I found that the best sequence is to be sure the batteries are over 50%, lots of room on the cards, and start with the cameras off but USB cables plugged in – I am using an OWC Thunderbolt hub that has 5 powered USB ports – very fast and reliable. The entire totality sequence is done with mirror up in Live View Photo mode and I run at 5 fps to be conservative. I am using the XQD card slot to save images. The huge buffer must help but I notice in watching the Console window the communication seems instant. The D500 has been the very best in terms of reliability and speed. I chose to be conservative on frame rate around C2 and more aggressive around C3 for both the D500 and the D810. It seems very reliable since the release of recent betas and the final version 1.8.6v1. The D810 has been the most temperamental but only in the ramps. Then does a 26 shot ramp and 20 shot burst for mid corona leading up to MAX, another 26 shot ramp starting at MAX, some more bursts at 5 fps leading to C3 then a ramp leaving C3 for the diamond ring. The script does three bursts at 3 fps of ~10 shots each around C2 for the diamond ring, Baily’s beads, and chromosphere and prominences. This allows fast and smooth operation of just shutter action – no vibration detected in solar test shots. The SEM script sets it up for Live View photography (mirror is up the entire time of totality and a few seconds before C2 and after C3. The D810 is at 550 mm and writes to a 160 MB/s CF SanDisk card. The D700 is on a 85mm lens where I am trying for star fields, Mars, Mercury, and deep extended corona. The D700 is by far the slowest camera but I do three 2 fps bursts at C2 then individual shots with mirror up for 0.5 sec covering a large dynamic range during totality. My script takes 38 shots on the D700, 122 shots on the D500 and 141 shots on the D810 during the totality phase. I am running 3 cameras, D700, D500, and D810 at different plate scales and fields of view on a Sky Watcher EQ6 mount. I’ve had a very good experience with Solar Eclipse Maestro. I'm running El Captian and the latest version woks fine with it. And definitely download the latest version as he has some fixes in there I think for Nikons. You are certainly right about not updating an OS at this point in the game.Īlso, as Seth mentioned, make sure you downloaded the correct version. I'm pretty sure others have gotten theirs to work. Xavier is very responsive on their help forum. You really should try to get it to work, it is definitely worth it. I just switched to a pair of D500's because of the speed issue. I have a D600, and was going to rent a pair of D5600's. However, the D610 will only fire every 2+ seconds due to camera USB limitations. Solar Eclipse Maestro works reliably in my tests. (As the old joke punch line goes, "What could possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong.") I am aware that Jubier just uploaded a new version which is more compatible with current OS's, but it suggest 10.12 as a minimum, and I am not about to upgrade my OS two days before I head west. I am using a 2016 MacBook Pro with OSX 10.11.5 (El Capitan) and V 1.8.5 of Maestro. Is it worth pursuing this, or shall I just drop back to CamRanger? I would be interested to hear from others as to success, failure, or just plain frustration. And when I get to Idaho, I will be picking up a rental D810, so I can't fully test it now, even if I could connect my D610! I finally got around to testing it today, and I cannot even get it to recognize my camera, a Nikon D610. I have seen several reports suggesting that Solar Eclipse Maestro is unreliable.
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