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Canon 7DMk11 'going to sleep' during timelapse sequence.

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#1 Cymro
Hi All,
returning to this hobby during lockdown and switching from GBTimelapse to LTR & qDslrDashboard. I have a Canon 7DMk11 with latest firmware. I'm testing Day to Night time-lapses using qDslrDashboard on a Galaxy Tab connected to MR3020 running DDServer. The Canon is controller by LRTimelapse Pro Timer 2.5. Everything seems ok when I start the timelapse but after a couple of hours and a few hundred shots the canon seems to become unresponsive. Unplugging the USB cable and re-plugging seems to wake up the camera and qDslrDashboard reconnects and continues to control the exposure etc.. the LRT Pro Timer works all the time but the camera just doesn't respond when its 'sleeping'. Can anyone suggest some fundamental setting that I might be getting wrong ?

Thanks

Tom
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#2 Gunther
You should try to figure out if it's really the camera "sleeping". I wonder why you say that this happens after a couple of hundred shots.
Normally, when cameras go to standyby the do it after a certain period after the last shot. You can configure a "Wakeup Time" in the LRT Pro Timer - read about it in the manual https://lrtimelapse.com/lrtpt/advanced-features/ under DSLM Standby time / Wakeup Time. But I don't think it applies to your situation.

There might be other reasons - for example while ramping with qDDB the exposure times get too long, the dark time too short and the camera cannot get released therefore anymore.
I think you should do some more systematic tests to figure out what's going on.
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#3 Cymro
Thanks Gunther, After further tests I'm wondering about the SD Card write-speed*** combined with the interval settings and shutter speed, meaning with long exposures that the camera isn't ready when triggered by LRT Pro and eventually gets its knickers-in-a-twist and hangs. I tried another day-to-night timelapse last night and all seemed to go well with 30sec interval and max shutter of 25secs. Until the LRT Pro ran out of battery 23mins before sunrise :-)

https://youtu.be/dsEG1ADj3Uo

*** its a Sandisk Ultra 80MB/s 64Gb class 10 (what would you recommend ?)
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#4 Gunther
Normally SD Card speed shouldn't be the bottleneck.
I'd rather think that the transfer speed of the previews could be an issue - just make sure to have the smallest JPG previews set on the camera.
In my EBook I've explained in detail how to get the shortest possible dark times, you might want to consider getting that: https://lrtimelapse.com/buy/ebook/
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#5 Cymro
Camera is set to RAW+S3.
I'll do another long test this evening and hopefully into the sunrise too. I assume I have to swap Auto Holy Grail in qDslrDashboard from Sunset to Sunrise at some point during the night, in order to do a Day-Night-Day render ?
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#6 Gunther
You can also do such tests during the day just by setting the camera to M and a long exposure. Then try how short you can do the dark times (you might get overexposed images, but that doesn't matter for those tests). This is much better and faster than waiting for another holy grail situation to try.
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#7 Cymro
Yeah, I've done some bench tests and with a 25sec exposure and 1.2 - 1.3sec dark time (internal of 26.2 - 26.3) causes shot misses, over 1.4 (interval of 26.4+) seems to work reliably.
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#8 Gunther
You should do that with qDDB also. Check until which dark time the previews still get transferred reliably. You can lock "display next Jpg" by long pressing it.

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