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Remote controling cameras

This page lists cameras remotely controllable for capture.
It is meant to be wiki-like, so if you have any additions, please mail them to gphoto-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailinglist or to marcus@jet.franken.de.
The list is incomplete and might be incorrect.

If you start doing remote capturing, please begin by installing the latest libgphoto2 and gphoto2 stable releases, as remote control improvements and fixes are being added continously.

Configuring for capture

When doing remote capture you likely want to modify several on camera parameters.

The gphoto2 commandline frontend offers both a ncurses GUI mode (using --config) or scriptable commandline options to do configuration:

• --list-config - This will list all possible configuration options.
  Please note that for some Canon cameras the complete list will only show after gphoto2 --set-config capture=on is run.
• --get-config name - This will get the current configuration of name and its possible values.
• --set-config name=value - This will set the configuration of name to value.

Most of them are self explaining, but some interesting ones:

• Canon cameras only: capture - setting this to on will extract the lens and make it read for SDRAM based capture. Setting it off will retract the lens again.
• Canon and some Nikon cameras only: capturetarget - setting this to sdram will make the camera capture directly into the camera RAM and not on the memory card. You need to download the image in the same gphoto2 call, otherwise it go away when the connection is closed. Use --capture-image-and-download to capture and download instantely.
  Set it to card to capture to the memory card.

Continuous / Interval capture

The options -F frames and -I seconds can be used to support continuous capture. -F 0 will capture images ad-infinitum.

This can be used with either --capture-image which would leave all images on the card, or --capture-image-and-download which captures and downloads the images immediately.

Movie Capture

Capturing movies with sound is currently possible with:

• Newer Nikon DSLRs: gphoto2 --set-config movie=1 --wait-event=10s --set-config movie=0 --wait-event-and-download=2s. Replace 10s by the number of seconds you want to have your movie long. This started being supported around 2012, around the D7000 release.
• Newer Canon EOS DSLRs (around 7D and later) : Switch the camera to movie record mode on the camera. Then run gphoto2 --set-config viewfinder=1 --set-config movierecordtarget=Card --wait-event=10s --set-config movierecordtarget=None --wait-event-and-download=2s (before 2.5.6, replace viewfinder by eosviewfinder). If this does not work, check and switch the capturetarget to SD Card (gphoto2 --set-config capturetarget=1)
• Older cameras with preview capture ability: gphoto2 --capture-movie=10s . This will capture 10 seconds of preview frames and concatenate them in a MotionJPEG style stream.

Using as webcam / video conferencing camera

If you want to stream / view the captured preview images, use a ffmpeg pipe out of the movie capture, e.g. something similar to:
gphoto2 --capture-movie --stdout | ffmpeg -re -i pipe:0 -listen 1 -f mjpeg http://localhost:8080/feed.jpg
Here the http://localhost:8080/feed.jpg will reflect the webcam output.

For putting it into the video4linux system for use as a webcam, use something like:

• Get and install the v4l2loopback kernel driver for your distribution. e.g. in openSUSE it is in v4l2loopback-kmp-default, in Ubuntu it is in v4l2loopback-dkms
• sudo modprobe v4l2loopback exclusive_caps=1 card_label="GPhoto2 Webcam"
• Find out which /dev/videoX it is using, likely /dev/video1 with ls -la /dev/video*
• (Currently for Marcus I cannot select it successfully in chromium if I have a USB webcam, I needed to "rmmod uvcvideo".
• Run the preview loop of gphoto2 into an ffmpeg filter that feeds input back to video4linux2:
  gphoto2 --stdout --capture-movie | ffmpeg -i - -vcodec rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p -threads 0 -f v4l2 /dev/video1

• On Fuji XT and newer Nikon DSLR / Z series there is an option called "liveviewsize" which can change the preview size if you want a higher quality stream.
• On Canon EOS / EOS M the size is encoded in the "output" option. If you select a "PC" output option, it will bring the largest preview size, "MOBILE" second largest and "MOBILE2" smallest preview size. Availability varies between EOS models.
• On Canon EOS / EOS M make sure the preview mode on the camera is in "still image" mode, not in "movie mode".
• On some older Canon EOS (e.g. 1000D) also select a capture mode that is not "Auto", (select P, Av, Tv or other more manual modes).

Bulb Capture

Bulb capture is a bit difficult in a command-response style setting. Various cameras handle it differently.

• Nikon DSLR: Newer ones support bulb capture.

  Check what entry refers to Bulb:

  gphoto2 --get-config shutterspeed

  Set this index:

  gphoto2 --set-config shutterspeed=52

  And now you can bulb capture for the specific time:

  gphoto2 --set-config bulb=1 --wait-event=time --set-config bulb=0
• Older Canon EOS DSLR:

  gphoto2 --set-config shutterspeed=bulb
gphoto2 --set-config bulb=1 --wait-event=30s --set-config bulb=0 --wait-event-and-download=2s

• Newer Canon EOS DSLR:

  The camera usually needs to be in 'M' mode.

  gphoto2 --set-config shutterspeed=bulb
gphoto2 --set-config eosremoterelease=Immediate --wait-event=30s --set-config eosremoterelease="Release Full" --wait-event-and-download=2s

  The eosremoterelease refers to the direct shutter button manipulation, so it can be used for different scenarios outside of immediate shutter releases.

Manual Focus

• Nikon DSLR: Manual focusing only works in the "liveview" aka "preview" mode (with mirror up). In "non preview" mode the focus motor is only controllable by the autofocus engine. --set-config manualfocusdrive=step size
  Here a value between -32768 and 32767 can be specified that is the direction and pulse length to the focus ring motor.
  Setting this value causes a relative movement, fixed positions cannot be driven to. To achieve the wanted focus, multiple calls might need to be done.
  An error will be reported if the end of the focus range is reached.
• Canon EOS DSLR: Manual focus driving only works on the "liveview" aka "preview" mode (with mirror up). In "non preview" mode the focus motor is only controllable by the autofocus engine. --set-config manualfocusdrive=Mode where mode is "Near 1" "Near 2" "Near 3" "Far 1" "Far 2" "Far 3". These are 3 different relative stepsizes for both focusing directions. To achieve focusing, multiple calls might need to be done.
  On newer Canon EOS cameras, you also need to set "Continous AF" to "Off" in the settings (this option will be remote controllable in 2.5.8).

List of cameras

If a camera is not listed, it might still be the case that is able to support capture.

For instance, it is a very good sign if the vendor supplies software that supports remote capture for this camera. Those are likely able to be supported by libgphoto2 if not already.

Cameras not able to do capture

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