Good move, except that i would have bought a 1/8" plug from an electronics parts store and saved my cable.
The cable that came with the S90 was a goofy bastardization of miniUSB for its composite AV. We bought this camera solely for the purpose of this project so I didn't mind sacrificing the cable.
Will you run the camera off AC power or a big external battery? I've been thinking I might want a big battery for a long project of some sort, and that if properly mounted, it would also stabilize my tripod. The more mass, the better, in the tripod biz, as long as it's rigidly mounted near the camera.
This is mounted in the window in an out-of-the-way corner of the third-floor of a nearby building with a bird's eye view of the project. The mount is an auto suction-cup mount that sticks right to the window. It's quite firm and sturdy, both the adjustable neck for the mount as well as the suction cup itself. In fact the suction cup has a lever you flip to engage it. It's not going anywhere. Since it's indoors, it's on AC power 24/7. I will install a UPS in the next week or so to ensure uninturrupted power to it. That way, so long as the hardware doesn't fail and the script doesn't crash, it will go indefinitely.
I read somewhere -- maybe in this forum? -- that the point & shoot camera shutters are designed to last 10,000+ shots. 60 weeks of shooting a frame every five minutes adds up to about 12 times that life. Are these cameras tougher than in previous generations, or are you expecting that keeping it in a sheltered, vibration-free environment will help extend its life?
In my experience it's been quite the opposite. Some entry-level DSLR cameras can be limited to 50,000 shutter actuations (newer ones rated for 100,000 typically) but the P&S seem to go much further than that.
I'd refer you to
This part of the wiki. From the link:
Word of Warning: If you are running off of an AC power-supply and going to set the endless-repeat flag do so at your own risk. All Canon manuals warn against allowing their cameras to run for many hours or days at a time. Having said that, the shutter mechanism on SLR cameras is typically reported as lasting at least 100,000 images. In field tests, we've run a Canon A-series camera for more than 4 months taking 2 pictures a minute without any apparent harm to the camera (more than 300,000 images).
I'm hoping that this will hold out for the duration of my project. (96 photos a day, 5 days a week, 60 weeks = 28,800 snaps). The ultra-long duration of this project is why I want everything on the camera powered down as much as possible so it minimizes not only wear and tear on individual components (LCD for example) but also minimizes heat and things like that.
