Mount your cam outdoors, examples?

[stuartturrell]

I am looking to build some kind of shelter for a webcam to have outside, maybe on the side of a wall or something.

Has anyone got any pictures of their outdoor mounted camera's to help me become inspired?

Stuart

[Budgie]

Some marine grade plywood, 1"x1" square as internal supports, an old piece of glass mounted in a slot in the plywood and roofing felt. Cost nothing as I had it all in the garage, although it's now painted white to stop the glass from misting up when the Sun is on it.

[munrobaggins]

No pictures as mine is inside....but I believe very good use can be made of an outdoor halogen light fitting...just remove the internal lamp and place camera inside..

[stuartturrell]

i am worried about the glass.

One of the camera's that may end up in it has 6 infra red LED's. Will this make the camera see nothing but infrared (it reflecting off the glass)?

I like the look of the box, stripping out a outdoor light is a possibilty, but kind of restrictive.

[munrobaggins]

On some of the Security cameras with built in IR LEDs it is possible to shut them off....However, (I read somewhere)internal reflections can usually be avoided by having the camera lens close to the glass, or with a small shield placed over the LEDs if neccessary..

[stuartturrell]

i will need to play around with it i think.

I have to camera's to choose from.

1. A pan and tilt ethernet camera (with 6 infra RED LEDS), good thing about htis camera is it has a 2gb card to store the pictures on!
2. Logitech quickcam 5000 pro - we all know about those.

Will have to test them both out to weigh up the pro's and con's of each.
I mainly want it for the archieving of pictures from each day really. But will post online too.

[daveq]

i am worried about the glass.

I had a web cam in an outdoor fixture at two different times.  The first time I mounted the camera with the lens tight against the glass and the second time about an inch from the glass.  With the lens against the glass I had no reflection at all.  But when I mounted it away from the glass I did get such bad reflection that it was not usable.  It reflected the inside of the fixture but I believe that painting the inside of the fixture flat black may have helped but I didn't try that.

The fixture is very good for mounting as it is fairly easy to do and with the small openings/vents in the bottom I never had it fog up.

--Dave

[looney2ns]

Six IR LED's won't do much good anyway. Very limited distance.

[Tayac]

I had a problem in that my house in France has shutters at all windows so no chance to mount it inside looking out as the shutters are closed for long periods when I am away.  The house is an old stone one and I decided to mount the web cam in an " owl hole " in the barn ( you know the type of thing; they were made to allow owls to enter and catch mice which might eat crops stored there )  I suppose when the wind blows in a certain direction it could get wet but it's never going to get soaked.  Sometimes early mornings the image is slightly clouded when I suppose dew gets on the lens but it soon seems to clear.  It has worked for 5 months now no problem so I'm not sure whether it necessarily needs glass covering ( with associated reflection problems ) as long as it's not completely open to the weather.  Having said that I'll see if it's still working after the winter ! however this summer has been one of the wettest for many years.

Steve

[southfreo]

I've gone the Halogen approach and works a treat, Only time vision is obscured has been early morning condensation (which melts quickly enough here in Perth) and a Bird once managed to score a direct hit (which I had to clean off!)

You can see the setup @ http://members.iinet.net.au/~kevinbruton/thisstation.html

[BabyZ]

There are some pictures and a bit of a description of my Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 outdoor cam setup on my weather page here.

Complete with my patented anti-condensation device