Author Topic: "Homemade" Webcam  (Read 25981 times)

wurzelmac

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"Homemade" Webcam
« on: February 12, 2013, 05:15:35 PM »
Hello to all Weather-Photographers!
After buying and installing a new Vantage Pro2 (see this thread) I fulfilled another long wished dream: a "handmade" webcam!  :)
Therefore I bought a used Canon PowerShot G5 via eBay, a junction box and a three-wired electrical cord to get power into the box. The result you can see in the attached photos.  :D So the Camera gets the power direct via the cord and a charging device, and is controlled via USB. The photos were taken with gphoto2, the text overlays were done with ImageMagick. gphoto2 and ImageMagick are controlled by an applescript and a shell script running in terminal. Both scripts are done by my son Simon - congratulations to him! Here is a list of cameras that are remotely controllable via gphoto2.







Reinhard


Randall75

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2013, 07:06:01 PM »
Great job Reinhard
may have give complete details on how it is all done


 [cheers1]

Doc

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2013, 10:56:18 PM »
 [cheers1] Looks well done, do you have a heater in the housing for really cold nights?  I'll be interested in looking at any dark sky images you get from it. 

My cam is showing it's age, it's been running for a little over 4 years now, generic video cam but very low light.  It's lost nearly all color image capabilities now and there is a large loss of detail happening from the original image taken by EvoCam and after the text is added by WC.  It's in free mode at the moment, so I get to move it anywhere I want till March, then it's back to cloud watching.

Doc
Take care and have fun!  Slainte Mah!

elagache

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Very clever Reinhard!! (Re: "Homemade" Webcam)
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2013, 11:16:44 PM »
Hi Reinhard and WeatherCat fans,

Hmm, I was wondering what you were doing with this gphoto2 software.  This is a really neat way to get much better picture quality than the cheapy webcams you can get from companies like Logitech.  I'm not sure I want to go this route, but it is tempting!

Very cool!!  8)

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

wurzelmac

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2013, 05:18:37 PM »
may have give complete details on how it is all done
Hi Randall, if I get the time and my english is good enough, I will try to give more details.  :)

Looks well done, do you have a heater in the housing for really cold nights?  I'll be interested in looking at any dark sky images you get from it.
Hi Doc, no heater in the housing - this nights we have outdoor temperatures below -10?C and no problem occurred so far. The charging device gets very warm. Hopefully this is enough heating!  :) I will take a look at the night-shots and provide you with a photo, if it is good enough. I will provide daily movies on my website, too (photo taken every 5 minutes from 0:00 to 24:00).

Hmm, I was wondering what you were doing with this gphoto2 software.
Hi Edouard, gphoto2 is a software that can only be accessed via Terminal. gphoto2 is the program that captures the pictures, so without this tool I will be unable to access the camera.  :) But, as said yesterday, those scripts are all done by my son. I am not so familiar with this stuff.  :-[ ??? ;D
Reinhard


Randall75

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2013, 07:52:39 PM »
Hi Reinhard


 Thanks for the reply
and so did you not like the Logitec Web cam I think thats what you use to use thats what I been looking at


thanks


 [cheers1]

wurzelmac

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2013, 09:25:00 PM »
Hi Randall,
I did like the Logitech Vision Pro very much for about nearly 4 years, but I want to go a step further.  :) The Logitech offers a 2 Megapixel sensor with 1600x1200 picture size maximum. The Canon offers 5 Megapixel at maximum size of 2592x1944.

Cheers,
Reinhard
Reinhard


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Thanks for sharing (Re: "Homemade" Webcam)
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2013, 10:54:05 PM »
Hi Reinhard and WeatherCat fans,

I suspect most of us will stick to a USB webcam for the most popular of reasons - laziness!!  :-[

However, if you've got an old camera that could be used for this, it could save you a few bucks and certainly compact cameras have better focus and other features.  So I would expect a few others will follow in your footsteps Reinhard.  So thanks for sharing!!  [tup]

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2013, 11:27:45 PM »
Nice job (as always) Reinhard - guess I'll have to add support for resolutions higher than 1600*1200 now  [lol2] How big are the images you get out of it?

wurzelmac

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2013, 06:51:08 AM »
At the moment I take pictures with 2592x1944 resolution - but I plan to upgrade to a Powershot G7, then they will be 3.648 x 2.736  [woohoo]. The G7 does have a much more ISO range... Oh well, it's never enough  8) ;D
Reinhard


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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #10 on: June 11, 2016, 10:36:36 AM »
Hi Reinhard,
We emailed last year about using a Powershot as webcam. I have the A40, which I think will work.  Have you written any more about using gphoto2 etc for this? I am a bit afraid of getting in over my computer-ability head.  I have a great alpine view here and would like to improve my webcam, although my logitech is doing pretty well.
Hope all is well, Irving

wurzelmac

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2016, 08:46:05 PM »
Hello Irving,
no, I have not written anything - sorry for that. I really will take some time and write down some basic instructions (yes - very basic instructions) to get a remote photo camera running on a Mac using gphoto.
So far all fine here, hope the same for you!
Cheers,
Reinhard


wurzelmac

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #12 on: June 12, 2016, 11:45:27 AM »
Hello Irving,

again me. Here I found a good, detailed set of instructions to get your DSLR running on your Mac:
http://photolifetoys.blogspot.co.at/2012/08/control-your-camera-with-gphoto2-via.html

Hope this sheds some light into this business.  :)

Cheers,
Reinhard


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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #13 on: June 12, 2016, 04:37:31 PM »
Hi Reinhard,

This blog on gphoto you cited seems very useful. It offers a gphoto timelapse app that I downloaded and tried but it did not work, only gave a message that I am attaching. I am afraid though that figuring this out will take too much of your time. Probably this whole thing is over my programming head too. A shame since I have the camera and a good view.

Irving

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Re: "Homemade" Webcam
« Reply #14 on: June 13, 2016, 05:22:35 AM »
Hello Irving,

can you sent me the script, please? I'll take a look!
Reinhard