Afidus Support

Getting Started

Please click on the 5 steps to guide you through your initial setup:

Welcome. Thanks for buying an ATL-200S or ATL-201S!

Your camera comes with a battery caddy removal tool. In some circumstances, rechargeable batteries swell after use which can restrict the removal of the battery caddy from the camera case. 


Using the removal tool, or pen tip, pierce the sticker to expose the holes behind (as seen in the picture). If your caddy ever snags, insert the tool into the holes (horizontally) to gently pull the caddy out.  


Important - Try not to use rechargeable batteries. Rechargables also self-discharge every day, so are NOT recommended for time lapse projects. Please use quality alkalines, or lithium batteries for best longevity .



The SD card slot is located within the battery compartment. Open the door flap and remove battery caddy. Once removed, you should see a sticker indicating where your SD card should go. 


SD card orientation is important, so ensure you have the card the correct way up!


As shown, place your SD card on the housing sticker with the golden connector "pins" showing upwards. Gently slide the SD card  up the ramp and into the card slot .  If you're unsure where the slot is, use a torch , or your phone light, to illuminate where the slot is before you do the above step. 


You should hear a slight "click" when the SD card is correctly inserted. If there is no "click" you might have the card the wrong way round? 


To remove the SD card, gently push the card into the slot. You should hear a "click" to indicate it is now released and ready to be removed. Removing the SD card is best done by gently using a pair of tweezers, or model pliers. Do not try to pry the card out with a knife as you may damage the SD card and holder! 




Before you power anything on, we suggest you download the App from the relevant App store - iOS or Android.  Either manually search for the "Time-Lapse Afidus" App, or scan the QR codes on our main page to take you directly to the App store page. Follow the instructions to install the App onto your chosen phone or tablet. 


Once the App is installed, it might be worth checking to see if you have the latest firmware downloaded? As shown, there is a “firmware” button on the bottom right of the App’s main screen. Just tap this icon and you will be taken to the “check for update firmware” page. Tap the Icon to download the latest version, if applicable. 


We will come back to installing this firmware later in step 5. For now, you can move onto step 4 .



Click for video example

Power on your camera by holding down the power button until you hear a “beep”. The LED will light green to indicate power is on, and the camera is broadcasting its Wifi signal. Go back to your phone and search for the cameras Wifi network. It will be listed as “ATL200S_xxxxxxxxx” (this is the cameras unique ID number). Connect your phone to this network and enter the default password “12345678”. 


*Important* - Do not do anything for 30 secs as you might get a message saying “this wifi connection does not have an internet connection” . Make sure you hit “ok” otherwise the camera will not connect to your mobile phone / tablet.  If the camera does not connect , just “forget” the wifi network and start step 4 again. 


Due to new government GDPR rules (General Data Protection) you might be asked to change your password to a new, personal one. You will be instructed by the App to enter a new password. Once this is done, go back to your wifi network list and click “Forget Network” for your ATL. Lastly, simply reconnect to the ATL-xxxxxxx network using your new, personal password. You should now have a connection between your camera and your phone / tablet. To test this, go to the App main screen and tap the bottom left icon “Camera”. If successful, you should be taken to the viewfinder and settings screen of the App.


Please note, the camera will automatically turn off its Wifi after 4 minutes of wifi inactivity. This is indicated by the camera emitting a long beep and then it will shut down.

Click for example video

If you have not already done step 3 , please do so before this step.


From the App main screen, tap the "camera" Icon to go to the viewfinder and settings page. At the top left of this screen you will see an icon with three horizontal bars. This is the "system settings" menu. Tap this to enter system settings. 


At the top of the system menu you will see which firmware version is already installed. It will also tell you if the firmware you have downloaded is a more recent version. To update, simply tap the "FW upgrade" button to update the firmware. 


The camera will go through an upgrade process for about 1 minute where the LED  will flash and the camera will beep several times. Please do not turn off the camera until this process has fully completed. Your system may need to be manually turned on after the update has completed. 


To verify installation, sign back into the camera network and head back to your system settings page. The firmware versions should now match. 

Click for video example

Starting out questions

  • What does the LED light indicate?

    Hardware reset - Green flash 3 times 

    Power on -  Green constant

    No SD card - Red constant

    System Error -  Red flash/ 1 sec

    Battery Low -  red flash / 10 sec

    Recording - Green flash  /  6 sec

    Schedule, snapshot, Step mode - Green flash 2x1sec

    PIR/ Hybrid mode - Green flash 2x2sec

  • The SD card is too difficult to remove

    Yes, it is a bit fidly to access the Micro SD card, but we have found that once it is installed, you don't really ever need to remove it. All your files can be accessed by the USB or over WiFi. The camera also has a built-in SD format option in the unlikely advent you ever run out of space on the card. 


    We do advise using tweezers, or similar, to remove the  card should you need too. 

  • Smiley face icon (quality)

    What's this you say? There are  4 image quality options available to you: +1 being the lowest, +4 being the highest quality. We suggest leaving this on +4 . 


    The only reason you might want a lower setting is if you favour memory space and battery life over image quality, ie,  for traffic surveys.  


    Changing the quality changes the bitrate of each shot taken and the final  video file.  Using the lowest (+1) setting  will approximately give you  half the file size of the highest setting  (+4) 

  • What batteries do i use?

    Never use rechargable batteries for long term  time-lapses! These batteries self discharge and are not suitable for powering long term projects. 


    We suggest, in order of best 


    • Energizer Ultimate (lithium)
    • Varta  Ultra (lithium)
    • Duracell Ultra  (alkaline)
    • Energizer  Max  (alkaline)
    • Varta  Max Power (alkaline) 

    Do not use cheap batteries as this will severely reduce your camera operation time! 

  • My files are all 524Mb?

    You may have noticed that your video files are no larger than 524Mb in size? This is perfectly normal and 'as designed' by the Afidus engineers.  The reason for this is to make your video files more manageable - a 16+Gb file could be difficult to transfer. Just stitch together all the seperate files  using iMovie or some similar video editing software. 

  • Are there any instructional overview videos out there?

    Our friends over in America have made a number of fantastic tutorial videos to help you understand everything about the camera. you can find here: https://youtu.be/cA3kElUb9Vo

  • What is image alignment and how do I use it?

    If you've ever needed to remove your camera from your work site, you know you'll have trouble trying to realign the project when you put the camera back in position. This great little tool helps you realign your shot! See video here:  https://www.afiduscam.com/learn

  • My camera will not focus...

    1. Re-calibrate process - 


    Click the 'calibrate' button in the main menu to start the process. This can correct the zoom if it's not working properly. After the process has finished, please hit the "AF" (auto focus) , then zoom the camera fully in and out a few times, then try the AF button again. The above actions can sometimes be enough to re-calibrate the zoom mechanism. 


    Remember, you can also "pinch" the screen to zoom in closer to see if your focus is good. You can always "tap" the manual adjust buttons to adjust the focus if required. 


    2. Hard Reset -

    If the above fails to work, try a 'hard reset' which will put the camera back to factory settings. This is how you do this: 


    1. Remove the batteries AND the SD card

    2. Press, AND HOLD , the power button while plugging in a 5V power into the USB port (Any 5V Micro USB phone charger is suffice)

    3. You should hear a "beep, beep, beeeeep" to confirm the camera is reset to factory settings.

    4. Hold power button until camera turns off.

    5. Restart camera

    6. Restart the WiFi connection and password change process


    The other important thing of note is to 'forget' the Afidus WiFi network on you mobile phone as you will already have an "old" password programmed in. Just go to you phones WiFi network list and 'forget' the ATL WiFi. This will allow you to reconnect to the cameras WiFi from afresh using the initial '12345678' password.


    You will now be able to set your own password. Here's a little video on the password procedure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6OpaK-BtbQ


    3. A Hard Knock - 

    This is a last resort!! Only if all the above fails to make a difference, you can tap the back of the camera on a hard surface. A couple of firm taps should be suffice to jolt the zoom mech into action. Just remember to do the first re-calibrate step after the tapping. 

  • I have forgotten my password, or can't long in...

    Not to worry, here's how to reset your camera back to factory settings if you cannot access it via the App: 


    1. Remove the batteries and SD card 

    2. Press, and hold, the power button while plugging in a 5V power into the USB port (Any 5V Micro USB phone charger is suffice)

    3. You should hear a "beep, beep, beeeeep" to confirm the  camera is reset to factory settings. 

    4. Hold power button until camera turns off. 

    5. Restart camera 

    6. Restart the wifi connection and password change procedure. 


    The other important thing to do is 'forget' the Afidus WiFi network on you mobile phone as you will already have a password programmed in. Just go to you phones WiFi network list and 'forget' the ATL WiFi. This will allow you to reconnect to the cameras WiFi from afresh using the initial '12345678' password. 


    You will now be able to set your own password. Here's a little video on the password procedure here 


How to use your camera...

If you haven't done so already, it's definitely worth watching Marie's instructional video on how to use your new camera. Click here 

Framing your Shot 

From the main screen, tap the camera icon to enter the viewfinder and options page. You will be presented with the cameras live feed and several shoot option icons below the viewfinder screen. You can swipe these icons left to access more shoot options. 


Single tap the viewfinder screen to access the zoom and focus options (ATL200S only). The zoom control is represented by the white tree icons along the bottom of the viewfinder screen. To adjust zoom, hold and drag the indicator dot to the right to increase the zoom amount, or to the left for a wider angle shot. The camera will auto focus after changing the zoom level. If required, you can manually adjust the focus by tapping the + or - icons. Note - Please ‘tap’ the focus icons to increment the focus amount, do not hold the icons to increment as this will not work.


You can also turn your phone / tablet to a landscape orientation to enable a full-screen viewfinder picture. This is perfect for framing your subject in detail. Again, tap anywhere on the screen to bring up the zoom and focus controls.

 

TOP TIP - Try pinching the viewfinder screen to zoom in and out of the viewfinder image. This is ideal for ensuring you have your subject correctly focused when using a smaller phone screen. 
You can see an example here: Click to watch video

Starting and stopping your recording

Once you've framed your subject and entered your shoot settings, you are ready to start recording. Hit the "red dot" icon to enter record modes.


Select the recording mode you require from the icons along the bottom of the screen. Tap your chosen record mode and the camera will confirm your entered shoot settings. Tap to confirm these are correct and the camera will beep twice to confirm it is recording. You can double check the camera is recording as the LED will flash every 6 seconds. If the LED is NOT flashing every 6 secs, please restart the recording procedure again. Just remember, if the LED is blinking every 6 seconds you’re fine. It’s always worth double checking before leaving the camera!


To stop recording, simply press and hold the power button for 2 secs. The camera will emit a long beep, and the LED will illuminate green. This indicates that the camera has written the time-lapse video file and has turned the Wifi on. You can now connect your phone / tablet to download files, or change settings. 


QUICK TIP - you can quickly enter record mode without using the APP. Turn the camera on as normal (green LED light), then short press (<1sec) the power button again. The camera will enter record mode with the last shoot settings entered.


Again, it’s worth remembering, if the camera is left alone, or no settings are changed, it will turn itself off after 4 minutes of inactivity.

App settings explained

FPS (frames per second)
Since a video is made up of frames, each photo the camera captures will end up representing one frame in your final video. For example: a common frame rate of 30 frames per second (fps) means that each photo you take will be shown for 1/30th of a second when the camera converts your individual photos into a video. This is probably best left at 30 FPS unless you know what you're doing. 30 FPS will give you the smoothest playback for your video.

Interval
This is the time between each shot. More info on this can be found below in the "recording modes explained section" 

Quality
This is video quality. It adjusts the bitrate of the image. Lowering this will increase battery life and use less memory, but lessen image quality. This is best left to 4 (high quality).

Scene
This adjusts shoot settings for either day or night projects. This may be useful to you if you’re shooting a night scene, but really, this is best left to auto.

Resolution
You can switch between 1080p or the 720p resolution if required? This is probably best left at "full" 1080 setting

Aspect Ratio
This switches between 16:9 to 1:1 aspect. 1:1 is useful if you're filming instagram videos; otherwise leave this at 16:9

Exposure
This adjusts how bright or dark your pictures appear by adjusting the shutter speed of the camera. This is best left to 0 unless you know what you're doing.

White balance
This setting adjusts the colour temperature of your shots to make the image look more natural. Again, best left alone unless you're familiar with photography 

Contrast
Contrast is the difference between the blacks and the whites of your image. High contrast means the blacks are really dark and the whites are really bright. Again, best left alone.

Sharpness
You can either sharpen, or soften your image to your liking. We generally leave this on 0 but +1 (sharpened) can be useful depending on your project

Saturation
Colour saturation is used to describe the intensity of colour in the image. A saturated image has overly bright colours. We generally leave this at 0, but +1 can make colours “pop” a little more. 

HDR (high dynamic range)
This stands for High Dynamic Range. It means that your camera will process photos slightly differently in order to capture greater detail from bright and dark areas in your photo. We leave this a high setting for best image quality. 

You can watch a video tutorial about settings: Click here

Transferring your footage

There are two ways to transfer your footage from the camera:


Via MicroUSB


The first, and simplest, is to connect your camera via MicroUSB to a laptop or computer. The camera will be detected by your computer and you will be given the option to explore the cameras DCIM folder for the files you want to transfer. Select, or drag and drop, the files you want to transfer. 


Please note, you will not be able to enter transfer mode if the camera is still recording. Either turn the camera off, or have the camera in standby (Green LED on) before you can access transfer mode. 

Via WiFi App


On the viewfinder page, click the bottom left-hand icon, as shown in the picture. This will take you to a page with two options: 

  1. The top icon relates to files on your camera 
  2. The bottom icon relates to (transferred) files on your phone / tablet

Simply tap the top camera icon to access all the files stored on your cameras internal SD card. Here you will see a list of all the files stored and their accompanying snapshot icons. Note - tapping the image will playback the video file.


Choose the file you would like to transfer by tapping its download icon. Your file will begin to download to your phone / tablet and you will be given the transfer progress until the file is completely transferred.

To view transferred files on your phone or tablet, simply select the “gallery” icon on the main page. You will be given three ‘types’ of files to choose from – Snapshot, time-lapse, PIR triggered.  These folder types are purely there to help you find the file you’re looking for. 


Select the file you would like to view. Once selected, you are given the option to playback the footage. You are also given the option to convert the video file to MP4 format, or to send the file to: email, Google drive, Instagram, etc, etc. 

Recording modes explained 

This section briefly describes what each record mode does, and when you might want to use it? You can also watch a short instructional video about record modes by clicking here

Timelapse Mode

This is your standard time-lapse record mode. Just choose the interval settings you want to use and off you go. Here’s a few Interval, HDR (high dynamic range), and FPS (frames per second) setting suggestions for certain projects: 


  • Construction (months / years project) Int time - 10~30 minutes: HDR-Med: 20 or 30 FPS
  • Construction (1 to 2 day project) Int time - 1~5 minutes: HDR-Med: 30 FPS
  • People moving:  Int time - 1~3 seconds: 30FPS
  • Weather / Clouds:  Int time – 2~20 seconds: 30FPS
  • Plant Growth: Int time – 10~60 seconds: 30FPS
  • Sunrise/ Sunset: Int time – 1~2 seconds: 30FPS: HDR high
  • City Night view : Int time – 1 second: 30FPS: HDR high
  • Night Sky : Int time – 5~30 Seconds:30FPS: HDR low

You can also use this handy time lapse calculator here at the Omni time lapse Calculator 


PIR Mode 

This mode is best suited for intruder monitoring, or low frequency movement. Should the built-in PIR sensor be triggered, the camera will record a preset length of footage. You can set the length of video the camera records under “burst mode” in the system settings page. The default burst length is 3 secs. The PIR can sense movement up to approx 10m. 


It’s worth noting that in this mode each time the PIR is triggered, every video the camera shoots will be stored as a separate file under the “PIR” folder section of the gallery. If you want one continuous file for, say, bird watching, the “Hybrid” record mode might be better suited for you? 



Snapshot Mode

This mode takes “stills” with the camera. If desired, you can edit these images into your time-lapse video when you edit the project on a computer. It can also be used for stop frame animation projects. You'll need the patience of a saint to make a stop frame animation movie as 1 second of video contains roughly 24 frames, and 1hr of footage contains approx 3600 seconds, so that’s 86,400 frames / hr in total! That’s a lot of work, effort, and time! Snapshots are stored under the snapshot folder of the gallery. 



Hybrid Mode 

Hybrid mode is very useful for recording wildlife, or where the subject matter might occasionally move. It combines the standard time-lapse mode with the PIR sensor mode.


e.g. set Interval at 10mins and PIR burst mode set at 3secs


The above setting will take a shot every 10mins, but each time the PIR senses any movement; the camera will take a 3secs burst video, then return to snapping a shot every 10mins. This sequence will continue until you finish your recording.


The benefit of this mode is the camera will only produce one video file for the whole project, not individual files as would happen if you used PIR mode. This mode is perfect for recording wildlife. Hybrid video files are stored in the normal time-lapse folder on the gallery. 


You can see an example of a hybrid video here:
https://youtu.be/Jp5FekFDmqY



Step Video 

This mode takes short video clips at set intervals. You might want to use this mode instead of the normal time-lapse mode if you prefer to watch your project in short bursts of (near) full motion video. Note that the video “burst” length can set in the “system settings” page. The default video clip length (burst) is 3sec.


E.g. Set interval to 2mins and burst mode to 5secs 


The above will produce short 5 second video clips every 2 minutes until you have finished your project. 


Video files recorded in this mode are stored in the normal time-lapse folder of the gallery.
To visualise this mode, it is probably best to watch this example video: Click to watch video

The settings menu 

You can find a number of system settings in this menu. Some notable settings are:
  • Record schedule (timer)
  • Burst Length
  • Time Stamp
  • Anti Flicker
  • Reset 
This is beautifully explained by Marie in this short instruction video below: 
Click to watch the video here
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