SharpCap Forums

This may be a general phenomenon but I couldn't find it in a web search.

In Sharpcap when I push the gain or exposure too high, especially during test day shots, I get non-white pixels and regions.

Is this normal or is there something wrong with my camera?

Hi,

try opening the camera with the CTRL key pressed down - this prevents SharpCap from re-loading the last used camera control values. I am thinking that maybe you have used some settings like dark subtraction or flat correction that have been remembered and are causing the current issues.

cheers,

Robin

Thanks, that did it!

I see that restoring previous values can be disabled, but knowing this reset trick seems even more useful.

Hi Robin,

I got another image with black middles to stars, even after clearing camera settings.

It was the result of turning on hardware binning at bin 2. Could it be a function of the camera or processing?

Next time out I will compare to ASICap in hardware bin mode.

Hi,

it could be that the binning is adding up the pixel values and not dealing properly with the case that the total is bigger than the usual maximum pixel value. What it should do is set the result to that maximum, but it could be letting the numbers wrap around. It's almost certainly a software issue of some sort, but whether it is on the firmware that runs the camera, in the camera SDK or in SharpCap is what we need to work out.

I'd suggest making sure all the other processing of the image in SharpCap is turned off (any dark, flat, etc) and see if that helps. Also, if you have a 'hardware binning' option for your camera, try turning it on (or off, if already on) - that will change how the binning is implemented and may sidestep the issue.

cheers,

Robin