Introducing FauquierCam.com
Over the holidays while at my parents place I started a project. I wanted to mount a camera in their yard, have it take pictures, and upload them to the Internet. Basically I wanted to start a webcam.
Before heading back to my parents place, I did some last minute shopping on craigslist and was able to get an old Canon A75 camera. In it’s day it was a decent camera, but now at only 3mp not many people would want it. So I was able to get it for a cheap $20.
Next up I was able to get a mini Compaq computer that would control the camera. My friend Oliver helped me out with getting it, and I thank him profusely for it. With these two items, a network cable, and a bit of programing I was able to setup Fauquier Cam.
So how does it work? I will get into the technical details in another post, but here is the brief overview. The camera is mounted outside on one of our sheds. It is connected via USB to the Compaq computer which sits inside the shed, as well to an ac adapter cord. The computer sits inside the shed running Ubuntu Linux, and controls the camera via the usb cable, and the wonderful Linux application GPhoto 2. So I have a script setup that runs every 2 minutes from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset. The script tells the camera to take a picture, then downloads the picture to the Compaq computer. After the image is downloaded to the Compaq it proceeds to upload the image to my webserver.
Once I have the image on my webserver, I resize it to multiple sizes, insert it into a database, then upload each size to Amazon S3 for storage and hosting. OK I can see your eyes glazing over, so I will leave the rest of this for the technical overview.
So what am I getting at? Well basically that if you browse to www.fauquiercam.com you will be able to see an up to date photo from my parents backyard. Greenhouse? check. Garden? check. New cabin my brother is building? check. Scenic pasture and mountains in the background? check. Yup you get it all. I have even included an archives section so you can go back and view photos from past days. Like January 2nd, when my parents made a snowman and a sign for the camera.
This is all just a start. Up next is compiling time lapse videos of every day and adding them to the site. Then as content gets built up (like lets say a years worth) I will do some time lapses of the seasons changing. Lets hope the Canon A75 stays reliable!
Well I hope you all enjoy this little glimpse into my parents backyard and a view of the weather in the small Kootenay town of Fauquier.
14 comments
Neat! I am doing something similar to this, except that it is part of my ongoing ‘weather cam’ project. What surprised me a bit by your project is that it looks like your camera is exposed to the elements (snow, at least!). How it is possible that the wind, rain, snow, temperatures hasn’t damaged or destroyed your camera?
I put the camera under neath the eaves of the shed, so it is relatively well protected. It also has good tree protection so I don’t think the wind will be much problem. With that said a few weeks after I left my parents place something stopped working with the camera, so on my next visit back I will need to fix it. What did you use for your temperature and humidity readings?
Well, my weather page mentions the ‘WX200′, but doesn’t elaborate a lot
It is a discontinued weather station that used to be offered by Radio Shack. At the time, it was the least expensive equipment that I could find — and fortunately it was compatible with software for the Linux operating system. I am pleased that it still works!
Right now, I have an old digital camera (as you know, great resolution!) and a few webcams pointing out various windows of my house — but it would be great to put them out into the yard as well. Ideally, I would like an outdoor/weatherproof, wireless, hi-res, pan/tilt camera for under $200 — but there ain’t no such thing
I am looking at outdoor IP cameras right now (i.e. Axis, Y-Cam, etc) but even the cheapest ones are very expensive — at least for me and my purposes.
That’s cool!
I had bought online a little USB temperature gauge, however haven’t had time to install it. I hope to fix things up on my next visit to my parents and try and get the temperature tester going.
Are you using gphoto as well to take the photos? How often do you take a new one?
Yep, gphoto2 for the camera, and M-JPEG streamer for the webcam. I am simply using ‘cron’ for the scheduler, so it is running at the max interval rate of 1/minute that way. I think for ‘smooth’ timelapse of shadows and sun, it would have to be quicker than this
My frustration has been that my camera does NOT work with gphoto2 on my tiny NSLU2 computers — which was my original intent
interesting. Have you had any issue with your camera using it via cron at such a high interval rate? I am trying to diagnose what happened to my setup, and wondering if I might have burnt out the camera. However if you are running at such a high rate I am almost thinking now it is the linux box.
As a wild guess, the camera takes/saves a pic in about 5 seconds and USB2 allows it to be uploaded in another 5 seconds, so only doing this once per minute is easy for the camera. I was worried that after running it 24×7 for *years* that it would eventually burn out, but it keeps on ticking! Apparently a DLSR *would* have its shutter mechanism wear out from doing this.
Could/did you not make your remote PC/camera accessible (i.e. SSH)? That would tell you if the PC was down, or just the camera (?).
I did yes. However I am pretty positive the machine went down. It is tough not being on location to debug the issue.
Well, let us know what ultimately was the source of the problem, since we are now quite curious! Maybe your parents can attempt a reboot of the computer in the meantime?
Hey, I just noticed that the images from your webcam appear to be failing in some sort of strange and beautiful way
Ha yes! I think the sensor on the camera is slowly dying. I am going to do a timelapse of today, and see how that purple tinge looks in video form!
[...] the beginning of this year I announced the launch of a webcam I had setup at my parents house in the Kootenays. In the announcement I talked briefly how the [...]
Looks like you moved the camera inside and away from the harsh elements? Good idea, but internal reflections are a nuisance — I set up my camera so the lens was right against the window glass, and surrounded by a sheet of black construction paper — from which I had cut a hole the same size as the camera lens. Helped a lot!
Yeah, I would have preferred to keep it where it was but the plug links I was using to get Internet into my fathers shed were not working very well. I may move it back there later. The outside exposure actually didn’t affect things all that much.
If I don’t move it back to it’s previous location I will have to look into what you have done to fix the window glare.
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