EOS Camera Movie Record Back | Up | Next

EOS Camera Movie Record (ECMR) is a freeware program by Chernov Aleksey that records Live View from Canon DSLR Cameras at a reasonably high framing rate to an AVI file that will open directly in AutoStakkert!, AviStack, Images Plus or RegiStax.

ECMR controls most of the important settings, such as shutter speed, ISO, aperture (of a Canon camera lens), and white balance, through a single USB cable hooked up to your computer. ECMR only records Live View video. It will not control the camera for long-exposure astrophotography.

Three great things about ECMR:

Figure 1: The EOS Camera Movie Record Interface.

Videos created by ECMR are recorded without audio in an AVI container in MJPEG format with a frame rate of about 22 frames per second, depending on the camera.

ECMR is for Canon cameras only. ECMR will run on a PC and there is also a version for Macs.

ECMR Options 1


Figure 2: ECMR Options.

ECMR Options 2


Figure 3: ECMR Movie Options.

ECMR Options 3

For planets with a fast rotation rate and lots of fine detail like Jupiter and Mars it is best to specify a time length for the movie so planetary rotation does not smear detail, as discussed in Chapter 1 Section 8: Planetary Rotation and Detail Smearing.

For planets like Saturn which usually doesn't have any really fine surface detail, you can specify a total number of frames, especially since Saturn is relatively dim and will usually benefit in stacking a larger number of frames.


Step-by-Step Procedure

That may seem like a lot of settings, but ECMR is really easy to use.


ECMR Tips


EOS Camera Movie Record - The Bottom Line

Only connect and disconnect your camera from the computer and USB cable with the camera power off.

You must be at 5x zoom in ECMR to record the image with 1:1 pixel resolution. This is very important for high-magnification, high-resolution planetary imaging!

Use the in-camera menus to set Live View Function Settings > Live View Shoot, set to Enable

Use the in-camera menus to set Live View Function Settings > AF Mode to Live Mode (not "Smiley Face" Face Detection Live Mode)

Put the camera in manual mode with the dial on top the camera.

You can adjust the exposure (shutter speed) and ISO after you are zoomed in to 5x to adjust the brightness of the image.

Use daylight white balance to achieve correct color balance in the camera.

ECMR will record Live View as an AVI video file that can be opened in other planetary image processing programs.




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