So.... this took me a bit longer than it should have. I also had an oversight where I did not add a zero-position bumper. I still need to make sure I have enough pins left for the d-pad and display.

I decided to store the positions of the steppers so they could be resumed/rezeroed on boot. Also allows you to make sure you don't go too far.

Had some problems with Python to split a class/have everything work still.

So at this point I'm going to move forward with the frame sampling and based on "zoom intuition" write an algorithm to auto zoom.

The steppers are slow, so I have a basic goal of being able to zoom/keep up with some motion.

I'm largely relying on narrow aperture and far zooming to keep something in focus.

I have not sampled a frame from a video feed before and need to limit processing under 30ms I believe... so it'll be interesting.

So far it seems the farthest the plane can be at 1/3 frame is around 100ft... which is not great... but maybe 1/3 is too big anyway... so you could do 200 ft... which your ceiling is 400ft and I normally fly around 200' or so from a launch.