Photographs by a remote divice

[Steinninn]

Hi. How can I connect a controler to a camera that tells it to take pictures at a serten time. Does it change by model or is it mostly the same method. USB?

In my case I want to connect it with a car that tells it to take a picture every 10 meters.

 

[thenikonguy]

i know you can set them by time intervals (through USB/computer) but i don't think you can make it take a pic every 10 meters.. as it wouldnt have any way of measuring distance..

 

[KmH]

i know you can set them by time intervals (through USB/computer) but i don't think you can make it take a pic every 10 meters.. as it wouldnt have any way of measuring distance..

speed/time=distance. If the car is moving at x speed every x secs would equal 10 meters. If you were moving at any appreciable speed you'd need a special camera. The limiting factor for a DSLR will be the buffer write speed, I think.

 

[Steinninn]

The thing is that the car will not always be driving at the same speed because it's going trough villages and towns. I have a guy that can let the car tell the computer when there are 10 meters passed, but how can the computer tell the camera to take a picture.

 

[Stosh]

Depends on camera. What do you have? Recent Canon DSLRs come with computer control software that allows you to set many features and take pictures without ever touching the camera via USB. Some older cameras used the computer's serial port. Some cameras were not capable of computer control.

 

[KmH]

The thing is that the car will not always be driving at the same speed because it's going trough villages and towns. I have a guy that can let the car tell the computer when there are 10 meters passed, but how can the computer tell the camera to take a picture.

Yes, that's what computer programs are for. The program calculates the time interval, adjusted for the speed, and triggers the camera.

Using 10 meters as approximately equivelent to 30 feet: At 60 mph the camera would need to take 176 images every minute or 2.9 images per second. It would be 1/2 that at 30 mph. It would be 1/4 that at 15 mph.

 

[mishele]

How would the computer know your speed at any given moment?

 

[UUilliam]

There is an thing you can by that basically sits at the wheels and calculates the rotations that the tire does (taxi's use them to generate how much money you owe them.) basically it knows the size of the tire therefore every 1 rotation = length of tire
and it keeps calculating until it gets to 10m then restarts (or keeps going the takes a pic at 20m then 30m then 40m etc..

 

[Steinninn]

The taxi idea is cool.

Again, there's no use calculating the frames per second since I would be driving at the same speed all the time.

Do you know of a program for Canon EOS 400D that controls when it takes pictures.

Is it possible to store GPS potitions with the picture? Has anyone done something like that before. If I do that I can just take 24 frames per second and then select one picture in post production every 10 meters from the GPS information. Would take some time but might work.

 

[JerryPH]

At 60 mph the camera would need to take 176 images every minute or 2.9 images per second. It would be 1/2 that at 30 mph. It would be 1/4 that at 15 mph.

By the 1/2 mile mark most camera buffers would be filled... unless one is driving way less than 60mph, that is also another factor to consider.

 

[tirediron]

Have you looked into incorporating GPS into this in any way?

 

[Steinninn]

Have you looked into incorporating GPS into this in any way?

I've thought about it, any ideas?

 

[tirediron]

Have you looked into incorporating GPS into this in any way?

I've thought about it, any ideas?

Find someone that can write an interface program which will read the NMEA output from the GPS and then trigger the tether software every 'X' distance.