Cheap-ish security camera setup...

mrgreen4242

1

« on: 29 / April / 2009, 22:06:33 »

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I'd like to get a couple/few cheap cameras that I can use the CHDK firmware to trigger photos using motion detection to snap pictures of some neighborhood kids who are causing some mischief around my house (turning on my sprinklers, leaving beer cans in the back yard, etc).

Basically, the things I need to do are:
1) take a photo in an automatic mode (auto exposure and autofocus) when motion is detected.
1a) it would be nice to have a threshold for how much motion so a stray cat or the tree waving in the wind doesn't set it off, but I'm willing to sort through photos if that's not an option.
1b) not take a photo every 100ms if someone is moving around outside - having a timer that forced a few seconds wait time between shots would be nice, too.
2) run off an AC adapter so I can plug it into an outlet by a window and let it set for a few days.
3) be the cheapest camera that will work for this type of thing. I'll end up with at least two or three of these.

Any suggestions???

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RaduP

926

Re: Cheap-ish security camera setup...

« Reply #1 on: 30 / April / 2009, 01:33:23 »

Any camera that supports CHDK can do that. There is a script that does motion detection, and you can select how sensitive to be. Not sure if you can set the interval to wait before taking a picture again, but if you know some basic programming it should be relatively easy to do it.
A good camera is A570 IS, it's something like 150 bucks or less.

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fudgey

1705
a570is

Re: Cheap-ish security camera setup...

« Reply #2 on: 08 / May / 2009, 13:21:59 »

Yep, any cam can do that. My a570is often crashes in MD shooting if I use flash, though (and it's an obsolete model, you're lucky if you can find one new). You may want to use burst mode or timer mode to get more than one shot each time.

Search the forum for my MDFB script and set it in the "slow" mode with a large trigger delay parameter to make MD not react for as long as you like after taking a shot.

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