A good friend of mine has a small security problem which wouldn't justify a full-blown security or video system. He has a Canon G9 that he'd like to set up in his house, pointing at the entrance to his property and to take a photo whenever someone crosses a certain line. He's asked me if I could give him any help (he's basically camera illiterate). Personally I have several DSLR's and I also have a G11.
Anyway, can someone give me any suggestions about where to look for some kind of triggering device and how to put all this together. Time-lapse shooting (as with Breeze's PSRemote for example) isn't going to work here as it might be days before someone crossed that line. And then again the time-lapse shot might not be timed correctly so as to show the intruder either.
What we'd need would be some sort of IR light beam gadget that could be placed in the bushes on either side of his driveway for example, which when the beam is broken would send a signal (how?) to the camera to take a photo.
The camera would be in his house, about 40-50 feet (I'm guessing) from the trigger in the driveway. Getting a wire from the trigger to the camera isn't a problem. (I've also got a bunch of Pocket Wizards which I could lend him for a short period of time.)
Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
A couple of Arduinos for the micro controller + Xbees if you want the trigger to be wireless. You'd also need a power source for these as well as for a laser if you want to do a beam trip. A signal wire that long probably has problems as well.
You'd want a power adapter for the G9. And than you have to think about the failure rate for a G9 always on.
OMG, lets go grab a couple of arduino controllers.
haha that is a horribly inconvenient option.
Look on B&H, you can probably get a simple little CCD surv system for much cheaper than the above suggestion.
You know, rather than trying to jury rig something I'd suggest you just get a motion sensor based camera for a couple hundred and then just sell it when you are done. They make them for game hunters, some of them even have built in IR illumination if you need shots in darkness. I bet if you bought one used and then sold it when you were done you'd be out $25 tops and won't waste a bunch of time with things that don't quite work.
Thanks very much for your suggestion, Ken. I'll check into that. But my first thought is that the camera and the sensor would probably be combined and my friend is unlikely to want to leave the unit where it could be stolen.
kwalsh wrote:
You know, rather than trying to jury rig something I'd suggest you just get a motion sensor based camera for a couple hundred and then just sell it when you are done. They make them for game hunters, some of them even have built in IR illumination if you need shots in darkness. I bet if you bought one used and then sold it when you were done you'd be out $25 tops and won't waste a bunch of time with things that don't quite work.
ISO1600 wrote:
OMG, lets go grab a couple of arduino controllers.
haha that is a horribly inconvenient option.
Look on B&H, you can probably get a simple little CCD surv system for much cheaper than the above suggestion.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check out arduino controllers, but as you (and others) suggested, my friend may be better off just buying something cheap. But it's got to have recording capabilities, not just live monitoring. And at least up here in Canada, I suspect (I admit I know rather little about the subject) that might cost $1,000 and up.
That'll teach me for opening my big mouth... I said to him why don't you just rig up your G9 to take a photo when someone comes down your driveway and he said "How?".
I have a DVR security camera system at my office and I'm really not happy with the 640x480 resolution I get from each camera so I actually thought if he could trigger his G9 when someone came down the driveway, he'd get a much higher quality image than he could get from a $1-2,000 DVR system anyway and in his particular need, it might even be a better solution. I guess that would be a lot more difficult than I'd imagined.
there is the starting point in this search. This stuff is cheap.
Yes, it's surprisingly cheap, but it doesn't record so it won't work for him. The problems he's having only happen during the day when he and his wife are away... not on weekends or evenings when they're home.
I'm just going to tell my friend to hire a professional or buy a real surveillance system if he wants to do anything.
As mentioned earlier you could use a Game Camera setup, but the camera, sensor and strobe would be one unit. These are designed to be hidden, and if worried about it being stolen, mount high enough to require a ladder to access.
