Camera - power saving

[dks99]

I was thinking recently of ways in which it might be possible to extend the battery life while using the camera.

I'm not sure if any of this is possible through a hack, or even if it would make any major difference (power drain wise).

My theory is that the camera drains the battery so quickly (even when NOT taking pictures) because it pretty much does takes a picture 5 times or so a second just to show you were you are aiming the thing at...

here are some thing that MIGHT reduce the power drain, but I don't know how to hack them to do so:

- change the camera refresh rate to once every second.

- reduce the camera cupture resolution to something like 320x200 instead of 1600x1200 until the moment you press the capture button at which time it would capture at full resolution

- set focus to infinite and don't autofocus until you press the capture button half way down (actually I think this is the way it work right now... no saving there)

- would disabling (making them all black in color) the bottom part of the screen (where the 3 last taken picture are ) save any power ? Or does it still waste energy trying to show "blackpixels" on the screen ?

Any other ideas ?

Is there any sony SDK documentation that would allow us to modify these settings ?

THanks
dks

[peterh]

i think the reason it take several seconds to load and it drains the battery is because its charging up a seperate cell for the flash. i think that makes sense. if you notice when you unload camera s it makes a little click, and then the borrowed power goes back into the main system?
Just an idea? Opinions

[the_iceman]

Part of the reason for the delay in loading the camera.... isn't just for the flash... but also a capacitor for the camera. You have to power the camera. Even when the battery power is 'dipped' below a threshold so the flash is disabled, it still takes several (up to 5) seconds to get the camera up. Once you are done with the camera, and you exit, you will see the battery re-charge as the capacitor for the camera/flash drain back down to the battery.

I wish there was a way to turn off the CAMERA SOUND (shutter-click). You can set the camera click volume to LOW, but you should just be able to disable it (IMHO).

I've seen a lot of negative comments about the camera taking bad pictures in low-light (inside) and having to use the flash all the time. I do use the SPOT-METERING in the camera to go to dark places in the pic, and the adjustment the camera makes is very good. Any day-time pics I take inside the house does not require me to use a flash. There seems to be enough ambient light to suffice.

[peterh]

Yeah that makes sense iceman.
I think you should be able to disable the sound. Its not as though this thing could be used as a spy cam like the nr70v or other phones ...


I've got some pretty good results so far inside. I use the spot metering along with a longer exposure time. It just takes practice and messing around with different settings. Just because its dark doesn't mean you need to use the flash

[dks99]

Does anyone know of an application other than made by Sony that can be used on the NZ90.

There is an app called Vivid for the NX/NR series that controls the frame rate/resolution of the camera. http://www.clievideo.com/


Therefore obviously some of the suggesions are possible. Someone just needs to make the application...

Later,
dks