Basic Intervalometer

Jun 2017

So here is a command line to use gphoto2 as a basic intervalometer. You can type this in at the terminal, or you could use a python script to generate this command line based on user input.

gphoto2 --interval=10 --frames=10 --capture-image-and-download

So in this example, we are going to capture 10 frames, at an interval of 10 seconds, and download each file.

Time-lapse mode enabled (interval: 10s).
Capturing frame #1/10...
Waiting for next capture slot 9 seconds...
New file is in location /store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_5934.CR2 on the camera
Downloading 'IMG_5934.CR2' from folder '/store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON'...
Saving file as IMG_5934.CR2
Deleting file /store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_5934.CR2 on the camera
Deleting 'IMG_5934.CR2' from folder '/store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON'...
Capturing frame #2/10...
Waiting for next capture slot 9 seconds...
New file is in location /store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_5935.CR2 on the camera
Downloading 'IMG_5935.CR2' from folder '/store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON'...
Saving file as IMG_5935.CR2
Deleting file /store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_5935.CR2 on the camera
Deleting 'IMG_5935.CR2' from folder '/store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON'...
Capturing frame #3/10...
Waiting for next capture slot 9 seconds...
New file is in location /store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_5936.CR2 on the camera
Downloading 'IMG_5936.CR2' from folder '/store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON'...
Saving file as IMG_5936.CR2
Deleting file /store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_5936.CR2 on the camera
Deleting 'IMG_5936.CR2' from folder '/store_00020001/DCIM/100CANON'...
etc..

It can be see that after the image is downloaded, it is deleted also.
Here are the 10 files I captured

IMG_5934.CR2 IMG_5936.CR2 IMG_5938.CR2 IMG_5940.CR2 IMG_5942.CR2
IMG_5935.CR2 IMG_5937.CR2 IMG_5939.CR2 IMG_5941.CR2 IMG_5943.CR2

WARNING!!! If you pick a short interval (say 3 or 4 seconds) then the Raspberry Pi may not be able to write the files fast enough, and you can drop frames.