Lumix HTTP/Wifi protocol

[totoantibes]

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*Name of the camera
All Lumix G, GX, GH series. (I can test on G80 and GH4)
seems that only GH4, GX80 and GH5 have a usb thethered mode available. Many other Lumix do not offer PTP tethered camera capture/liveview etc. Only option is to use an HTTP protocol over Wifi. (or maybe BLE for newer cams) there are many commands available via this protocol such as shutter speed, iso, aperture, quality, focus, zoom. rec start/stop, capture and capture cancel. also the images are avail to download to in RAW, JPG and Thumbs. A VGA/QVGA live view data stream is also available.

There are various running examples of programs that do take advantage of this protocol and woudl be great to open Gphoto2/ligphoto2 to Lumix cameras. Unfortunately the HTTP/Wifi connectivity is a bit of an issue to plug into the camlib/port structure of libgphoto as i understand it from a very high level.

here is a list of github availalble programs that take advantage of this protocol
-https://github.com/palmdalian/python_lumix_control

• https://github.com/peci1/lumix-link-desktop (full app in java)
  -https://github.com/Ultrawipf/qtpanaremote (simple QT based app in C)
  -https://github.com/totoantibes/LumixCameraAscomDriver (my own Ascom driver for astrophotography written in VB.NET) it does implement the picture download of the last capture over http/get with retry after parsing the XML of the available pics.

Use the Marketing name.

USB IDs
e.g. by running: lsusb

camera summary output
run

gphoto2 --summary > summary.txt

attach summary.txt here

camera configuration output

gphoto2 --list-all-config > list-all-config.txt

and attach list-all-config.txt here

test capture

test if capture perhaps already works:

gphoto2 --capture-image-and-download

gphoto2 --capture-preview

I am a keen astrophotographer and would really like to use the libgphoto lib to interface with astrophoto session SW like ekos/kstars to control the Lumix CAMs.

If you have no time/priority to dev this new family of cameras I woudl be keen to do it myself but some quidance/support would be needed prior to hacking something in this complex body of work

[msmeissn]

This is something interesting to pursue :/
it needs a new camlib, perhaps a new port driver (or reuse ptpip somehow)

[totoantibes]

well,

as a matter of fact i started creating a new camlib (called lumix.c) and attached here. however

1. i did only work in text editor. I dont have a dev env setup for gcc and linux. this is a little more than psuedo code. I have not even tried to compile it once.
2. i am very rusty in C programming (20 years since my last project)
3. looked at libcurl and libxml for the meaty sections. with lots of picked up code from tutorial left an right
4. i tried to put comments where needed and included sample XML files that are needed to be parsed.
5. i started from an existing camlib (olympus sierra) . the config get is still there and i tried to put in the usefull dictionary for the shutterspeed. (starting at line 365.
6. i dont know how i would get some info into this camlib such as the cameraIP address, shutterspeed, etc. so they are set as global variable on top,
7. not sure either how glibphoto handles the liveview feed. is it via camera_capture_ preview? there is a "ability list" called GP_FILE_OPERATION_PREVIEW or GP_OPERATION_CAPTURE_PREVIEW but i did not find a method that actual makes use of that flag. however the lumix cam does open a UDP socket on a specified port and after some header bytes the video is really just an mjpeg in VGA mode. i did put also starting point to handle that but not sure if this is the right place in the camlib...
8. getting the captured image from the camera over HTTP/GET over wifi is a slow affair (10 sec'ish) varrying if the file is RAW of jpg or thumb. it also often fails and needs to be restarted, I did put in also some function in there to retstart DL from last known point
9. so the code needs a non-blocking thread to take captures in bulb mode. intent is to have bulb shots of 300s and this cannot keep the driver blocked...

Basically as you can guess, i am full of good will here but need guidance

thanks

robert
lumix.txt

[totoantibes]

Markus,

I would really appreciate any help here. Thanks

[msmeissn]

I tried inmtegrating your code into libgphoto2, but its already too big ... we should start very small from temlate, and get one initial command send first.
I think I need to rent a GH4 again myself :/

Sorry that I have not much time currentky

[msmeissn]

ok, so I added a bui8lding version

it will take gphoto2 --port tcp:192.168.2.1 --camera "Panasonic LumixGSeries" --summary

[msmeissn]

it is in the "lumix" branch , git checkout lumix , autoreconf -i -f ; ./configure .... ; make

[msmeissn]

I think not much more than camera_init() will be called now.

[totoantibes]

Thanks Marcus, I will investigate over the coming days,  On Sunday, May 26, 2019, 9:52:28 PM GMT+2, Marcus Meissner <notifications@github.com> wrote: I think not much more than camera_init() will be called now. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[totoantibes]

Hi Marcus, I was able to compile/debug the first stage and able to init and capture. How can i share my commits to the lumix branch? I am fairly new to github so not sure about the permissions/mechanics.
lumix.txt

[msmeissn]

i committed this lumix.c to the lumix branch under your author name.

I am also still trying to organize both time and a Lumix vcamera ;) you know if a DC-TZ91 will be usable?

[totoantibes]

thanks. I tried to find the list of Panasonic cameras supported by their image app.. but not found. however since it has wi-fi it is a good indicator that it will work. I also found on the google play image app some instructions and caveats on cameras and similar ones in the TZ series are mentioned. Now these are not m4/3 it seems so probably not supporting Bulb or M mode... Bulb for me is very important since i am doing all this for astrophotography.

quick quiestion: is there a way to make -install only the lumix branch? i tried with the ONLY_THESE_CAMLIBS (or equiv) flag but still the install takes 2 minutes. i have given up on gdb and just print statements but the make process is quite time wasting.

Lastly in tethered mode (USB) i see that GH5 is supported but GH5S is out and should also be working in exactly the same way (although resolution is different). I could test out a new release with GH5s/USB!

thnaks

[totoantibes]

Marcus,
the panasonic site was down yesterday. since then it is back up again. DC-TZ91 is indeed supported.
as mentioned here: https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/soft/image_app/dsc/android/index.html

full list of features supported by camera is avail here: https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/soft/image_app/dsc/android/android02.html#gfg
the camlib should really spoof the image app behavior. with :

• liveview streaming
  -movie/still capture
  -focus/aperture/zoom control
  -Quality/EV/etc.

there is a complete C# implementation of all the features here:
https://github.com/Rambalac/GMaster/blob/master/Core/Camera/Lumix.cs

[msmeissn]

cd camlibs
make INSTALL_THESE_CAMLIBS="lumix.la" install

will only install the lumix driver, which should be shorter running.