close up stills with webcam

**digidark** · 23-10-2009

The two stills are from the Logitech Pro 9000 webcam. I decided to find out if all the waffle about the camera was justified. It seems to have done a decent job. Although it has a very good auto focus system, the shots were taken in very low light using laptop controlled manual focus.The camera was 50mm from the subject.

Sorry about the subject matter but nothing else was available at 5 in the morning, in fact I had that much time to set up, I think the fly was asleep.

My intention is to build the camera into a nesting box, once I find out the rights and wrongs of doing so.

**rolf** · 23-10-2009

Should be good enough for a nest box, just need to make sure that it's well waterproofed.

**Chris H** · 23-10-2009

Does it have any kind of illumination. In a nest box you would need infrared illumination so you don't disturb the birds. As long as the camera can detect infrared for night vision it should be okay.

**digidark** · 23-10-2009

The camera doesn't have IR and was one of the problems that I needed to sort out Chris. Your question prompted me to do some tests. I placed the camera along with a photo into a box, sealed it and then covered it with black cloth. I could make the photo out, not very well but its a start. I don't suppose anywhere gets as dark as it was inside the box.

**Chris H** · 23-10-2009

One of these in the box wall or roof would be great and not too expensive.

48 LED illuminator light CCTV IR Infrared Night Vision on eBay (end time 20-Nov-09 06:45:43 GMT)

The alternative is to buy some seperate infrared led's and drill holes in the box ceiling and push them through. You'd probably only need a few high brightness ones run off a small battery.

**rolf** · 23-10-2009

Think that one would be too powerful Chris, 12 LEDs would be fine for a nestbox, also not sure whether USB cams work with infrared.

**Chris H** · 23-10-2009

Been looking at this place, you may find it interesting

Bird box cameras and nest box cameras | Bird box camera and nest box cameras

Don't forget though Rolf that usb camera's are basicaly a 1/4" chip cctv camera but have had an extra board on to convert the basic camera data to USB serial type data.

I'll look into seperate infrared leds later tonight.