you click the Get button and the digital camera is properly connected to your computer, then the current configuration parameters will be transferred from the camera to Came.

A: Com Port: Shows the serial port number connected to the digital camera.
B: Baud Rate: Sets the serial port baudrate (transfer speed). The baudrate is used only for picture downloading. The other operations use 19200bps. In most cases, setting the baudrate to 115200bps will not cause any problems. If you have problems downloading pictures, set a lower value. If you have a High-Speed serial adapter then you're lucky because you can set baud rate to 230400bps. See Appendix 1: for more information.
C: Manufacturer: Shows the Manufacturer of the digital camera.
D: Model: Model code of digital camera. Came.exe uses it to recognize what digital camera is connected to the serial port.
E: Name: Model name of digital camera. If this column doesn't show your camera's model name, you should add your model's information to camera.ini file. Details are described at Appendix.2.
F: Camera ID: I.D. of digital camera. I recommended setting camera's name and your name as shown in the above example.
G: Serial No.: Serial number of digital camera. Default value is '#00000001', I recommended setting the actual serial number of the camera.
H: LCD Brightness: Set Liquid-Crystal-Display brightness. It can set from 1 to 7. The default is 4.
I: Set Button: Writes the configuration parameters to the digital camera, then sets the computer clock time to camera clock time.
Notice: configuration parameters are not changed until the "Set" button is clicked or ALT-S key pushed
J: Camera(Field) Power Saving: Sets the time before the camera goes into powersave mode during picture taking. It can set from 0 to 600 seconds by 30 second increments.
K: Camera(PC) Power Saving: Sets the time before the camera goes into powersave mode when the camera is connected to the computer. It can set 0 to 600 seconds by 30 second increments.
L: LCD Display Power Saving: Sets the time before the camera goes into powersave mode while displaying pictures. It can set form 0 to 1800 seconds by 30 second increments.
M: Battery Level Indicator: Shows the battery level. At low battery levels, the background color of "Battery" letter becomes yellow.
Note: If NiMH rechargeable batteries are used the camera will shutdown within a few minutes after "low battery" is displayed.

After all parameters are set, click the I: Set button or press ALT-S key. Came will then write the configuration parameters to the digital camera.

Note: Compression ratio setting is in the Take Picture menu.

3 Download menu

A: Pictures Taken: Show how many pictures have been taken during the current session.
B,C: Download to: Selects the drive and folder to which pictures will be download. As in the above example, double click "Folder" and 'Open' your selected folder. In this case, the selected folder is "F:\image". Under this folder, Came creates sub folders using the naming format 'YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS' for each folder created.
The Download folder name is saved to the 'came.ini' file when you terminate the Came program.
D: Create Folder: Click this to create a new folder. A dialog box like the example at the right pops up. Enter the folder's name then click 'OK'.
E: From / F: To: Sets download start / end picture number.
G: Display Thumbnails: Displays thumbnail of download start / end picture.
H: Download: Starts downloading. Pictures designated by E:From / F:To in the digital camera will be download.
I: Cancel Download: Cancels the downloading process.
J: Picture: Shows the progress of the download session for the current picture file.
K: Total: Shows the progress of the download session for all the pictures chosen to be download.
L: Build Index, M: Rename to Timestamp, N: Large Thumbnail: Creates thumbnail images, detailed picture information and HTML index of all sub-folders under selected by B,C:Download to:. If the L: Rename to Timestamp box is checked, all picture files will be renamed to thetime they were originally taken. If the M: Large Thumbnail box is checked, thumbnail view of images will be enlarged from normal 80x60 pixels to 160x120 pixels.

Notes 1: This function will work without having the camera connected to the computer.
Notes 2: If you have added or removed pictures to sub-folders and want to re-build its index, simply remove index.html from desired the sub-folder and press K:Build Index again.
Notes 3: Most HTML viewers (e.g. Netscape, Internet Explorer) can't display TIFF images. To display TIFF images, visit the Apple Computer web site and download Quicktime3.0 runtime. After installing it, open the Quick Time property window from the Control Panel, select File Type Assiciation, then select the Internet file types check box. All thumbnail images will be displayed without using Quicktime because Came.exe can convert the thumbnails to JPEG images.
O: Erase All Pictures: Erases all pictures stored in the digital camera. A dialog box as seen at the right is shown, click 'Yes' to erase all pictures.
Note: If you're using a large capacity flash memory card the erasing process can take over 30 seconds.

4 Take Picture

Notes 1: Modes C to M below can't be changed or will not appear if your digital camera doesn't support that particular function.
Notes 2: Some digital cameras ignore mode setting changes by Came when the camera is set to 'Manual' picture taking mode (user setting). To avoid this, set the camera to 'Auto' mode.

A: Pictures Remaining: Shows how many pictures can still be taken at the current quality mode.
B: Quality: Sets the picture quality mode. When changing this setting, the number of 'Pictures Remaining' also changes to match the mode.
C: Flash: Sets the flash mode. Auto: Automatically activate, On: Flash for all pictures, Off: Flash off, Red Eye: Auto with Red-Eye reduction.
D: Lens Mode: Set lens mode. This sets the lens to Normal or Macro mode. Some digital cameras can also be set to Wide or Fisheye.
E: Shutter: Sets shutter duration. Warning:If you set shutter duration and your digital camera doesn't support manual F-Stop adjustment, the camera sets the F-Stop to fully Open (lowest value of F-Stop).
F: F-Stop: Sets Lens focal ratio (F-Stop). Open means lowest value of F-Stop, Close means highest.
G: Exp. Meter.: Sets exposure measuring method. Multi-Seg.: measures multiple areas of the frame and adjusts exposure (matrix). Spot: measures only the center of the frame. Center: measures entire frame but weighted to the center.
H: White Bal.: Sets the white balance adjustment. Auto: automatic, Skylight: sets the camera to sunlight, f.l.: sets the camera to fluorescent light, tungsten: sets the camera to tungsten (incandescent) light, cloudy: sets the camera to overcast conditions.
I: Br.&Cont.: Set brightness and contrast.
J: Tele: Digital-Zoom mode. Sets the camera to Digital-Telephoto mode. The center of the frame (640x480 pixels) is enlarged to full-frame. It seems equivalent to 2x zoom. Most digital cameras, if digital-tele mode is on, the Quality setting goes to SQ(VGA). If the Quality mode is then set to HQ or SHQ(SVGA), digital-tele mode is turned off.
K: B&W: Sets the camera to Black & White mode.
L: Infinity: Sets the focus to infinity position.
M: AEL/WBL: Locks the Exposure and White balance to the first picture taken after this checkbox is marked. Mainly used for panorama picture taking so that all photos in a set are taken at the same exposure settings.
N: Start Preview O: Stop Preview: Shows a preview of the image to be captured. Preview mode stops after Camera (Field) Power Saving time passes (see: "Configure" menu) or the user clicks the stop button. Some cameras can't show B&W images in preview mode, but can still capture B&W pictures.
P: Take Picture: The shutter-release button. If the "picture remaining" number is zero, the dialog box at the right is shown. In that case, erase a picture or change the media card.
Q: Gamma: Most digital cameras use 1.8 for the display gamma value (brightness of display). 1.8 is the standard value for Macintosh computers, but most Windows computers use 2.2 to 2.5, so the pictures appear darker than the actual image. If you check this box, preview and postview images are compensated to 1.4 of gamma so they look more like the actual image.
Note: This function doesn't modify the actual image file. It only adjusts the display gamma. I recommend adjusting the image gamma using photo editing software after downloading the image file.
R: Postview: After taking a picture the Postview shows the image captured. It can be set to draft mode or fine mode.
In draft mode it shows a 2x magnified thumbnail image. It's not clear but very fast. Please use it to check framing or flash lighting.
In fine mode the image appears in a postview-window as in the example to the right. In this mode, it actually downloads the picture just captured and displays it in a 640x480 pixel window. If you've taken picture at SXGA mode, it takes 10~30 seconds to display.

A: shows exposure information
B: shows histogram of picture.
At the bottom of the Postview window you can change the following settings
C: Exp. Use this to adjust the exposure EV setting by 0.33EV steps. After changing this setting, click
E: Re-Take to recapture the picture with the new settings. If you only need to do some exposure bracketing, clear the
D: Show Image box, then Came won't download the captured pictures which will speed up the bracketing process. Even while the postview-window is active, the Came main-window is active as well and can be used to change camera settings.
For example, if you want to take SXGA pictures with exposure adjustments, this is the fastest way. 1:Take picture at VGA mode with fine-postview. 2:Adjust exposure with retake the picture. When the settings look good, 3:Change quality mode to SXGA at Came main-window 4:Click the re-take button in the postview-window.
Note 1: Most digital cameras have a shutter speed range of only about 1/4sec. to 1/500sec. While using exposure adjustments it is possible that the camera's shutter speed can be pushed out of range. In this case, Came shows a red color for the shutter speed display.
Note 2: Only a few cameras can adjust the focal ratio (F-Stop) setting. If your digital camera does not allow the user to adjust the f-stop and you change exposure adjustment, the F-Stop will be set to force Open automatically.
Note 3: Some digital camera can't adjust exposure adjustment in the "plus" direction.
Note 4: When you use the flash, the shutter speed is fixed at 1/30 second. In this case, a change in the exposure adjustment will turn off the flash (unless your camera supports slow-sync. mode).
S: Interval Enable T: Time U: Count: This is for taking "Time Lapse" pictures.
"Q" selects time lapse photography.
"R" sets the time in seconds (up to 19,999 seconds) which will pass between photos. Focusing time and picture writing time are added to actual interval time.
"S" sets how many pictures will be taken at that interval. The count can set up to 9999 but the number depends on your flash-memory card's capacity.
Note: During interval, Came.exe will "wake up" the digital camera every 30 minutes, this is because most digital cameras goes from stand-by to shut-down after 60 minutes of non-operation. After a full shut-down, they can't be awakened through the serial port connection. To avoid it, Came.exe sends a Battery Check command every 30 minutes during "Interval" photography.
V: Erase Last Picture: Erases the last taken picture. After clicking this, a thumbnail of the last picture taken is first shown and a dialog box like the one at the right is displayed. After confirming that you wish to delete the picture click 'Y' to erase the file.

5 About

Shows the version and copyright information of Came.exe.

Appendix 1 : How do I set the baudrate to 230Kbps ?

Most digital cameras support 230400bps, but basically AT clones support only up to 115200bps. If you're lucky, you can might be able use 230400bps transfer.

Some motherboards use the SMC I/O chipset. Please check your motherboard for this chipset (it may be located near the serial I/O connector), to see if your chipset is one the ones listed below:

ALI:M1543(Aladdin V south bridge)
NS:PC87308/PC87307/PC87317/PC97307/PC97317/PC87309/PC87338
SMC:37C665IR/37C666IR/37C669/37C669FR/37N769/37B72x/37B77x/37B78x/
37B80x/37C67x/37C68x/37C93x/37C93xAPM/37C93xFR/37M60x/37M61x/37N958FR
WinBond:W83877TF(TF only, A/F/AF not supported)/W83977F/W83977AF/W83977TF/W83977ATF

If it is, then you're lucky ! You can use 230400bps!

If you don't want to open your computer, there's a free software program to detect the SMC chipset. For details, please refer to

Mr. Gigo's webpage http://www.yk.rim.or.jp/~gigo/over115K/index_e.html .

Here's a freeware serial driver patch for these chipsets.

Appendix 2 : About Camera.ini file

Came.exe can handle many brands and models of digital cameras. Each camera has a set of unique functions, so I created the camera.ini file. It contains each digital camera's characteristics which are used by Came.exe.

Came.exe refers to camera.ini when you push the Get button. If the Name window of the configure menu doesn't show your camera's model name, or if some parameters described in the camera.ini are incorrect, you should edit camera.ini.

Warning: Normally, you should NOT have to modify the camera.ini file. If you add invalid parameters to the camera.ini file it is possible, in a worst case scenario, that your digital camera may hang-up and won't recover.

The camera.ini file is a plain text file. You can use a text editor such as Notepad.exe to edit it. For example, C-840L/D-340L's description is listed here:

  [sr83]
  Name=OLYMPUS C-840L / D-340L
  Quality=SQ,HQ,SHQ
  Flash=Auto,On,Off,RedEye
  Lens=Macro,Norm
  MinShutter=2000
  MaxShutter=500000
  TeleMode=Yes
  BwMode=Yes

Below are all the possible entires for any camera in the camera.ini and a description of each of the parameters. You don't need to create entries and values for functions which are not present in your digital camera.

Param. Desc.

[%] Digital camera's model code. This line MUST be placed at the first parameter. When you push Get button, Model column in configure menu shows this value. Copy it to here.

Name= Digital camera's manufacturer and model name. Name column in configure menu displays this value.

Quality= How many recording quality modes are supported. Default value is 2 modes, SQ/HQ.

Flash= How many flash modes are supported. Default value is 3 modes, Auto/On/Off.

Lens= If your digital camera has different modes for the setting of lens, they are described here. Default value is 2 modes, Macro/Normal.

MinShutter= Minimun shutter duration in microseconds. EXAMPLE: If your digital camera's fastest shutter speed is 1/500 second, 1,000,000 / 500 = 2,000 is your value. Default value is 2,000 = 1/500 second.

MaxShutter= Maximun shutter duration in microseconds. If your digital camera's slowest shutter speed is 1/2 second, 1,000,000 / 2 = 50,000 is your value. Default value is 12,500 = 1/8 second.

TeleMode= If your digital camera has digital-zoom mode, write Yes. Default value is No.

BwMode= If your digital camera has black & white mode, write Yes. Default value is No.

FStop= If your digital camera has manual control of lens focal ratio (F-Stop), enter it here. Default value is Auto only.

ExpMetering= If your digital camera has manual control of exposure metering method, enter it here. Default value is Center Weighted only.

WhiteBalance= If your digital camera has manual control of white balance correction, enter it here. Default value is Auto only.

BrightContrast= If your digital camera has brightness and contrast setting, enter it here. Default value is Normal only.

Infinity= If your digital camera has long distance fixed focus mode, write Yes. Default value is No.

AelWbl= If your digital camera has manual LOCK feature of AE and Whitebalance, write Yes. Default value is No.

ShutterControl= If your digital camera has NO manual shutter speed control feature, write No. Default value is Yes.

PreView= If your digital camera has NO preview function, write No. Default value is Yes.

PowerSaving= If your digital camera can't change powersaving time, write No. Default value is Yes.

Appendix 3: Don't recommend message

NikonTechUSA announced this message to their own support forum,

Date: October 08, 1998 11:11 AM
Author: Nikontech
Subject: using any software that modifies the camera will void your warranty for any repairs involving the camera power management, or serial port controller.
This problem will generally happen if somethign interrupts that data stream to the camera while this shareware utility program is running.
You've all read about problems that some users have getting serial downlaoding to work, since it seems to be a minority of the total camera population, adn they seem to deffy all attempts to correct, the support staff is starting to wonder if it is related to the use of these utilities.

This seems to be very good news for Nikon users. This announcement from Nikon USA seems to state that there is a defect in the way the Nikon E900 communicates through its serial port. To download thumbnails or images from the E900 all software must frist write to that register in the camera to designate the frame number to download. Therefore, if the interruption of the writing to register may cause serious damage to E900, Nikonview software may cause it also since it communicates to the camera is essentially the same way Came does. It inturrupting the flow of data from Came can damage the camera, the inturruption of the flow of data from Nikonview can do the same damage.
Based on this, I think that all the Nikon users should claim a FREE firmware upgrade to resolve this problem because a low possibility means someday it will happen. If it occurs thirteen month after purchase, you could end up paying an expensive repair-fee to Nikon for damage caused by their buggy hardware.

History

v0.8 1998/11/11

Add: Most of functions can now be controlled with the keyboard
Add: Camera function management file (camera.ini)
Add: Picture information data added to thumbnail view
Add: Large Thumbnail mode
Add: Shutter and F-Stop controll
Add: Olympus C-1400L/C-1000L/D-600L/D-500L support
Add: Uncompressed TIFF image format support
Add: Thumbnail display of download start / end picture.
Mod: Now Came won't rename image file if there is no time/date information in it
Bug: Image handling routine was changed from v0.7, maybe more stable
Bug: Came can't take over 60 minutes of Time-Lapse interval
Bug: Came did't work at high baudrate with some digital cameras (e.g.VPC-G200)

v0.7 1998/09/08

Add: Download Start / End picture number
Add: Adjust downloaded picture's timestamp to actual taken time
Add: Create thumbnail/picture info/html index while downloading
Bug: Can't create folder to drive's root

v0.6 1998/08/02

Add: Battery level indicator
Add: Camera type check for some old models

v0.5 1998/06/28

Add: Fine mode PostView
Add: Display gamma correction
Add: Anonymous digital camera support
Modify: Appendix1

v0.4 1998/06/20

Add: 230400bps serial transfer
Add: Manufacturer information
Add: Erase all pictures
Add: List display of download folder
Add: Cancel downloading
Add: Realtime preview
Add: Digital zoom
Add: Postview
Add: Erase last picture
Add: Time lapse
Add: Anonymous digital camera and its extended function support

v0.2 1998/06/06

first release

Copyright and Notice

You may not distribute modified packages of Came, and may not distribute Came for profit without the specific written permission of the author (TsuruZoh Tachibanaya).
There is no warranty expressed or implied for Came. The author supplies this software whereis/as is. The author will not be held responsible for any damages that may be caused by using this application. You use this software at your own risk.
All trade names mentioned in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
During the development of this software, I referred to Description of the protocol written by Eugene Crosser.
Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.

Thanks to Randy G. at the Feather River Canyon News for helping with the English documentation.

TsuruZoh Tachibanaya
tsuruzoh@butaman.ne.jp
http://www.butaman.ne.jp:8000/~tsuruzoh/

Param.	Desc.
[%]	Digital camera's model code. This line MUST be placed at the first parameter. When you push Get button, Model column in configure menu shows this value. Copy it to here.
Name=	Digital camera's manufacturer and model name. Name column in configure menu displays this value.
Quality=	How many recording quality modes are supported. Default value is 2 modes, SQ/HQ.
Flash=	How many flash modes are supported. Default value is 3 modes, Auto/On/Off.
Lens=	If your digital camera has different modes for the setting of lens, they are described here. Default value is 2 modes, Macro/Normal.
MinShutter=	Minimun shutter duration in microseconds. EXAMPLE: If your digital camera's fastest shutter speed is 1/500 second, 1,000,000 / 500 = 2,000 is your value. Default value is 2,000 = 1/500 second.
MaxShutter=	Maximun shutter duration in microseconds. If your digital camera's slowest shutter speed is 1/2 second, 1,000,000 / 2 = 50,000 is your value. Default value is 12,500 = 1/8 second.
TeleMode=	If your digital camera has digital-zoom mode, write Yes. Default value is No.
BwMode=	If your digital camera has black & white mode, write Yes. Default value is No.
FStop=	If your digital camera has manual control of lens focal ratio (F-Stop), enter it here. Default value is Auto only.
ExpMetering=	If your digital camera has manual control of exposure metering method, enter it here. Default value is Center Weighted only.
WhiteBalance=	If your digital camera has manual control of white balance correction, enter it here. Default value is Auto only.
BrightContrast=	If your digital camera has brightness and contrast setting, enter it here. Default value is Normal only.
Infinity=	If your digital camera has long distance fixed focus mode, write Yes. Default value is No.
AelWbl=	If your digital camera has manual LOCK feature of AE and Whitebalance, write Yes. Default value is No.
ShutterControl=	If your digital camera has NO manual shutter speed control feature, write No. Default value is Yes.
PreView=	If your digital camera has NO preview function, write No. Default value is Yes.
PowerSaving=	If your digital camera can't change powersaving time, write No. Default value is Yes.