Hot Pixel issues with TouptekIUC26000KPA after upgrading from 4.1.13218 to 4.1.13417

[admin]

Hi Errol,

thanks for continuing to dig into this and for spotting the colour balance adjustments. Those are not supposed to be visible (yet) in RAW mode, as there is not yet support for changing the colour balance in RAW on the ToupTek cameras. At least I thought there wasn't support for that yet - I was waiting for a new SDK that will enable that functionality to make the controls available. However, it looks like there may be support for *some* models of camera, yours included, whereas the tests I do with my cameras in RAW mode show those controls as having no effect.

I will go back and fix the code to properly hide those controls in RAW mode. On your side, try opening the camera with the CTRL key pressed down - this will reset the camera settings to defaults and should put those controls back to default.

cheers,

Robin

[alphatripleplus]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for that information on the colour balance adjustments and the reminder on how to reset to the camera defaults (I had forgotten about holding down the CTRL key).

I should have mentioned in my earlier posts that after making colour adjustments in 4.1.13417, I was able to reset back to the default values for those settings by reloading my previously saved camera capture profiles, which I haven't changed for several versions of SharpCap. Today I also checked and rechecked, holding down the CTRL key, that the default image control settings matched what I have in my saved capture profiles, and also the values that I posted in the screenshot for the 4.1.13417 master dark histogram. Specifically for my camera, the default colour temp seems to be 6503, and the default colour tint is set at 1000. As I mentioned, those defaults give an awful background colour in the liveview histogram under autostretch. Here is a screenshot of those image control values, which lead to the green histogram sitting above the red and blue histograms, as pictured in the last post. (The completely dark liveview was unstretched and was from a 15sec capped exposure):

TouptekIUC26000KPA Default Image Control settings.png (606.94 KiB) Viewed 2481 times

So it seems that even with the image control colour adjustments set to their default values in 4.1.13417 with my camera, the R,G and B histograms in darks are offset from each other, with the G histogram well above the R and B histograms.

Regards,

Errol

[admin]

Hi Errol,

can you please try the very latest version uploaded yesterday - I found and fixed the issue causing those white balance controls to show up in RAW mode, meaning that now SharpCap shouldn't show them and shouldn't set any values to them unless you put the camera into RGB mode. That might just be what is needed to clear up this issue (hopefully!)

cheers,

Robin

[alphatripleplus]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for your help. I just tried vs 4.1.13447 from yesterday and started the camera both holding down the CTRL key and with a previous profile. The image controls are indeed gone in 4.1.13447 -at least in RAW mode which I have been using. Unfortunately, the histogram dispersions across R,G and B are exactly as they were in the previous tests with 4.1.13417; I also ran a comparison again with 4.1.1328 using the exact same settings (15sec exposure, RAW16, 2x2 binning, with scope capped, at high gain) and this behaviour is not visible in 4.1.1328.

Thanks,

Errol

[admin]

Hi Errol,

OK, that really seems to point back at SDK changes as the cause then - it would be interesting to see if the old SDK from 13218 copied into 13447 gave the same results as 13218... I think by fixing the display of the colour controls I have restored the SharpCap side of the code back how it was and stopped it from inadvertently tinkering with those colour balance controls.

cheers,

Robin

[alphatripleplus]

Hi Robin,

Yep, you are right about swapping the old SDK into 13447 - I just tested taking the old ToupCam.dll (Feb 2025) from vs 13218 and used it to replace the new ToupCam.dll in vs 13447. With the old SDK, darks in vs 13447 now behave like darks in 13218. Everything looks good: The R,G and B histograms are on top of each other, the min pixel value is above zero, and the standard deviation of the histogram is back to where it was with 13218. However, I've only done limited testing, looking just at darks.

I will test out this new hybrid (built with the old SDK) under the stars next time I have a chance to see if works for my regular usage.

I wonder if there are any other other Touptek cameras (other than the industrial TouptekIUC26000KPA I am using) that are similarly affected by the new SDK?

Regards,

Errol

[admin]

Hi Errol,

glad we got to the bottom of this - phew! I wonder if it is just an issue with that particular SDK version - this latest one came direct from the team at ToupTek to address a particular issue, rather than via the usual release channel. I will have a look to see if there is a new 'official' version and if there is (and it has the fix to the other issue in) then I can transfer to that version and we will see what happens.

cheers,

Robin

[alphatripleplus]

Hi Robin,

I will eagerly follow any new developments/news on the SDK you might have. I was able to test under the stars last night, and can confirm everything seems to be back to normal with the new hybrid (built with old SDK).

Thanks.

Errol

[alphatripleplus]

Hi Robin,

I see that the latest SharpCap (v4.1.13484) from July 15th has a new Touptek SDK (with a July 15 date for the ToupCam.dll), and so I installed it this morning to see if the new ToupCam.dll fixes the problems I have been having with the previous version (from June).

Unfortunately, taking a test 15sec shot with the scope capped, the histogram looks very much like the histograms using the June SDK, with the green histogram above the red and blue. I then used your suggestion of replacing the July SDK with the last one that worked well (February 2025) and repeated the capture. As expected the histogram looks normal with the G, R and B curves on top of each other. Here are the two comparison histograms:

Dark Histogram with v4.1.13484 (using July 2025 Touptek SDK)

Dark histogram v4_1_13484_July2025 SDK.png (556.01 KiB) Viewed 1222 times

Dark Histogram with v4.1.13484 (using February 2025 Touptek SDK)

Dark histogram v4_1_13484_Feb2025 SDK.png (512.08 KiB) Viewed 1222 times

I hope that I can continue to use updated versions of SharpCap with the old February 2025 Touptek SDK, but I fear that at some point that will no longer be viable. I wonder if other users of this camera have experienced this problem, or if any other Touptek cameras are affected? Hopefully, the next SDK will fix this issue for the TouptekIUC26000KPA.

Thanks,

Errol

[admin]

Hi Errol,

ah, that's a shame I must say I'm not really surprised though as I expect that ToupTek have no idea that this problem is happening, and the long exposure behaviour of this model of camera is most likely not on their radar. If the same issue shows up in other models that are aimed at the astronomy market then we'd have a better chance of getting a fix I guess.

I will do my best to keep backward compatibility with older SDKs, but at some point - when there is a major change in how the SDK needs to work - that becomes difficult or impossible. Pretty much as you imagined.


cheers,

Robin