Help needed on Camera Sync of Zcam C1

This is a longshot, but I got my hands on 2 cameras that can sync easy, but it looks like I need the master dongle to make this happen. Does anyone have any info on where I can get this or specs to build it.

Here are the cameras: Supposedly, this is the ultra rare, Z cam C1. Its a variant that has virtually zero info online including zcams own site.

Some backround on this is, the best current sort of cheap 3d camera really is the Z cam E1. This camera has a port that allows you to sync the cameras for stills and video. Its 2 micro 4/3 cameras, so the lens options are great and the quality beats just about anything near the price. This rig is sold by iZugar online, but at a fairly high price of $2000 for the iZugar Z2XL180.  I have this camera, but made a deal to get it cheaper without the lenses because I was not doing vr180.  Got the rig and it works better than I thought in ways and worse in others, but it syncs the 2 cameras better than any rig I have had and I have had a bunch.  Zcam made the C1 after the E1 and it looks like it was for bullet time rigs and it does not seem like it really made it.  The C1 and E1 are both very similar.  The E1 uses some weird port that I have never seen before to do the sync.  The C1 has a very similar dongle, but it uses the more common USB C port.  The interface on the E1 dongle says its a UART Master/Slave.  I don't even know what that means, but its the way these sync.  These cameras are virtually the same, but the C1 is the holy grail where the sensor is horizontal and the body is vertical with the cables in the back, so its ideal to rig up for 3d or bullet time.  I am 99% the way to getting this to work, but just have not gotten there yet because the dongles I got seem to only be the slave daisy chain dongles.  If I had just 1 of the master dongles, i am pretty sure I could sync this thing.

If anyone has this dongle or has info on this camera let me know.  There is a video of it as CES, but that variant is different as it has a screen, which mine does not. Obviously, you dont need a bunch of screens if you are doing bullet time, so I can see why mine does not.  I also dont know of to get into it to change the settings.  I imagine you need ethernet.  I do not think this cam has bluetooth or wifi either.  Getting the sync is the real issue though.

For anyone looking at building a killer rig, I would say, forget Qoocam Ego, I have one and its worse than the ancient Gopro Dual Hero, which you can still buy.  The dual hero was a very good sync gopro hero 3+ black rig and it actually worked great.  The gopro can also easily get a lens change to a 5.4mm if you want a tighter FOV and its a very cheap camera now, like $20.  The dual hero sync box is still around $200, but its worth it.  I like that Kandao is trying, but they just are not that good.

I have videos about rigs that you can build and my Zcam e1 rig on my youtube channel SCSTUDIOS8.  My E1 rig leans more towards 3d than vr180, but its with 2 super wide Rokinon 7.5mm lenses, which shoot about as wide as a gopro lens. I also have twin fisheyes that work great for vr. The big difference in my rig is I have the E1 cameras side by side instead of portrait, which required a plug change on the body to get some room.  The quality is the best you are realistically going to get for anything near affordable.  I had the Fuji 3d w3, which is also good - videos are lacking as its just twin 720p.  I also say that ancient fuji is also better overall than the Kandao Ego.

Markr041 wrote:

steve ohlhaber wrote:

Can you explain exactly what is wrong with the Kandao Ego. You seem a little defensive about this relative to what you like to use. The Ego is not for VR180, it is just 3D video.

I have shot 3D video with lots of cameras, including the Sony 3D camcorder, the Fuji W3, and twin GoPro's (I have actually shot 2D video with the Scam E1). So I am aware of what has been available. I also have tried out the dual fisheye Canon VR180 rig.

Yeah, I was hoping the Ego would be something I could just easily use and get better results than the Gopro Dual Hero. Its simply not from a quality perspective. This is sort of hard to believe given the duel hero is now 12 years old, but here is the deal:

1. The thing takes FOREVER to even turn on, which everyone notices instantly. Like 30 seconds.

2. The thing will overheat, even when you are not shooting. It simply being on is enough for it to overheat and shut down. Like in 3 minutes of simply being on, it will overheat.

3. It will not focus even though it is a manual focus camera. You manually use a slider and it simply does not work. I cannot believe how many blurry still images i get out of this thing. Its incredible. This is daylight and blurry, so its NOT camera shake. This feature alone makes it worthless.  Its software focus, so I bet, it defaults to some mid focus, then checks the last setting, and because its software, they cant get it to work, so you get 50% of the time, maybe it works.  If it had no focus at all and just stayed at infinity, it would be radically better and worth buying just because when it took a shot it would be in focus.

4. Video quality looks like a camera made about 15 years ago. I know because I have those cameras, shoot them to compare and its that bad.  Video compression in a camera isnt easy and Kandao is not any good at consumer grade, so it sucks bad.  Video quality is way worse than the still quality on this camera.  Like WAY worse. To get an idea, I replaced the lenses in a gopro hero 3+black long ago when I started to shoot 3d with the dual hero because I wanted a 28mmish FOV. So, I can grab that rig that is over 10 years old, shoot video and that compares DIRECTLY to the EGO because the FOV is the same. The Gopro CRUSHES the SH** out of the Kandao. Then you try stills with the Gopro. If the stills would freaking focus on the Ego, it would easily win due to the newer sensor, but you get 50% focus issues on that POS. I have no love at all for stuff that simply does not work. I like stuff that works. I dont care about the cost. There just isnt anything new out there that is worth a damn. I mean, the fuji 3d was like $800 or something crazy when it came out, but it freaking worked. Its just that Kandao loves to be chinese and make cheap unreliable crap. If you made the mistake of buying the kandao 8k 360 camera they made a couple years ago, you know what I mean.

5. It costs the money that a camera that should work would cost. This should go for around $200 given how bad it is.

6. Battery life is total crap.

In general use, the old gopro dual hero with swapped 5.4mm lenses easily beats the use and results. The only 1 thing the Ego has going for it is, its small. Thats it. It wont work. You will not "get the shot". And this is compared to the ancient gopro dual hero, which already seemed hard to use as it takes a while to boot up also, but it freaking works when it comes up.

The ability to see the result with the little headset thing, ok, thats ok, but I dont know who cares. Its like the Fuji 3d and also Sony TD video cameras, I really didnt care that the display was 3d. I would have liked a normal brighter 2d screen and a cheaper product. Its like Kandao saw the advertisement and shot for that and do not care about the product. They are proving it with each release.

Video is way way worse than stills. If the stills would freaking focus, it would be at least almost be useful, but then it overheats then the battery dies. By now, someone should be able to beat the gopro dual hero. This easily does not in quality, so somehow, that misses, and beyond that it is super buggy and overheating and battery issues and focus.

The other rig I have that really is nice is the synced gopro hero 4 cams with the mewpro sync. This is ultra sketch to get set up, but if you are lucky enough to wire it up, the hero 4 is a big step up from the hero 3+plus black, like double. You get solid 4k 3d synced. Its been really nice, but I had to buy 2 as one totally failed to work and that thing aint cheap, but it works.

So, its the Ego fun as a toy sure, if you just use the display it come with on the camera, you probably never will notice how bad the focus is or how bad the quality and you probably wont know that cameras released 12 years ago were actually better quality than its best result. I keep trying to use this because its pocketable, but it just isnt worth it.

Thanks for the very detailed explanation as well as the comparisons. I just take issue with saying a manual focus camera is faulty or "bad" if pictures are out of focus. Any picture out of focus is due to the user incorrectly focusing. A camera does not miss focus, the user does. Do you want to be called a bad focuser?

You didnt read it all. Its a manual focus camera with ELECTRONIC FOCUS. That means, when you say, focus at Infinity and it does not, its not you, its the piece of junk in your hands.  There is no physical slider.  There is a menu that says where do you want to focus.  I ALWAYS have it set to Inifinty.  This does not work.  I would love it if it was true manual focus, but that ended a very long time ago for anything this small.  The camera should be fixed focus at Infinity.  When you shut it down, it forgets, then does not refocus.  Everyone says the same thing.  The camera does not focus.  Its not user error.  Its the software fails to act on what it says its acting on.

The EGO IS JUNK.  Kandao sucks.  This has already been proven out by anyone that was unfortunate enough to buy their products.  At least consumer products.  I have no idea if they actually can make a real product, but I havent tried any of their "pro" stuff.

ANYWAYS.  Has anyone used the Z cam C1?

Unfortunately I don't have the fix for your dongle issue but I'm interested in doing a similar thing with these cameras and I am currently in emailing z-cam support about it. So far I asked them for a user manual pdf, what software can operate the C1 via ethernet, and a source for cables used for syncing the C1 cameras to one another. I received this response.

"Z CAM C1 no sync feature.All the open API is listed here: https://github.com/imaginevision/Z-Camera-Doc

Best regards, Kinson"

The API seems to be mostly source code for operating E1 and E2 cameras via ethernet as well as some CADs of their dimensions. But nothing I can find in it regarding the C1. I've already emailed a reply mentioning that there is a video in which the CEO of zcam mentions the syncing function of the C1 while standing in front of a bullet camera array made of them and I'm also trying to see if anyone knows how much is shared between the C1 and the E1 or perhaps K1 or whether the Zcam camera controller is compatible.

Could you post some pictures of the daisychain plug mail plug head on as well as the female receptable on the docking port? Im having trouble finding these and it will give me a bit more to go on in finding a master

Edit: It looks like this is the protocol you'll be needing to follow to work with to sync up those cameras https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR-tbjG8ZeI

Its great that yours works. This is a big complaint by many people. You get over half your pics out of focus, even back to back shots where you dont touch the focus. Its in, its out, its almost random. This isnt just me, read reviews. Someone figured its a power cycle issue where if you just leave the focus alone, like infinity, and shoot, shut down, turn on, shoot, shut down, do that 10 times and more than half are way out of focus. When it powers up, its messing with its own focus and not doing what it says which is to just have the focus set. Or when you think the camera is booted up, its still not really and it takes a pic before its set the focus to what it should be at. Its firmware.  The new firmware doesnt work on my camera.  Someone else said its because it doesnt take the pic when you think it does and you are moving the camera away.  The click sound it makes isnt the picture timing.  I never touch the focus.  It should always work and it does not over and over and even when I use the 2 second timer and dont move.  Its one of the above.

I just heard back from zcam. According to them, the C1 which was claimed to be able to be synced was a customized rig. The produced cameras do not have the ability to be synced with one another. Scams didn't answer any of my other questions

Not to threadjack but does the C1 have an HDMI port?

ZCAM just confirmed that the C1 uses the same API as the E1 and E2.

Nice job replying to the guy arguing with you in the thread but not the one actually trying to help