My webcam Snapshot

To get things started, here is a picture from my webcam of a sunset in NorCal.

What camera are you using?

Really slick setup!

Wow, Dan, that’s really neat! :smiley:

No idea how it works, but I like it! :wink:

–Tim

Here mine from a Toshiba IK-WB11A PTZ network camera http://www.lesdiefenbach.org/images/lakecam/cam_1.jpg

You can see live streaming video from http://www.dafuser.dyndns.org/

You can also see the last 48 hours in pictures taken every 5 minutes from http://www.dafuser.dyndns.org:81

I use a Canon VB-C50iR setup in a dome enclosure mounted on a mast above my roof.

Thanks for the comments.

Gee, they’re pricey little buggers, aren’t they ?

Yes they are…the only other cam I considered at the time I purchased was the Stardot. It also comes with sticker-shock. I still haven’t found anything that compares with the Canon for a p/t/z cam. The optical zoom is amazing.

From what I could see with the specs, it really does look like a great little camera, but looking at the USA price, I dare not even think what it would cost to buy one over here !

The fact that it has optical zoom, rather than digital zoom is a real bonus.

Dan, you have a picture showing the camera setup and placement.

I’ve considered one of these for a while … I’ve got some spare change shaking loose …

Spare change breaking loose Sent it over here I take Paypal :lol: :lol:
That Camera alittle high for me
Coyote

Spare change?? #-o


Was just kidding…

Wow… that suckers up there a bit. I was figuring 5 - 10ft above the house at best.

I’m a bit surprised to see your ISS up there though. Do you use your chimmy? I would think that and the roof would effect your readings a bit.

Yes, it is mounted to the chimney. Was the best I could do to get the anemometer up away from most of the tree line. I wasn’t going to put the ISS up there, and I bought a transmitter for the anemometer, but in the end decided to try with everything mounted on the mast. I think the FARS does a good job of not allowing the roof to affect the temps.

I am going to move everything…I am looking at 40ft telescoping masts right now. My ISP wants to move my wireless connection to a different source antenna and I don’t have a clear line-of-sight from the house (the webcam can see the tower ok). So I think I am going to bite the bullet and get a real mast to mount everything on. I am still not happy with my wind readings, just to many tall tress blocking the air so I have to do something…

The Canon webcam is not cheap…the only competition that I know of is the Stardot (and it doesn’t have p/t/z). The Canon is an amazing camera with great picture quality, an optical (and digital) zoom, p/t/z, and a built-in webserver. The dome supplies power for the webcam and also contains a heater/blower. The dome wasn’t cheap either, but being able to run 24VAC instead of 115VAC makes it alot nicer (I used 4-strand wire used for yard water-sprinkler setups). The dome has the electronics to convert the 24VAC to 9VDC the camera needs.

If I had it to do over I wouldn’t buy the inverted webcam…I would get the desktop version and then a dome that would allow the webcam to look up. My setup is great for looking down, a security camera type setup. I think a weather-cam should be able to look up towards the sky and clouds.

SWMBO says I have to disable the webcams ability to look at the pool so I will be working on that this afternoon #-o

Either that or require a credit card :lol:

I’ve wondered about that, but I’m concerned that the dome will get very dirty which would mean lots of climbing to polish it. I’ve assumed downward facing domes work because most things falling down fall past them and don’t get on the glass. Has anyone got any experience of an upward facing dome and how easy it is to keep clean?

How dirty depends a lot on the environment, how dirty do your windows get? Here the answer is very dirty, due to salt fog, silica dust, and wood smoke. How easy depends mostly on access, ie how you install it (I’ve been tempted to run a 1/4" tube up the anemometer mast so I can connect a hose and flush my solar sensor without taking it down). Another factor is how much does a dirt film on the dome affect the image, and that depends somewhat on the optics of the camera. Hopefully the dome is nowhere near in focus and anything short of a seagull strike won’t have much effect on the image quality.

You can tilt the dome upwards on the opposite side of the pool so the camera never gets to see the pool and also you will be able to see more sky this way. But then again depends what direction it’ll be facing when it looks up, if it’s in the path of the sun it won’t like it much.

If you mount it within easy reach you can keep it clean ok, the question is how dirt it will get? and how often it’ll need cleaning? that you can find out very easy by looking at your car’s wind shield, also all domes are plastic and they attract a lot of dust. So keep in mind that no camera can be faced in direct sight of the sun if you are talking about a PTZ camera in a dome facing upwards.
Peter

After reading the manual and playing around with it yesterday I think my best option is to not allow the camera to look down. I had hoped I could exclude just the pool area, but the camera controls work the other way, ie. I have to tell it what area’s it can see. So I will be making a config that doesn’t allow the camera to look down past a certain angle. The problem is it will affect all 340

As I’m about 1.5 miles inland from the sea with a prevailing wind off the sea, we get a lot of salt deposited when it’s windy. If I was putting a camera up to get a good all-round view then it would have to be in an inaccessible location :frowning:

Dan

I think it would be easy to put a piece of tape or paint a dot on the dome to block out the pool view, then to move it. A very small dot close to the lens will block a large area. Joe