Flying with Sony RX100M3, shutter release anyone ?

pete · Feb 19, 2016

So I tried to fly today with this Sony beast that I bought year and half ago, certainly the best compact camera I've ever owned, I don't go anywhere without it, it fits in the pocket of my jeans. zoom lens (Zeiss) - at its widest 24mm (35mm equiv.) so that's just about identical FOV as GoPro at medium settings, more importantly without the distortion. It weights only 290g (sorry for using metrics) so about 25% lighter than Gimbal + GoPro (I think) ?
And you can shoot RAW.

Has anyone figured out that USB trigger (for shutter release) ? I'm currently installing an app from Sony Play store that will act as built-in intervalometer but I would prefer to take pictures remotely when I trigger it.

I'm still going to use GoPro with Gimbal for the normal flights but when I go out doing photography this will be my preferred setup, at least until some third party comes up with a Gimbal solution for Solo that can carry compact camera with at least 1" or 4/3" sensor.
I thought I could get away with Peau 3.97mm lens and use it for both, the normal Solo activities as well as photography and I've actually ordered Peau82 modified GoPro Hero4 black but the price was almost same as for new Sony RX100M3 (which I already own), it now looks like I'm not getting the Peau Gopro shipped anyway since I hacked somebody's Paypal account (or so they think) but then again this Sony is much better alternative for taking photos.

This little Sony actually has 1" Exmor R sensor and in combination with the Zeiss lens, the results are just amazing for such a small thing.
This is one thing that always bothered me about GoPro, the terrible quality of the photos, video is quite reasonable but still they made zero progress in many years in regards to size of the sensor, we now have 1/2.3" sensor, from 5-6 years ago when we had 1/2.5" sensor. I would've thought by now it must be possible to have a camera of this size with 1" sensor, I mean if you take Sony RX100M3 and remove the LCD screen, the electronic VF and few other things, swap the zoom lens for a fixed lens I bet they could almost match the GoPro size.

Anyway here are few pictures of the bird with Sony attached, once I have the intervalometer app installed I'll go out tomorrow and take some test shots.

erikgraham · Feb 19, 2016

pete said:
it now looks like I'm not getting the Peau Gopro shipped anyway since I hacked somebody's Paypal account (or so they think)

... huh?

pete · Feb 19, 2016

erikgraham said:
... huh?

I'm all excited about Solo flying with Sony, something about remotely triggering shutter, little bit of rant about GoPro sensor size and this is what you pick, funny as

I'm just being ironic, my payment went through fine with Paypal, verified and credit card already debited 4 days ago, but then there is an extra step at Peau fraud detection department - verifying whether Paypal's verification can be trusted. Either that, or the only other option explainable is that I've hacked somebody else's Paypal account, there is no other way around it. And since I have already also provided screenshot of my banking statement showing the actual debit from my credit card then needless to say I must have also hacked the said person's bank account. Still they say that I could create a charge back so yes they have a point there, can't argue with that.
Doesn't bother me at the moment since my HDMI cable is faulty anyway.

Dash Hewes · Feb 19, 2016

You can't go wrong with the PEAU Productions setup, they have been phenomenal with me.
As for the SONY, I believe you are reinventing the wheel. With that said...I'm all about tinkering.
Happy flying.

erikgraham · Feb 19, 2016

pete said:
I'm all excited about Solo flying with Sony, something about remotely triggering shutter, little bit of rant about GoPro sensor size and this is what you pick, funny as

I'm just being ironic, my payment went through fine with Paypal, verified and credit card already debited 4 days ago, but then there is an extra step at Peau fraud detection department - verifying whether Paypal's verification can be trusted. Either that, or the only other option explainable is that I've hacked somebody else's Paypal account, there is no other way around it. And since I have already also provided screenshot of my banking statement showing the actual debit from my credit card then needless to say I must have also hacked the said person's bank account. Still they say that I could create a charge back so yes they have a point there, can't argue with that.
Doesn't bother me at the moment since my HDMI cable is faulty anyway.

Ok. Well anyway. The rx100 has a time lapse mode doesn't it? Where you can set it to take a picture every X seconds. why would you need an introvalemter?

pete · Feb 19, 2016

erikgraham said:
Ok. Well anyway. The rx100 has a time lapse mode doesn't it? Where you can set it to take a picture every X seconds. why would you need an introvalemter?

there is no time lapse mode, but you can download add-on application (paid)
that you can use for time lapse or as intervalometer, that's what I meant.

Maddog · Feb 19, 2016

pete said:
So I tried to fly today with this Sony beast that I bought year and half ago, certainly the best compact camera I've ever owned, I don't go anywhere without it, it fits in the pocket of my jeans. zoom lens (Zeiss) - at its widest 24mm (35mm equiv.) so that's just about identical FOV as GoPro at medium settings, more importantly without the distortion. It weights only 290g (sorry for using metrics) so about 25% lighter than Gimbal + GoPro (I think) ?
And you can shoot RAW.

Has anyone figured out that USB trigger (for shutter release) ? I'm currently installing an app from Sony Play store that will act as built-in intervalometer but I would prefer to take pictures remotely when I trigger it.

I'm still going to use GoPro with Gimbal for the normal flights but when I go out doing photography this will be my preferred setup, at least until some third party comes up with a Gimbal solution for Solo that can carry compact camera with at least 1" or 4/3" sensor.
I thought I could get away with Peau 3.97mm lens and use it for both, the normal Solo activities as well as photography and I've actually ordered Peau82 modified GoPro Hero4 black but the price was almost same as for new Sony RX100M3 (which I already own), it now looks like I'm not getting the Peau Gopro shipped anyway since I hacked somebody's Paypal account (or so they think) but then again this Sony is much better alternative for taking photos.

This little Sony actually has 1" Exmor R sensor and in combination with the Zeiss lens, the results are just amazing for such a small thing.
This is one thing that always bothered me about GoPro, the terrible quality of the photos, video is quite reasonable but still they made zero progress in many years in regards to size of the sensor, we now have 1/2.3" sensor, from 5-6 years ago when we had 1/2.5" sensor. I would've thought by now it must be possible to have a camera of this size with 1" sensor, I mean if you take Sony RX100M3 and remove the LCD screen, the electronic VF and few other things, swap the zoom lens for a fixed lens I bet they could almost match the GoPro size.

Anyway here are few pictures of the bird with Sony attached, once I have the intervalometer app installed I'll go out tomorrow and take some test shots.

View attachment 2531
View attachment 2532

Do you get a video feed with this? If not, how do you frame the shot?

pete · Feb 19, 2016

Dash Hewes said:
You can't go wrong with the PEAU Productions setup, they have been phenomenal with me.
As for the SONY, I believe you are reinventing the wheel. With that said...I'm all about tinkering.
Happy flying.

correct, they are very responsive and helpful as far as all the technical questions.

GoPro vs Sony, what I'm saying above is that for day to day activities I'll be using GoPro (because of its integration with the Gimbal and Solo) but if I want to take a proper photo (ie. landscape/sunset), I'll send out Sony for that shot.

pete · Feb 19, 2016

Maddog said:
Do you get a video feed with this? If not, how do you frame the shot?

cannot check that at the moment, my HDMI cable is faulty, can't get one in Australia and 3DR don't ship internationally. I've ordered the ribbon type cable from Relish3D, waiting for it.
I would also love to know if this works, Sony has standard HDMI output port, same as GoPro, should work.

Maddog · Feb 19, 2016

pete said:
cannot check that at the moment, my HDMI cable is faulty, can't get one in Australia and 3DR don't ship internationally. I've ordered the ribbon type cable from Relish3D, waiting for it.
I would also love to know if this works, Sony has standard HDMI output port, same as GoPro, should work.

Ok, got it. Hope it works. Will vibration be an issue with no gimbal?

pete · Feb 19, 2016

Maddog said:
Ok, got it. Hope it works. Will vibration be an issue with no gimbal?

I'll test this tomorrow. It's mounted on the stock bracket that has those 4 rubber dampers. Anyway for photos can't see any issue with vibration, just use high shutter speed. As far as video I don't know and I'm not planning to use Sony for video, having said that the stabilization on the new version of same camera (Mark 4) is very impressive (active IS starts at 17sec and Intelligent IS at 30sec) :

pedram55 · Feb 20, 2016

Seagull company has built some trigger parts for triggering Sony camera and pixhawk 1 flight controller.
But solo uses pixhawk2 I contacted with 3DR support and ask them about accessory bay and a port to connect this hardware .but they didn't send me clear answer (I don't know why maybe they don't know what did they build or it is a secret!!!)
Anyway I changed my decision to purchase phantom 3 pro interested of SOLO

Dash Hewes · Feb 20, 2016

Ya... 3DR isn't so adaptive on information for mods to the quad. Months ago I called them because I was looking for the accessory bay power plug and they came back with. "Oh, we didn't even know it had a power outlet".

I later found the source and have just recently received the plug after a long backorder.

Maddog · Feb 20, 2016

Dash Hewes said:
Ya... 3DR isn't so adaptive on information for mods to the quad. Months ago I called them because I was looking for the accessory bay power plug and they came back with. "Oh, we didn't even know it had a power outlet".

I later found the source and have just recently received the plug after a long backorder.

You must have been waiting for Mouser.

Steve McMurray · Nov 2, 2016

pete said:
So I tried to fly today with this Sony beast that I bought year and half ago, certainly the best compact camera I've ever owned, I don't go anywhere without it, it fits in the pocket of my jeans. zoom lens (Zeiss) - at its widest 24mm (35mm equiv.) so that's just about identical FOV as GoPro at medium settings, more importantly without the distortion. It weights only 290g (sorry for using metrics) so about 25% lighter than Gimbal + GoPro (I think) ?
And you can shoot RAW.

Has anyone figured out that USB trigger (for shutter release) ? I'm currently installing an app from Sony Play store that will act as built-in intervalometer but I would prefer to take pictures remotely when I trigger it.

I'm still going to use GoPro with Gimbal for the normal flights but when I go out doing photography this will be my preferred setup, at least until some third party comes up with a Gimbal solution for Solo that can carry compact camera with at least 1" or 4/3" sensor.
I thought I could get away with Peau 3.97mm lens and use it for both, the normal Solo activities as well as photography and I've actually ordered Peau82 modified GoPro Hero4 black but the price was almost same as for new Sony RX100M3 (which I already own), it now looks like I'm not getting the Peau Gopro shipped anyway since I hacked somebody's Paypal account (or so they think) but then again this Sony is much better alternative for taking photos.

This little Sony actually has 1" Exmor R sensor and in combination with the Zeiss lens, the results are just amazing for such a small thing.
This is one thing that always bothered me about GoPro, the terrible quality of the photos, video is quite reasonable but still they made zero progress in many years in regards to size of the sensor, we now have 1/2.3" sensor, from 5-6 years ago when we had 1/2.5" sensor. I would've thought by now it must be possible to have a camera of this size with 1" sensor, I mean if you take Sony RX100M3 and remove the LCD screen, the electronic VF and few other things, swap the zoom lens for a fixed lens I bet they could almost match the GoPro size.

Anyway here are few pictures of the bird with Sony attached, once I have the intervalometer app installed I'll go out tomorrow and take some test shots.

View attachment 2531
View attachment 2532

What sort of flight time are you getting out of it with the sony on? Did you manage to get live video feed back or remotely fire the camera with the pixhawk ?

hackbard23 · Nov 2, 2016

Well, i came across a site where they used a Arduino Uno to control different cameras via IR.
You can hook up this Arduino to your Solo and once it is implemented into Solex by our local hero Kelly Schrock, you could initiate a script sending the right IR Codes - via the App.
This of course will take some Research and Testing, but i think it will be possible in the near future to hook whatever Camera onto Solo < 500g and control it via Solex

ron lynch · Apr 2, 2017

hackbard23 said:
Well, i came across a site where they used a Arduino Uno to control different cameras via IR.
You can hook up this Arduino to your Solo and once it is implemented into Solex by our local hero Kelly Schrock, you could initiate a script sending the right IR Codes - via the App.
This of course will take some Research and Testing, but i think it will be possible in the near future to hook whatever Camera onto Solo < 500g and control it via Solex

On my DJI F450 with an Nex5 I used to use a gentLED trigger connected to an unused channel on the F450's RC receiver and my Spektrum transmitter. gentLED IR Shutter Cable for Sony
I assume one can use this cheaper trigger too Infrared Remote Shutter Controller for Sony Cameras Of course this requires carrying a 2nd Spektrum transmitter in addition to the Solo controler ( at least until I or someone smarter than me can devise a way to have the Solo A or B buttons on controller tell the LED trigger connected somehow to the Solo breakout board?? to take a photo)
Until this happens I want to do this on my Solo with Sony mounted Nex6. All I need is some help in figuring how get 3.5–9.6V to power the AR400 RC receiver AR400 4-Channel DSMX Aircraft Receiver (SPMAR400): Spektrum - The Leader in Spread Spectrum Technology