Introduction

This is a smaller continuation of the previous blog post on hacking the Sony A6000 camera (come back for more updates).

Free Apps

To install time-lapse and an FTP Uploader with some additional hacks, this open source project was awesome https://github.com/ma1co/Sony-PMCA-RE. Download the executable from the releases, then it will provide you on the applications to install. I would also recommend the OpenMemories:Tweaks app as it allows changing some limits on the camera.

USB-C Battery Hack

Batteries drain very quickly with this camera. The stock battery is around 1020mAh. Swapping out batteries is common and tedious. Getting usb-c versions of them helps with charging on the go but it's still annoying with cables.

After a bit of hacking the power adapter version of this, I bundled everything up into a single battery shell with a usb-c female tail. Nothing clever here other than taking apart the usb 5v to 8v adapter then adding that to the shell with a usb-c input. The idea here is to use a large battery bank when taking very long time-lapse. Bulding a battery pack on the bottom is the next idea. Here is the build for the power adapter.

Data Transfers Hurdles

A follow up from my previous post.

Using a Card Reader

On the go, I keep this card reader near the camera bag. It allows for the sd card to plugged into the computer or phone in a small package. Sometimes I just need a few pictures on my phone to edit and send. All the other files get dumped.

Using the FTP uploader within the camera

This idea of using the FTP uploader is great but it's very slow... 70 files in 13 minutes at full resolution JPEG files. If there is not a lot pictures this makes sense but typically taking the sd card out and data dumping is going to be much quicker still.

Using the FTP uploader app mentioned above, i use this bit of python code to dump it into directory that i care about.

python -m pyftpdlib -u USER -P PASS -w

Reference to this command. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4994638/one-line-ftp-server-in-python