Cheap interval photography?
Cheap interval photography?
(OP)
I need to trigger a camera at a remote location once every 24 hrs to collect images for a stream restoration project in northern Sweden. Can this be done using a very inexpensive camera by connecting it to an alarm clock or a timer? It will be left in the field unattended (but hidden in a bird house) for several weeks so I don't want to use expensive equipment. Any tech geeks out there who might be able to offer some advice?





RE: Cheap interval photography?
RE: Cheap interval photography?
RE: Cheap interval photography?
I'm going to "Northern Sweden" (Pitea) next week. Where are you?
And it will be Kiruna third week next year. I can probably hook something up for you - but it will cost you a lunch
RE: Cheap interval photography?
http
RE: Cheap interval photography?
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1757766119821744/
Regards, Mark
RE: Cheap interval photography?
The digital video camcorder $600 US
JVC GR-DVM70U Digital Cybercam Camcorder with Built-in Digital Still Mode has the following feature:
"A time-lapse capability allows you to record at preset intervals to catch slow motion action such as plant growth or cloud movement"
See pricegrabber.com quote ht
kch
RE: Cheap interval photography?
To keep the costs down I would probably, like Phillip Torrone, use an old second-hand digital camera. The $600 videocam solution is way over my budget and nothing I would like to leave in the forest unattended for weeks.
Keep up the good work!
RE: Cheap interval photography?
The batteries in a digital camera will surely not last very long, but they will in an old analog one. The trigger probably (surely) will need to be mechanical, but that's fairly easy to arrange with a small motor and a gear that turns a cam to press the trigger.
Motor starts from your alarm clock. You need to tap the loudspeaker signal and rectify/smooth it before having it control a transistor that starts the motor. There should be a way of preventing more than one exposure each time and perhaps some other minor additions to the functionality.
I think that any nerd in your neighbourhood can do this for you. You might even try it yourself
RE: Cheap interval photography?
h
I like your suggestion of using an analog 35 mm camera (with motor winding) instead of a digital camera. Film cameras are very cheap at the moment and represent a good option since I won't need to store more than 30-35 pictures (representing about a month in time). In addition, the batteries may last longer in a 35 mm camera.
The question is then how to hack an alarm clock and replace the speaker with a servo motor that presses the shutter button on the camera. Alternatively, the shutter may be activated electronically depending on camera type. It may also be necessary to shut down the camera between shots to save power, but this would also depend on the camera type. I guess I'll have to call a camera store soon and find a suitable model for the experiment.
Can anyone recommend a tech geek / nerd in Sweden who might be willing to explore this idea in practice? I am not so familiar with this community.
RE: Cheap interval photography?
Many of the older SLR's have a facility for a remote bowden cable actuator which tend to be used if the camera is mounted on a tripod. It should be quite easy to arrange either a solenoid, or maybe a motor and cam arrangement, to operate the plunger on this type of actuator. You would probably need a small (~2 AH) VRLA or lithium battery to provide the power source.
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If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!
RE: Cheap interval photography?
Let's see if I can fix that function for you. You supply camera and alarm clock. I put on my nerd cap and see what happens.
RE: Cheap interval photography?
I'll start looking for a camera that can be activated electronically (to keep mechanics out of the equation). It will be important to develop a cheap and simple solution since I plan to build about a dozen of these and monitor many research sites simultaneously. You can find my contact information at the Umea university/EVP website posted earlier. /N
RE: Cheap interval photography?
RE: Cheap interval photography?
There are several digital cameras available that have remote shutter options, and those are always just some sort of a digital input that can be converted to a contact closure. ijl has a very good point about cold though, most electronic devices have limited tolerance to condensation and freezing. You may need a substantial battery supply to keep it warm over a long period of time, but a cheap solar array may help (unless you are so far north that you get no sun this time of year!).
Here is a link to a motion operated digital camera scheme using a canon cheap-o camera that has a remote shutter input capability. Just substitue a battery operated time clock for the motion detector and you are off and clicking!
http:/
"Venditori de oleum-vipera non vigere excordis populi"
RE: Cheap interval photography?
If so you could easily set up a digital camera to take pictures as you want.
The simplest setup would be a camera that didn't have a lense that popped out on powerup - although this would help in keeping the lense clean. In cold temps the camera motor may have trouble starting - I have experienced this at home in Canada.
A bit of electronics and you could hack the camera to work for you. "Break" into the battery connections and use some extra batterys in parallel to give a bigger more reliable supply. Battery power drops with temperature- the extra batterys ensure it works. A little breadboard, a timer chip, a cap and a resitor and your off to the races. Well a little more than that I guess - but you get the idea.
Set a clock in the circuitry to power up the camera - the camera already being set in the "auto" mode or whatever setting you want. Wait a few seconds after powering up
and then snap a picture via the hacked camera shutter button. Then via another timer turn the whole thing off again. Simple concept huh?
It's actually all pretty simple if you are familiar with electronics. This could be put together very quickly.
A solar charger could be used as well, but this may be a problem in Sweden with the long dark winters.
A standard 3.2MB pixel camera with a 1GB card could take a lot of pictures of that stream project - say about 700 pictures if you wanted - and not one moving part to jam or mess up.
Sounds like a good project. Now you have me thinking.
good luck
skiier
RE: Cheap interval photography?
Can your bird house do this? Here it is -20C tonite. I am going to see if my camera even works if I leave it in the car overnite.
RE: Cheap interval photography?
"Venditori de oleum-vipera non vigere excordis populi"