Hi. I don’t like the ribbon cable that comes with the picamera so I’m looking at using a webcam instead. I currently have an old Trust spotlight pro webcam which worked right out of the box but it’s black and white and very blurry. Can anyone recommend a decent webcam that focuses itself and works well with Mycodo, is the logitech c270 any good?. or maybe I should buy a hdmi extension for a picamera and try that.
Thank you for Mycodo!
If you are planning on using the camera to shoot time lapse videos, you probably want to avoid any auto-focusing cameras. The reason being that the camera will re-focus for each and every frame, and if the focus isn’t fixed for each frame, you’ll end up with a really bad looking time lapse video since each frame can potentially have a different focal point since plants move and grow.
If you already have a Pi camera, I’d try the HDMI extension adapter from Arducam…
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XDNBM63/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The other thing about the Pi cam is it’s 4:3 full frame sensor which covers more area than a 16:9 cropped webcam, which makes it nice when shooing in tight spaces like a grow tent, especially if your Pi cam has an M12 lens mount for changing to a wide angle lens. The Pi cam settings in Mycodo also have more options for color correction and shutter speed and such compared to most webcams.
Have you considered using standard IP cameras? (e.g. PoE CCTV style cameras).
The camera documentation page does mention that Mycodo supports IP cameras - but I haven’t played with it the support myself yet. (It’s on the todo)
However, IP cameras are generally pretty stable/robust, you can get them in waterproof versions (e.g. I bought some from ELP that I’m testing - they make them in both USB and IP versions), and Ethernet cabling is very easy to extend/patch - they’re just standard network cables.
USB cameras have length restrictions on the cabling, and you also need to be careful of moisture, thermals etc.
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Ditto on what victorhooi said… except that now days you don’t even need to spend $$$ on a PoE injector or Ethernet cable since a lot of IP cameras have built-in WiFi capability which makes setup even easier. Most only need a 5v power source, which can be supplied via a USB wall charger and a USB cable. One thing that might cause problems with an IP camera is the fact that most of them require passwords to access the image stream… sometimes trying to pass the login credentials to the camera from Mycodo will not work… so be aware of that.
Yes that would be the best solution! In that case: Anyone had success with a wifi camera? Which model did you purchase? Sorry if I’m being strange but I just want to make sure it works before I spend money. Thanks again.
If you decide to use a WiFi or wired IP camera, make sure you get one that can work in “stand-alone” or “LAN-only” mode and doesn’t require an Internet cloud connection or pay-service to work.