INEXPENSIVE AUTOMATION OF A DIGITAL CAMERA

OVERVIEW

The following are instructions for modifying a digital camera to automatically acquire images. The system was successfully used at a lake in the Canadian High Arctic in the summer of 2002. Two cameras were used near major tributaries to monitor changes in tributary position, snowpack, lake ice, and response to weather conditions. The relatively low cost of this design compared to commercially available units allows image acquisition for projects with limited budgets, or allows redundancy and/or monitoring of multiple sites.

The system uses a Jamcam3.0 digital camera and a Blue Earth microcontroller . The camera takes (relatively poor quality) photos at a maximum resolution of 640x480 pixels. Higher quality cameras could likely be used with the same procedure described here; however, the soldering is invasive and potentially destructive - so do it at your own risk! The jamcam has a Multimedia Card (flash) slot; about 250 photos can be stored on a 64-megabyte card.

Wires are soldered onto the camera circuit board at the switches that control the ON/OFF and PHOTO functions, and normally open relays are used to short the wires and operate the switches. An inexpensive microcontroller is used to control the timing of switch operation. Finally, weatherproof shields are constructed for the camera, batteries and microcontroller.

---

PROCEDURE OUTLINE
1. Overview
2. Solder four wires onto the JamCam circuit board and disable the flash
3. Make a circuit board for relays and MOSFETs
4. Upload a BASIC program to the microcontroller
5. Set up the batteries and weatherproof enclosures
6. Download and manipulate your photos
7. Potential Improvements
8. Parts list


Additional comments & suggestions would be appreciated - email me !

SAMPLE STILL IMAGES AND MOVIES

Thanks to R. Lewis and J. Sweeney for their electronic and mechanical expertise

---