4 replies to this topic

[Scdouglas]

After a lot of testing and back and forth (thank you to everyone who put up with the bugs in the initial releases and for your feedback) I feel comfortable enough with the driver to say it's been officially released (only took until version 2.2!). 

 

This driver will enable camera functionality for any software that supported ASCOM compliant cameras, allowing for plate solving, autofocus, automated sequences etc. with Fujifilm. 

 

For processing, I would highly recommend enabling the function in the driver-specific ASCOM settings labeled "Save .RAF to SD Card." Right now, no software is equipped to handle the files NINA is saving from the camera, as it's raw sensor data without proper metadata for automatic detection of x-trans sensors. The ASCOM checkbox allows the camera to save your images right to its SD card in .RAF format, allowing your processing software of choice to properly debayer the files and work with them. Supported cameras are as follows: 

 

GFX System:

 

GFX 50S
GFX 50R
GFX 50S II
GFX 100
GFX 100 II
GFX 100S
GFX 100S II

 

X Series:

 

X-H2
X-H2S
X-M5
X-Pro3
X-S10
X-S20
X-T3
X-T4
X-T5

 

This list of camera support is purely Fujifilm's decision, not mine, and there's nothing I can do to add to it. The SDK determines model support, so I'm stuck, but I think this is a decent list that should cover a lot of people. I might try to trick the SDK into working with some other models at some point, but right now that's all speculative. More information on functionality and support can be found at the github page. 

 

In the meantime, you should be good to go to use Fuji cameras with your preferred astro software, and if you have any bugs feel free to reach out to me, some of the logs people have sent me have been invaluable for development. 

 

Github (go to releases and use the newest one, right now it's 2.2): https://github.com/S...as1999/Fujicom 

 

Clear skies

Edited by Scdouglas, 06 May 2025 - 12:45 PM.

[Ephesier]

Hi,

 

thanks for your hard work. It worked with my X-T5 and NINA.

 

Only questions/comments I have is:

- The camera image depicted in NINA is a grayscale image. Is this the way it should look?

- You might want to add for the camer setup that the user should set LONG EXPOSURE NR to OFF. Otherwise the camera will take dark frame after the actual picture and there will be a camera timeout.

 

Clear skies,

Manuel

[Scdouglas]

Hi,

 

thanks for your hard work. It worked with my X-T5 and NINA.

 

Only questions/comments I have is:

- The camera image depicted in NINA is a grayscale image. Is this the way it should look?

- You might want to add for the camer setup that the user should set LONG EXPOSURE NR to OFF. Otherwise the camera will take dark frame after the actual picture and there will be a camera timeout.

 

Clear skies,

Manuel

The greyscale image in NINA is a quirk of the driver I unfortunately can't solve on my own (well maybe, still figuring things out, I'll explain). Your X-T5 has that weird X-Trans bayer pattern on the sensor, and since Fuji cameras didn't previously work with NINA, the developers of NINA never built in the debayering function for Fuji cameras. This means that you can either use the incorrect bayer pattern which is sort of useless since you'll be seeing false color and potentially major artifacts, or just stick to greyscale. For your X-T5, I've included an option in the driver to save the RAF files to your cameras SD card. Nothing changes in NINA, everything still works, but when you go to stack I would suggest using the RAF files that are saved to your SD card instead of the ones NINA downloads. This is because most stacking software won't recognize the NINA saved files as X-Trans files, leading to a bad debayering and unusable stacking results. Unfortunately, this is completely out of my control, since ASCOM doesn't allow me to tell NINA the sensor has the X-Trans pattern and no software is designed to work with X-Trans files really well, most just look for the .RAF extension. It is possible I could write a plugin for NINA that can write the correct metadata to the NINA saved files or even enable the debayering of Fuji files natively in NINA, but I haven't gotten far enough looking into it to figure that out yet. In short, yes, the greyscale is totally normal, it's a quirk of NINA, using the RAF files off your camera will yield full color normal files. Just make sure the setting is checked off when you open NINA (click the settings cog in the camera connection tab and check off save .RAF to sd). 

 

Since I realize you may naturally ask, I can't send an RAF directly to NINA either. Fujifilm refused to release the .RAF packaging algorithm so all I get from the camera is raw sensor data, which my code packages for NINA using LibRaw. Basically all limitations with the driver are a result of either Fujifilm's stubbornness, or the fact that many software devs didn't develop their software to work incredibly well with Fuji cameras (which makes sense, there were no drivers for Fuji cameras). I'm hoping support from other programs like NINA and Pixinsight improve over time since now there is an active user base with Fuji cameras, but we'll see. 

 

Thanks for the heads up on the Long Exposure NR setting, meant to put it in the readme but totally forgot I guess. If you have any other issues or questions let me know, I've been really busy lately but hoping to get back to the driver soon. 

 

Clear skies

Sean

[ianperhaps]

Hi! Thank you for making this. The link to GitHub doesn’t seem to be working. Is there a different link?

[ianperhaps]

I found it on another thread you started! 
 

For anyone looking: https://github.com/S...las1999/Fujicom