Webcam .... Advice and Recommendations

[geoffw]

I want to set up a webcam to show the sky looking south from my weather station.

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. For example if i spend £7.99 on a 1.3mp camera from Tesco and point it out of the window, would I be disappointed with its output? Or, should i spend £50 on an expensive 2.0mp fancy camera? Or, go for an external all-weather jobby?

Seriously, comments on the trials and pitfalls of getting and setting up a reliable camera with a good colour image output would be appreciated.

[hills]

I used one of these: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/digit ... px?pid=008

and mounted it in one of these: http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.as ... BCATID=582

and welded up an adjustable stand to mount it on. There is a picture on my website under "sensors" and during daylight hours you can see the webcam image here: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~storerfa ... ebcam.html or press the replay last 1 or 24 hours to see the previous images.

I also use Yawcam to collect the images and imbed the weather conditions on each image and xml/swf slideshow to replay old images. Yawcam also has motion detection, which with its inbuilt scheduler, I turn on every night and have caught some lightning shots you can see here: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~storerfa ... motion.php

The webcam has been great. It has auto focus (which I have turned off) auto white balance and auto exposure and works fine on the end of a 10m usb extension cable. I did initially try a cheaper webcam, but the quality was terrible and without auto exposure it was too glary in full sunlight and really dim when cloudy.

EDIT: Oh and one tip, there is a blue LED on the front of the camera. I had to put black tape over that or it reflected of the front of the housing.

[Gina]

I bought my webcam from Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=228786 a smidgen under £20. I chose this one for its high sensitivity with auto exposure and white balance plus size and price. It's working at 640x480 res. Live weathercam image can be seen here :- http://ginad.org.uk/weather/Webcam.html(when it's working!).

I made my own weatherproof housing with a perspex window glued over a hole in the front for the lens. It is positioned on the outside wall under the eaves where it gets some protection from the weather. Though in the rain with a SW gale, some water does get on the lens window.

EDIT - Later - Please note that since originally writing this post I have changed webcam to the Microsoft one that Phil (hills) uses. See my posts later in this thread for details of housing and mounting.

[geoffw]

Thank to both of you. Food for thought ....... Looks like I ditch the cheap webcam idea, and look for something that can function in an external housing.

Anyone using a wireless webcam?

[Gina]

Another point, I forgot to mention - the cheap ones tend to be fixed focus and since webcams are designed to focus on a person in front of a computer, fixed focus ones won't focus at distance. Choose one with manual focus.

[geoffw]

Gena

I'm really impressed by the output from Hill's Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD USB Webcam, though it is rather expensive. Maplin's also do the housing he recommends.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~storerfa ... ebcam.html

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?Tab ... &U=Strat15

[Gina]

That's fine Geoff I agree his setup is a lot better than mine and seems a great system as long as you can afford it. I'm afraid I go for the cheapest option that will work well enough It generally pays to go for the best you can afford.

EDIT... Just checked this webcam on Amazon.co.uk and they have them at £42 which isn't that way out I'm tempted, I have to say! One query though is whether it will work with Linux, ie. without special driver, which the cheaper one I've got ATM will do. Biggest disappointment with mine was that it wouldn't work at the resolution they quoted. I would like better than VGA!

[hills]

I'm sending my images to the webpage with 60% image quality to save time ftping them. It can get a lot better image than that (well 40% better anyway )

Gina, I do have a Fedora 12 PC set up, but unfortunately my 10M USB cable won't reach it. I'm thinking of getting a second wecam to use for security so if I do I'll test it on Linux for you first.

[Gina]

Thank you Phil That would be very helpful I have to say, you're webcam display, with the time-lapse over the last 24 hrs is great. It's the sort of thing I have been thinking of doing myself.

[hills]

Thanks Gina, I'd love to take the credit, but I just copied what Kevin at TNETweather did. The instructions are on his web page.

[Hillbilly]

Hi Geoff,

I needed a wireless camera because of chosen location and something reliable because we may be away for long periods of time. That bumped the price up, but we had been thinking of trialling something for some time for security too, so went for it. After much research and trawling of reviews, I went for the Y-Cam. I chose the white version without night IR.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... ra&x=0&y=0

I've been very happy with it. Like Hills, I use Yawcam software to drive it, primarily because it has a scheduling facility for the ftp upload, so saves a bit of bandwidth and I can replace the image with a night time image when it gets dark. I too ftp an image at about 60% quality, resulting in a pretty good, decent sized picture which is usually under 30k.

The Y-Cam has a facility to switch the led's off, which is useful, we too had reflection off our window. The only problem I had was when our windows were coated in a film of volcanic ash , but a quick clean and we were back in business. There is an option to buy an external case, should we decide to locate outside.

It's run well so far (4 months to date). Yawcam hasn't been 100% stable, I had a few problems with the scheduling, which seemed to tie itself in a knot when image production, ftp and file creation were all scheduled to start at the same time. I now stagger these and it has been good since then.

If you click the thumbnail on my home page you can see the image.

[geoffw]

Thanks for your comments Helen.........

I am really impressed by your weather website!

[Hillbilly]

Many thanks Geoff

[Gina]

I took the plunge and bought the Microsoft webcam from Amazon I'm very pleased to confirm that it works with Linux I haven't explored it's full resolution yet - just running my standard software set to 640 x 480. What I can say is that, even at VGA res., it's much clearer than the old one which cost just under half the price. It's a far superior camera certainly worth more than twice the other one! It's also a wider angle lens than the other one giving wider coverage for the same conditions/settings.

I'll report later when I've had time to experiment more.

[Gina]

Been having a good "play" but not really any further ahead. Booted into Windows XP (Pro) and installed the supplied software - took ages but wasn't bothered, just did other things while it got on with it :lol That allowed me to preview the HD image though not with the relevant display res - there seemed to be no way to change the window size - no push/pull bars on the edges or Max button. It gave a widescreen image about 600 pixels wide. I couldn't find any FTP function in the supplied software so I presume it works with MSN Messenger or whatever for use as a standard webcam. OTOH conferencing isn't the only use for webcams, so I don't know.

I then downloaded and installed Yawcam and got that working after a bit of a fiddle However, I couldn't see how to alter the image resolution in that and I currently have it running at 640x480, same as Linux webcam. Now I know some members here have this webcam and/or Yawcam running at higher res... any suggestions, please?

EDIT... And how did you turn off auto-focus, Phil ? Mine seems to like hunting for focus every now and then.