Usage on other platforms.

[Nailik]

Hi,
i really like the work you did here. I'm trying to use this on Android but my current Problem is, that i don't really now how IWiaItemExtras::Escape method works and what it exaclty sends. (My attemps so far had no affect on the camera).
I would be happy if you can help me out!

[pixeltris]

IWiaItemExtras and related interfaces belong to Microsoft's Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) API which is essentially an abstraction layer on top of PTP (as far as I'm aware). The reason why I chose to use that API is because Sony uses it for their Imaging Edge software on Windows and I could easily hook the functions to log the data sent to the camera. On Mac I think they seem to use libusb.

I'm not familiar with Android development, how are you communicating with the USB? Something like libusb? You could sniff the traffic of gphoto2 using Wireshark and see if there are any additional packets you need to send to the device which might be missing from the code in this repo due to being handled by the WIA API.

[Nailik]

I use the default Usb implementation for Android (https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/usb/host) where i can select the out endpoint (bulk and out).
I will check out if i can find a PTP related API for Android. Thank you so far.
Edit:
There is, but no real information https://developer.android.com/reference/android/mtp/package-summary

[pixeltris]

https://github.com/michaelzoech/remoteyourcam-usb this looks like a great starting point, it has handlers for Canon / Nikon cameras, the protocols should be the same for the Sony cameras.

https://github.com/michaelzoech/remoteyourcam-usb/blob/master/src/com/remoteyourcam/usb/ptp/PtpConstants.java here are the opcodes for the Canon / Nikon cameras. The opcodes around 0x1000 are common among all cameras using PTP so that would probably be a good place to start to ensure you're successfully communicating with the camera. Once you have something working you can then move onto the vendor specific opcodes which are used to control the functions of the camera https://github.com/pixeltris/SonyAlphaUSB/blob/master/SonyAlphaUSB/Ids.cs

[Nailik]

I needed some time to build this and to dig into the code but it's working! Thank you very much, saved my month probably.

[Nailik]

Connection works now, i've seen that you don't use the capture code aroung 0x1000 (so you don't use 0x100E), i tested this one - doesn't work. What you actually do is using 2 opcodes, one for the type of the settings, you name it MainSettings and one to start the capture - that's my new problem. The remoteyourcam code is easy to adjust to set the camera to pc mode but the capture doesn't work, also there is never a usage of 2 codes for one request and the bytearray i send to the camera to set it to pc mode is completely different from your code or the wireshark capture so i have no idea where to place the second opcode yet.

[pixeltris]

Yea I don't think the sony alpha cameras respond to the regular type of image capture, instead there are operations for pressing/releasing the shutter (in the same way that you would take a picture manually).

This repo currently doesn't have a proper handlers for this (I will get around to doing this eventually). ghoto2 has an implementation PTP_DPC_SONY_AutoFocus / PTP_DPC_SONY_Capture are half/full press of the shutter button, the first requests is pressing the button down, it then waits for the camera to focus (based on auto focus settings), then it releases the shutter button. Then you need to get the image using the standard requests 0x1008 / 0x1009. So yea it's a little involved!

And yea sorry my naming conventions probably aren't correct for MainSetting and such. I'm not super familiar with PTP in general, I just implemented what I observed when logging the calls from the Sony Imaging Edge software.

[Nailik]

What i know from the wireless implementation of the Sony APi is, that only A7iii and A9 etc need to have a half press (and only if there is no timer, so if you set the timer to 2 sec and mf then you don't need to call the half press first) and for (my) a6300 you don't need half press at all (i tried it with your code too).
To better explain what the difference between our code (how we connect) (and i have to send 0x1002 before 0x9201):
https://pastebin.com/4yJMrExA

[pixeltris]

If things don't seem to quite match up I'd suggest logging what the Imaging Edge software does with Wireshark and just copy that. It's likely that the WIA API does some additional stuff behind the scenes and possibly byte order changes which is why things might look a little different.

From what I can tell though gphoto2 uses the same image capture logic for a6300 as it does a7iii (you could always set up gphoto2 and confirm this).

[Nailik]

I got it, it was not that the packet was wrong but WIA sends another packet after your shoot comand, that looks just a little bit different (without the 0xc2d2 part and with a 2 instead of a 1). I'm able to capture images with my phone! - But did you every notice that you're capture function triggers the capture but doesn't actually save the pic? (same as the sony remote windows application - but i think it's a weird behavior)

[pixeltris]

Great! I think if it's in MF it will always take the picture, but AF it has to actually gain focus before it will take the picture. This is something I haven't handled properly yet but the gphoto2 implementation that I linked before handles it and should capture the image 100% of the time. Roughly copying what they do should fix that issue.

[Nailik]

What i have red so far it's only possible to store the images on the camera on A7iii (and maybe A9), all other cameras only will send the image via usb when it's requested but not store it actually.
Read this here https://briansmith.com/sony-releases-imaging-edge-software/?fbclid=IwAR1UUvKVGnfFir6Riz4ofGx3u42wB3hr_KGphoUtB_i1naAf-UiE6vMbMUc

Depends on the camera. Only a7 III & a7R III can save to PC AND SD Card. All others will only save to PC when tethering. Doen’t matter if you use Capture One Pro or Imaging Edge that’s controlled by hardware not firmware.

[pixeltris]

Yea I noticed that, it's a little unfortunate. Maybe if something in PTP supports transferring images to the camera you could make a hacky workaround.

[Nailik]

There must be another option because the Sony RM-SPR1 (https://www.sony.de/electronics/kameras-mit-wechselobjektiv-stative-fernbedienungen/rm-spr1) can trigger the capture and it will be saved onto the camera.