Actions:
1. “ENTER” to enter the main menu
2. Select Manual Move and press “ENTER”
3. “UP” or “DOWN” to select the desired axis, and press “ENTER”
4. “UP” or “DOWN” to set the desired speed
5. Hold “RIGHT” or “LEFT” to move in the desired direction
6. “ENTER” to exit the manual control screen
7. “RIGHT” to return to the main menu
1.3 Manually move the Merlin
Once you have enabled scope control, you will now have a new option available in the manual control screen labeled
scope. This option enables you to control both axes of the Merlin from a single screen.
Inside the scope manual control screen, use [left] to cause the pan (yaw) axis to start moving left, and [right] to cause the
pan axis to start moving right. Pressing either button again will cause the motion to stop. [up] and [down] cause the tilt
(pitch) axis to move either up or down, again, pressing either a second time will stop movement.
Press [enter] to exit this screen and return to the main manual control screen.
You can configure the speeds at which the pan and tilt axes move in the scope manual control screen by accessing the
Main Menu->Scope menu, and configuring the desired manual speed, from 0.1 deg/minute, to 1,440 deg/minute.
Actions:
1. [Enter] to enter the main menu
2. [Down] to select Manual and press [Enter]
3. [Down] to select Scope, and press [Enter]
4. [Up], [Down], [Left], and [Right] to position the Merlin
5. [Enter] to exit the manual control screen
6. [Right] to return to the main menu
2. a) AXIS 1
2.1 Ramping or feathering into moves
The SMC motion controller can “feather” or ramp into and out of moves causing moves to start slowly and get faster
within the video, providing a nice accelerating or decelerating effect. It does this by altering the distance moved between
shots, or the speed moved, starting with no speed and ramping up to your desired speed over a configurable number of
frames.
Additionally, a lead-in or lead-out can be used to add a static period before or after a motor’s movements, adding to your
ability to create the shot you want.
Configuring Ramping
A ramp into or out of a movement is done by changing the speed or distance moved based on the number of frames that
have been exposed. For example, I can set the ramp value for an axis to 25 frames, and at 25FPS output video it would
take one second for the motion in the output video to come to full speed. This is achieved by starting the motor at no
speed, and then increasing the speed just enough to match the desired output speed at the right interval to reach full
speed at the desired frame as specified in the ramp value.
If you also configure the max shots parameter for the camera, the SMC will automatically ramp down the motor to zero
speed so that motion completes when the max shots count is reached.
To understand how ramping will affect your output video, take the following parameter values:
Output video = 25 frames per second
Max shots = 250 (10 seconds)
Ramp rate = 25
Axis speed = 30%
Notes:
•
Ramp settings for a particular axis are saved between power-off cycles.
www.timelapsesa.co.za | [email protected] | +27 82 331 4438 5
