Anyone Using a DSLR as a WebCam?

[bputney]

Even a good webcam is only so-so as a weather camera. An inexpensive DSLR can be focused a ways out instead of 3' and the optics are much better suited to taking a picture of the outdoors as appose to a person in a chair next to it.

Some DSLR's have USB ports and there is a way to snap a photo and download the image over the USB. I was wondering if anyone has done this using a DSLR and WeatherCat?

Bill

[wurzelmac]

Hi Bill,
my setup is using a Canon Bridge Cam (Powershot G5), but it would work with a DSLR, too. Look at this thread!
Cheers,
Reinhard

[Steve]

I'm not using a dSLR, but one of my web cameras is a Sony HandyCam video recorder. Unfortunately, it is about 15 years old, so has the  quality of an inexpensive web cam these days. I used it so that I could zoom in on my snow depth gauge.

www.avon-weather.com

[jackbel]

I'm using SparkoCam (not free - available at http://sparkosoft.com) for transforming my Canon 500D into webcam and broadcasting on ustream, so you can try that software.

[Steve]

But Sparkosoft is a Windows application, and likely not applicable here. And if I were going to run a windows session on my Mac to get an HD digital camera input, I'd use the highly rated SebecTech software with an inexpensive used Olympus SP-500UZ
http://sebectec.com/index.htm

Steve

[jackbel]

Never heard about SebecTech. Just looked at their site and it seems they support only one model of Olympus SP-500UZ? I guess this model isn't manufactured anymore and it isn't DSLR camera and the initial question was about DSLR. But SparkoCam works with almost all Canon DSLR cameras (based on models listed on their site).

[Steve]

That is correct. SebecTec only supports the one discontinued camera, but it is still easy to find. And again correct, while not a dSLR it does produce very high quality video.

By the way, welcome to the WeatherCat forum, and please excuse my previous post. I made a leap in judgement that a brand new member without any of the profile details making their first post on a Macintosh weather forum linking to a Windows application was most likely spam. I searched Google for SparkoCam, and couldn't find any reviews or information about it other than what is on the developer's page. And amongst the hundreds of links to download it, almost all were within the past couple of weeks. So you may understand my hasty judgement.

Steve

[Doc]

I tried this setup last year for about a week.  It worked.  I used my Canon DSLR (sureshot s5,I think)  It's been modified with an intervalometer software to take a picture every 4 seconds, then I used a WIFI box a friend loaned me, they are used to link to computers in a professional photography studio, each shot taken is automatically saved on the computer.  Once it was setup it was pretty easy to get WC to pull the picture off the folder that they image was being saved to.  It just wasn't practical for me, I still needed low light for night recording and the DSLR took way to long to take a pic in low light.  Also since my neighborhood is saturated with wifi now, it often would loose the wifi link and there would be no images for hours, it would reset itself automatically, but it just wasn't reliable. 

It all depends on how much you have to spend and the extent you want to go to to make it all work. 

Doc