From what I understand, there are only a handful of cameras that can be controlled by a computer. The software I am using is called VM95. It is free, and can be found here: http://www.video-monitoring.com/hobbyist.htm
I have only been using it for about a week, but I am really happy with it. It has had no problems, and the weather station is only a 800 MHz Pentium III, running WD, VM95, and the Salsas.
I’ve got my old Canon Pro90-IS camera sitting around here doing nothing much at all, and I’ve thought that I should extract my digit and chase up this software and see if I can get it to work with my camera, as I’ve already got the Salsa’s here to do the rest.
I’ve been to steves-digicams quite a few times but nerve looked at the software. Both you found look like they’ll do what I want. IF I can find the serial to video cable that came with the camera. #-o
I still think this is the way I should go with my webcam. What power source to you use for the camera? Do you have to replace batteries every day, etc? Is is the connection to the computer usb or firewire?
I’m connecting it to the PC using a standard USB cable. I purchased a 6 volt power supply from Radio Shack so I do not need to run it off batteries. The camera I am using has a DC input, so it was quite easy.
The software is quite easy, but not very user friendly, so it will take you a bit of time to figure it out. I got it working the way I wanted in just a few hours playing around.
I’m surprised more people are not using these. I really love the quality in comparison to the standard web cam.
This is a neat idea. But it got me thinking…#-o I wonder how long a digital camera would last being on 24/7? Unless a person would turn it off (or have a timmer on it) like…when it got dark…Like I said I am just thinking…
Well this thread should make all the people on ebay with broken cameras happy.
No video capture card is required. That software is designed to work with many types of cameras, including video cameras, which is why the documentation may talk about capture cards.
As far as the reliability of the camera: I was concerned about that too, but there are a few sites running these, 24/7. Somewhere, I read of one that has hit a million images. My camera does make a slight “click” sound every minute, so I do think something mechanical is happening inside. I do have mine set for auto exposure. I may need to change that to aperture priority. The only mechanical movement might be the adjustment of the aperture.
You do NOT want to turn the camera off at night, now that you are still able to get images at night! Check out my night time lapse. You can see cloud movements. (I do need to get that camera pointing up soon).
Amazing night video and fun to watch the street and your neighbor’s driveway get covered with snow. Now I know what my next project is and EBay here I come. Thanks for bringing this to us. - Jim
Look at reply #12 above. Steve’s Digicam has listing for quite a few programs that support PC control of cameras. Both links that Niko posted are shareware but they support quite a few Olympus cameras. On eBay there is a Olympus store that has quite a few cameras for sale.