Use an old digital camera, gphoto2, and WordPress for automatic photo blogging

For the What We’re Eating feature of my blog, I needed a way to quickly take photos of our home-cooked meals. Using a dedicated camera and a simple script I wrote, the system prompts the user for a description of the meal, snaps the photo with the proper zoom and flash settings, rotates and resizes the photo, and uploades the content directly to the WordPress site so it’s immediately visible to the outside world… all with a single command! Read on to learn how to implement the system for your own automatic photo blogging!

Auto photo blogging with WordPress

The camera

The system uses a dedicated camera, permanently pointed at our dining area, connected to the computer by USB, and connected to a wall-socket for power. The camera must be supported by the gphoto2 software. I bought a used Canon Powershot G3 from a friend and it’s been perfect. An older, somewhat bulky camera, the G3 is less attractive than current models for day-to-day use but has great optics for high-quality shots.

gphoto2

gphoto2 is a command line application that allows you to control a USB-connected camera. Depending on the camera model, you can upload and download photos, set the picture quality, change the zoom and flash settings, and more. On Debian or Debian-derived distributions (Ubuntu), the application is installed with the simple command “apt-get install gphoto2″.

Turn the camera on, connect it to your gnu/linux machine by USB, and run the following command to make sure the camera is recognized and can take pictures.

gphoto2 --list-config

This command will list the available control options for your camera and should output something like the following.

Detected a 'Canon:PowerShot G3 (normal mode)'. /main/settings/ownername /main/settings/capturesizeclass /main/settings/iso /main/settings/shutterspeed /main/settings/zoom /main/settings/aperture /main/settings/exposurecompensation /main/settings/imageformat /main/settings/focusmode /main/settings/flashmode /main/settings/beep /main/actions/syncdatetime /main/status/model /main/status/datetime /main/status/firmwareversion /main/status/driver /main/Driver/list_all_files

Now test that the system can actually control the camera to take photos with the following commands.

cd /tmp/ gphoto2 --capture-image-and-download --filename test_photo.jpg

As the option names suggest, this will control the camera to take a photo and download the image immediately to the computer.

photoautoblog.sh

The photoautoblog command is a simple bash script that controls a digital camera to snap a photo of our dining table. The photo is automatically manipulated and uploaded to my blog’s WordPress server, where it shows up in the header and is added to the list of our last 30 meals. The entire system is built on free software (and could use some improvement… please help!).

You can download the full script here:
photoautoblog.sh

Photo autoblogging in WordPress

The photos get uploaded to a directory on the server: /var/www/whatWereEating/ . From there, the images are utilized in two locations at my site. The most recent photo goes in the header of my blog, and images get added to the What We’re Eating post, which has photos of our last 30 meals.

Matt Gallizzi of NoTix Solutions helped me implement the auto-blogging stuff. He created a shortcode in /var/www/wp/wp-content/themes/default/functions.php as follows.

function what_we_are_eating() {  #/var/www/whatWereEating/  #http://onensemble.org/wp-content/whatWereEating/100711_121308_s.jpg         exec("ls /var/www/whatWereEating/*_s* -r |head -n 30",$recent_images);         $img_html="";         $date="";         date_default_timezone_set('America/Los_Angeles');         echo '<div stye="float: left; clear: both;">';         foreach($recent_images as $image) {                 $parts=explode("_",basename($image));                 if($parts[0] != $date) {                 #       $timestamp=date("l - F j, Y",filemtime($image));                         $stat=stat($image);                         $timestamp=date("l - F j, Y",$stat['mtime']);                         $img_html.="<div style=\"padding-top: 15px; clear: both; \">".$timestamp."</div>";                 }                 $info=file(str_replace("_s.jpg",".dat",$image));                 $img_html.='<div style="float: left; "><a style="float: right;" href="http://onensemble.org/wp-content/whatWereEating/'.basename(str_replace("_s ","_m",$image)).'" title="'.chop($info[0]).'"><img src="http://onensemble.org/wp -content/whatWereEating/'.basename($image).'" alt="'.chop($info[0]).'"></a></div >';                 $date = $parts[0];         }         echo '</div>';         return "$img_html"; }  add_shortcode('what_we_are_eating','what_we_are_eating');

The actual blogpost then simply calls that shortcode to generate the list of images. I added a break at the bottom to keep the "Share This" logo separated. The whole post content looks like this:

(Intro text here)

[what_we_are_eating]
<br style="clear: both" /> <br />

Note: The layout of this post is somewhat broken in older versions of Internet Explorer. I don't have IE here to test it but I'll be happy to help improve the script if someone cares.

The relevant bit of code from my header (/var/www/wp/wp-content/themes/default/category-13.php) looks like this:

<div class="header-section"> <div class="header-title">What We're Eating</div> <? exec("ls /var/www/whatWereEating/*_s* -r |head -n 1",$recent_images); $info=file(str_replace("_s.jpg",".dat",$recent_images[0])); echo '<div style="margin-top: 10px"><a href="http://onensemble.org/what-were-eating/" title="'.chop($info[0]).'"><img src="http://onensemble.org/wp-content/whatWereEating/'.basename($recent_images[0]).'" alt="'.chop($info[0]).'"></a></div>'; ?> </div>

And finally, there are a few css definitions we created in /var/www/wp/wp-content/themes/default/style.css to define the layout of a few things:

.whatWereEatingText { text-align: right; font-size: 12px !important; margin: 0; padding: 0; } #kris-blog-header {                height: 16em;                min-width: 70em;                } .header-section {                   float: left;                   width: 19%;                   border-left: 1px none #999;                   margin: 1em 0;                   padding: 0 1em;                   height: 90%;                   } .header-section + .header-section {                                     border-left: 1px solid #999;                                     } .header-title {                 margin: 0 0 1em 0;                 }

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Tags: diy, free software, lifestats

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 at 5:41 am and is filed under Kris' Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. This site uses gravatars.

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http://onensemble.org/2010/10/use-an-old-digital-camera-gphoto2-and-wordpress-for-automatic-photo-blogging/

Doc :: Remote controlling cameras

Remote controlling cameras

This page lists cameras remotely controllable for capture.
It is meant to be wiki-like, so if you have any additions, please mail them to gphoto-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailinglist or to marcus@jet.franken.de.
The list is incomplete and might be incorrect.

If you start doing remote capturing, please begin by installing the latest libgphoto2 and gphoto2 stable releases, as remote control improvements and fixes are being added continously.

Configuring for capture

When doing remote capture you likely want to modify several on camera parameters.

The gphoto2 commandline frontend offers both a ncurses GUI mode (using --config) or scriptable commandline options to do configuration:

--list-config - This will list all possible configuration options.
Please note that for some Canon cameras the complete list will only show after gphoto2 --set-config capture=on is run.
--get-config name - This will get the current configuration of name and its possible values.
--set-config name=value - This will set the configuration of name to value.

Most of them are self explaining, but some interesting ones:

Canon cameras only: capture - setting this to on will extract the lens and make it read for SDRAM based capture. Setting it off will retract the lens again.
Canon and some Nikon cameras only: capturetarget - setting this to sdram will make the camera capture directly into the camera RAM and not on the memory card. You need to download the image in the same gphoto2 call, otherwise it will gone when the connection is closed. Use --capture-image-and-download to capture and download instantely.
Set it to card to capture to the memory card.

Continuous / Interval capture

The options -F frames and -I seconds can be used to support continuous capture. -F 0 will capture images ad-infinitum.

This can be used with either --capture-image which would leave all images on the card, or --capture-image-and-download which captures and downloads the images immediately.

List of cameras

Camera Name	Libgphoto2 capture support	Controllable aspects	Megapixel	Notes
Canon Digital IXUS II/PowerShot SD100	Yes	Quality, Imagesize, ISO, Whitebalance, Photoeffect, Zoom, Assistlight, ExpComp, Flashmode, Aperture, Focuspoints, Shutterspeed, Metering Mode, AF Distance, Focus Locking, Viewfinder	3
Canon PowerShot SD110	Yes	All (like SD100),Viewfinder	3
Canon Digital IXUS 400	Yes	All,Viewfinder	4
Canon Digital IXUS 430 / ELPH S410	Yes	?,Viewfinder	4	In PTP mode
Canon IXY Digital 300	Yes	All,Viewfinder	2
Canon EOS 1000D / Rebel XS / Kiss F	Yes	Image Format, ISO, WhiteBalance, Whitebalance Adjust, DriveMode, Picture Style, Bulb Mode, BracketMode, Aperture, ShutterSpeed, Autofocus (in LiveView mode), Manual Focus (in LiveView mode), Viewfinder	10	Use libgphoto2 2.4.9 Use the Modewheel on the Camera to get to different settings. Shutterspeed and Aperture not available in Auto or P setting, only in the more manual ones. For Bulb mode: Switch dial to 'M'anual mode, gphoto2 --set-config shutterspeed=bulb , and run something like: gphoto2 --set-config bulb=1 --wait-event=10s --set-config bulb=0 --wait-event-and-download=5s
Canon EOS 300D/Digital Rebel	Yes	ISO, Shutterspeed, Zoom (? likely read only), Aperture, Resolution (RAW, Normal JPEG, ...), Focus Mode (read-only?), Flash Mode (read-only)	6.5	Uses "Normal" mode in the camera (and the "canon" driver in libgphoto2). Set Modewheel to "M" to get all settings.
Canon EOS 40D	Yes	limited level of configurability (see EOS 1000D), Viewfinder	10.1	use libgphoto2 2.4.9
Canon EOS 400D / Rebel XTi / Kiss Digital X	Yes	limited level of configurability (see EOS 1000D), no Viewfinder	10.1	use libgphoto2 2.4.9
Canon EOS 450D / Rebel XSi / Kiss X2	Yes	Image Format, ISO, WhiteBalance, DriveMode, Picture Style, Aperture, Shutterspeed, Viewfinder	12	Use libgphoto2 2.4.9. Use the ModeWheel on the Camera to get to different settings. Shutterspeed and Aperture not available in Auto or P setting, only in the more manual ones.
Canon EOS 50D	Yes	limited level of configurability (see other EOS), Viewfinder	15.1	Use libgphoto2 2.4.9. Use the ModeWheel on the Camera to get to different settings. Shutterspeed and Aperture not available in Auto or P setting, only in the more manual ones.
Canon EOS 500D / Rebel T1i / Kiss X3	Yes	limited level of configurability (see other EOS), Viewfinder	15.1	Use libgphoto2 2.4.9. Use the ModeWheel on the Camera to get to different settings. Shutterspeed and Aperture not available in Auto or P setting, only in the more manual ones.
Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i / Kiss X4	Yes	limited level of configurability (see other EOS), Viewfinder	18.0	Use libgphoto2 2.4.9. Use the ModeWheel on the Camera to get to different settings. Shutterspeed and Aperture not available in Auto or P setting, only in the more manual ones.
Canon EOS 5D Mark II	Yes	see other EOS like 1000D, Viewfinder	10.1	use libgphoto2 2.4.9
Canon EOS 7D	Yes	ImageFormat, ISO, WhiteBalance, WhiteBalanceAdjust, DriveMode, PictureStyle, Aperture, Shutterspeed, MeteringMode, BracketMode, AutoExposure Bracketing, Viewfinder	18	Use libgphoto2 2.4.9. For Bulb capture turn rotary dial to 'B'.
Canon PowerShot A10	Yes	unknown, Viewfinder	1.3
Canon PowerShot A100	Yes	unknown, Viewfinder	1.2
Canon PowerShot A20	Yes	unknown, Viewfinder	2.1
Canon PowerShot A200	Yes	unknown, Viewfinder	2
Canon PowerShot A30	Yes	unknown, Viewfinder	1.32
Canon PowerShot A300	Yes	All, Viewfinder	3.2
Canon PowerShot A310	Yes	All, Viewfinder	3.2
Canon PowerShot A40	Yes	unknown, Viewfinder	2
Canon PowerShot A400	Yes	ImageQuality, ImageSize, FlashMode, ShootingMode, DriveMode, Zoom, MeteringMode, AF Distance, FocusingPoint, WhiteBalance, ISO, Aperture, ShutterSpeed, ExpComp, PhotoEffect, AssistLight, Focus Locking, Viewfinder	3.2	From reporter. Only captures with PTP driver.
Canon PowerShot A510	Yes	All, Viewfinder	3.2
Canon PowerShot A520	Yes	All, Viewfinder	4
Canon PowerShot A60	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	2
Canon PowerShot A620	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	?
Canon PowerShot A640	Yes	ImageQuality, ImageSize, ISO, WhiteBalance, AssistLight, ExpComp, FlashMode, ShootingMode, Aperture, Shutterspeed, FocusingPoint, MeteringMode, AF Distance, Focus Locking, Viewfinder	10	One reference user: oldcapebridge.com
Canon PowerShot A70	Yes	ImageQuality, ImageSize, FlashMode, ShootingMode, DriveMode, Zoom, MeteringMode, AF Distance, Focusing Point, WhiteBalance, ISO, Aperture, Shutterspeed, PhotoEffect, Focus Locking, Viewfinder	3	(from ptpcanon list)
Canon PowerShot A75	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	3	from capture.sf.net notes
Canon PowerShot A80	Yes	All, Viewfinder	4	capture.sf.net and user reported
Canon PowerShot A85	Yes	All, Viewfinder	4
Canon PowerShot A95	Yes	ImageQuality, ImageSize, FlashMode, ShootingMode, DriveMode, Zoom, MeteringMode, AF Distance, Focusing Point, WhiteBalance, ISO, Aperture, Shutterspeed, ExpComp, Focus Locking, Viewfinder	5	from capture.sf.net notes
Canon PowerShot A520	Yes	All, Viewfinder	4	from capture.sf.net notes
Canon PowerShot A620	Yes	All, Viewfinder	7
Canon PowerShot A640	Yes	All, Viewfinder	10
Canon PowerShot G1	Yes	Unknown	3.3
Canon PowerShot G2	Yes	Unknown	4
Canon PowerShot G3	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	4
Canon PowerShot G5	Yes	ImageQuality, ImageSize, ISO, WhiteBalance, PhotoEffect, Zoom,AssistLight, ExpComp, Aperture, FocusingPoint, ShutterSpeed, MeteringMode, AF Distance, Viewfinder	5
Canon PowerShot G6	Yes	All, Viewfinder	7.1
Canon PowerShot G7	Yes	All, Viewfinder	10
Canon PowerShot G9	Yes	ImageSize, ISO, WhiteBalance, Zoom, AssistLight, ExpComp, FlashComp, FlashMode, ShootingMode, Aperture, FocusingPoint, ShutterSpeed, MeteringMode, AF Distance, Viewfinder	12
Canon PowerShot G10	Yes	All, Viewfinder	14.6
Canon PowerShot Pro 90 IS	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	2.6
Canon PowerShot S1 IS	Yes	All, Viewfinder	3
Canon PowerShot S2 IS	Yes	All, Viewfinder	5
Canon PowerShot S3 IS	Yes	All, Viewfinder	6	confirmed by Canon
Canon PowerShot S5 IS	Yes	All, Viewfinder	8	confirmed by user with 2.4.0
Canon PowerShot S40	Yes	All, Viewfinder	4
Canon PowerShot S10	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	2.1
Canon PowerShot S20	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	3.2
Canon PowerShot S30	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	3.2
Canon PowerShot S40	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	4
Canon PowerShot S45	Yes	All, Viewfinder	4
Canon PowerShot S50	Yes	All, Viewfinder	5
Canon PowerShot S60	Yes	All, Viewfinder	5	See sample installation
Canon PowerShot S70	Yes	All, Viewfinder	7
Canon PowerShot S80	Yes	All, Viewfinder	8
Canon PowerShot S100	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	2
Canon PowerShot S110	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	2
Canon PowerShot S200	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	2
Canon PowerShot S230	Yes	All, Viewfinder	3
Canon PowerShot S300	Yes	Unknown, Viewfinder	2
Canon PowerShot S400	Yes	All, Viewfinder	?	from capture.sf.net notes
Canon PowerShot S410	Yes	All, Viewfinder	?	from capture.sf.net notes
Canon PowerShot S500	Yes	All, Viewfinder	?	from capture.sf.net notes
Canon PowerShot SD110	Yes	All, Viewfinder	3
Canon PowerShot SD430	Yes, but only over WLAN	All, Viewfinder	5	Unfortunately the WLAN (PTP/IP) mode to connect to this camera is not working yet.
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS	Yes	Zoom, ISO, Quality, ImageSize, WhiteBalance, ExposureCompensation, FlashCompensation, CaptureMode, Aperture, Shutterspeed, MeteringMode, AF Distance,, Focus Locking, Viewfinder	8	1 frame capture and download - 2-3 seconds
Canon PowerShot SX110 IS	Yes	All (likely same as SX100IS above), Viewfinder	9
Canon 20D, 350D/Digital Rebel XT	Yes	All	8.2	Needs 2.4.0 or newer
Canon 5D	Yes	All	12	Needs 2.4.0 or newer
Casio EX-F1	Tethered	Unknown	6	Only tethered shooting, Firmware 2.0 required.
Nikon CoolPix 880	Yes	All	?
Nikon CoolPix 2500	Yes	All	2	In Sierra mode (USB Mass storage pass through)
Nikon CoolPix 4300	Yes	All	4	In Sierra mode (USB Mass storage pass through)
Nikon CoolPix 4500	Yes	All(?)	4	Only with updated firmware, see here
Nikon CoolPix 5000	Yes	All	5
Nikon CoolPix 5400	Yes	Unknown	5
Nikon CoolPix 5600	Yes	All,no focus, no aperture	5
Nikon CoolPix 5700	Yes	All	5
Nikon CoolPix 5900	Yes	All	5
Nikon CoolPix P1	Yes	Some	8	Only over USB, not over PTP/IP.
Nikon CoolPix P2	Yes	Some	5	Only over USB, not over PTP/IP.
Nikon CoolPix P3	Yes	Some	8	Only over USB, not over PTP/IP.
Nikon CoolPix P5000	Yes	None	10	only image quality configurable
Nikon D40	Yes	All	6
Nikon D40x	Yes	All	10
Nikon D50	Yes	All	6
Nikon D60	Yes	All	10
Nikon D70	Yes	All	6
Nikon D70s	Yes	All	6
Nikon D80	Yes	All	10
Nikon D90	Yes	All, Viewfinder	12
Nikon D200	Yes	All	10
Nikon D300	Yes	All	12
Nikon D3000	Yes	Basic set of abilities (no SDRAM, no Viewfinder, just the basic capture settings)	10
Nikon D700	Yes	All, Viewfinder	12
Olympus C750UZ	Yes	All	?
Olympus C-2040Z	Yes	All	2
Olympus C-2100Z	Yes	All	2
Olympus C-3040Z	Yes	All	3
Olympus C-4040Z	Yes	All	4
SQ905 chipset cameras (check list in C file here)	Yes	?	320x240 pixel, 160x120 pixel, some also 640x480 pixel
Digigr8 chipset cameras (check list in C file here)	Yes	?	320x240 pixel
STV680 chipset cameras (check list in C file here)	Yes	None	320x240, 160x120, sometimes also 640x480 pixel

If a camera is not listed, it might still be the case that is able to support capture.

For instance, it is a very good sign if the vendor supplies software that supports remote capture for this camera. Those are likely able to be supported by libgphoto2 if not already.

Cameras not able to do capture

Name	Comment
Kodak EasyShare Any	None of those supports remote capture.
Sony Cybershot DSC (PTP)	None of those supports remote capture.
Fuji Finepix (PTP)	Most of these cameras do not support remote capture. Some professional Fuji S* pro cameras might support it, please see the Utility tool page.
Various Canon cameras:	All Powershots released after mid 2009 are not capable of remote control anymore. Statement from Canon SDK: As a reminder: PowerShots A410, A420, A430, A450, A460, A470, A530, A540, A550, A560, A570 IS, A580, A590 IS, A610, A630, A650 IS, A700, A710 IS, A720 IS, A1000 IS, A2000 IS, S10, S20, S330, SD10, SD20, SD30, SD40, SD200, SD300, SD400, SD430, SD450, SD500, SD550, SD600, SD630, SD700 IS, SD750, SD770 IS,SD790 IS,SD800 IS, SD850 IS, SD870 IS, SD880 IS, SD890 IS, SD900, SD950 IS, SD990 IS, SD 1000, SD1100 IS, SX 1 IS, and SX 10IS do not support remote control or video out operation via the SDK. The same applies for libgphoto2 capture support. Also see this Canon page for a overview of which cameras are supported and which are not as of April 1st 2008.
Minolta Dimage Z2	Do not support remote control. See Konica-Minolta FAQ