What are good webcams?

[oklaslim]

I am thinking of putting a weather cam up, and would like to know what works fairly good for someone on a fixed income. Need to be budget minded.

[ironeagleuk]

I really think it depends on your setup and the budget you have.

Where do you want to put it?
How will it be connected to your PC?


I bought a "cheap" tilt and pan IP camera from Ebay for £40.
Using Yawcam it uploads a pic using motion detection, and also provides a time limited live stream.

Here's a time lapse video I created from the images it stored locally the other day: http://www.ironeagleuk.co.uk/cumulus/timelapse.html
You have to wait a minute or 2 before the sunrises though....I put too much night time footage on it lol

[SJG1976]

Like the Video IroneagleUk
(Are you using YawCam)

And how do you get the Temp to Display, I've still not worked that part out!!

Very Good....

I'm using a Microsoft LifecamHD.

For Comparison my Timelapse is here
http://www.cm2weather.co.uk/timelapse.htm
And Live WebCam here

http://www.cm2weather.co.uk/webcam.htm

At the moment it's inside, and I'm hoping to mount it outside, and may add some polarising film to make the sky look better.

But when selecting a WebCam bear in mind, where your putting it, and what you want to see. In hindsight I probably would have gone with an IP Camera, as making up long USB Leads isn't very much fun, and is somewhat limited by distance.

[RayProudfoot]

I am thinking of putting a weather cam up, and would like to know what works fairly good for someone on a fixed income. Need to be budget minded.

Wireless IP cameras are suited to weather webcams because of their ease of setting up and can be located further away from a PC. Although this is from a UK company you may be able to source one in the US and probably for a lower price than UKP200 (USD300). Wireless 'n' is ideal.

http://www.use-ip.co.uk/outdoor-ip-came ... amera.html

[ironeagleuk]

Like the Video IroneagleUk
(Are you using YawCam)

And how do you get the Temp to Display, I've still not worked that part out!!

Very Good....

Thanks....yes I am using Yawcam
To get the Cumulus values to appear, I followed the instructions in this thread: https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.p ... am&start=0

I'm using a Microsoft LifecamHD.

For Comparison my Timelapse is here
http://www.cm2weather.co.uk/timelapse.htm
And Live WebCam here

http://www.cm2weather.co.uk/webcam.htm

At the moment it's inside, and I'm hoping to mount it outside, and may add some polarising film to make the sky look better.

I like that....wish I had some wildlife apart from the occaisional seagull....how often do you take a pic?
Did you make the timelapse yourself through Yawcam, or have you got an automated way of doing it?

[SJG1976]

I've currently got mine to take a snap every 30 seconds between 06:00 anf 17:59
They all get saved into a folder called

C:\WebCamImages\{date}\{tstamp}.jpg

Then at the end of the day I make the film from them at 15fps.
Did try a higher quality but the files were too large and it didnt make the film.

Thanks for the link, just made the changes and that looks much better!

[Gina]

My main weather cam is an MS LifeCam Cinema housed in a sealed plastic box with a circular polarising filter glued over a hole in the end as an optical window. Further rain protection is provided by a plastic milk bottle cut to shape to provide a hood. The CPF increases the contrast of the sky and improves the image as well as making an excellent optical window. I have it running at 1280x800 resolution and uploading to my weather web site every 20secs using YawCam. I've been using it to show the construction of my observatory over the last year as well as for weather observations. Turned it from pointing south to SE so fellow astronomers could watch the build. This is an excellent webcam only surpassed by the newer Studio version which has a resolution of 1960x1080 (full HD). I have just bought the Studio version for astro-photography but I did try it out before butchering it and was very impressed with the display on my 1960x1080 monitor in full screen mode.

Link to the full resolution weather cam image here :- http://ginad.org.uk/weathergd/Webcam-big.html