Altair 115M and Sensor analysis

[MartinNI]

I am completely unable to run Sensor analysis on the current version of Sharpcap x64, using the camera Altair 115M. In both modes, 11MPix and 45MPix, the image represents some middle brightness that goes down with very brief exposures, but do NOT increase with exposures longer than about 200ms. It is like there would be some 'anti blooming' feature shutting off the sensor to average brightness above a certain exposure. However, using Sharpcap 4.0 the Sensor analysis performs as expected in 11Mpix mode, impeccable, but also with this version the 45Mpix mode behaves abnormally, and no sensor analysis can be performed. Will these problems be fixed in the future or is there some magic setting to be used for 45Mpix Sensor analysis ?

Martin

[admin]

Hi Martin,

let me check that out for you - I fortunately have a 115M camera that I can test with. From your description, it sounds like the image is not saturating fully, which could be something to do with gain settings or perhaps a bug with the Altair SDK on these cameras. They used to work OK as I tested them out when I first added support for the camera, but that was a while ago.

cheers,

Robin

[MartinNI]

Ok, I was succesful in doing Sensor analysis in 4.0 11Mpix, but not 45Mpix.
Thank You, Sir.

[admin]

Hi Martin,

I have now had a chance to look at this and found a combination of two issues

1) A longstanding issue where the 45Mp image could not become properly saturated to white - this seems to be because the camera must be set into HCG mode when using 45Mp to get proper images (unfortunately none of this is documented anywhere by the manufacturer, so has to be found out by trial-and-error). This has stopped you from getting the analysis to work in 45Mp in both 4.0 and 4.1

2) An unexpected interaction between the new option for 'Hardware Binning' in SharpCap 4.1 and the switch between 11 and 45Mp modes - this was preventing SharpCap 4.1 from going properly into the 11Mp mode, meaning that you were always running in 45Mp even though it said 11Mp.

Both of these are now resolved, so look out for a new version next Monday which will contain these fixes. Thanks for reporting - unfortunately there are too many models and combinations of features now for me to check everything, so I have to rely on bug reports for finding this sort of unexpected interaction between different camera features.

cheers,

Robin

[MartinNI]

Ok, no problem.
Thank You very much!

Martin

[MartinNI]

Now the 11Mp mode saturates nicely in Sharpcap 4.1 but still I can't saturate 45Mp. What settings are required and how can I switch to HCG ?
It indeed saturates with Gain 300, but not with Gain 100, which Sensor analysis uses.

Martin

[admin]

Hi Martin,

you're right - I was convinced I had that working. It's supposed to perform the switchover for you automatically as you enter the 45Mp mode so that it can't go wrong, but obviously isn't at the moment. I will have another look - sorry about this!

cheers,

Robin