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Peter

Jan 1, 1970
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I want to mount a camera on board for a look out from te charttable.
Is there anyone who has experiance with a webcam. It is no problem if it
needs a usb cable. The most webcams made for looking at most 1 or 2 meter
from the camera. Who has experiance with a webcam for a good lookout in
front of the boat?
Peter
 
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IanM

Jan 1, 1970
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Bill said:
Lorex makes a number of outdoor grade cameras. A slip neighbor uses one
with Skype. We can all 'call' it and see the webcam. It has an
infinite focus setup and has decent visibility for about 10 meters.
That is, you can see a reasonable amount of the scene. No pan, zoom,
tilt, but for the purpose it's not needed.

But what are you talking about using the camera for?
Depending on the plotter you have, you may already have the facility to
display a video signal. If so, then a submersible CCTV camera (to
survive on the bow or at deck level) would work for you. However for
watch-keeping, the field of view of a normal camera is totally
inadequate and the resolution is limited so even with a fish-eye lens
although you can see a wide sector, you wont be able spot a ship soon
enough to avoid embarrassment let alone spotting debris or pot markers.

If you are looking for something suitable for conning through shoals,
reefs and coral 'bommies' to look down from the masthead or spreaders a
length or so in front of the bow, its more hopefull, but you'll want a
motorized filter head on it with selectable infrared and variable
polarisation lenses, which you are not likely to find in a weatherproof
compact dome mount unit. I dont know of anyone who's actually set one
up for this, but conning the boat from the crosstrees has a long history
in that sort of waters. You'll need to learn to use it with an
experienced lookout up the mast backing you up.

If your plotter can't do video, well smallish 12V bulkhead mount LCD
displays are fairly cheap. It could double up for entertainment use.
 
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IanM

Jan 1, 1970
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Bill said:
The only problem with this is you lose the plotter functionality. If
you've got a big chartplotter, or more than one, then it's something to
consider. But combine the low resolution of the camera with a quarter or
half-screen view of the video signal and it's barely better than nothing
at all. The picture quality certainly wouldn't be what I'd consider
good enough for much beyond the gee-whiz factor.

-Bill Kearney
Even on a big screen plotter its going to be pretty useless for any
navigational purpose. Either its got the field of view to cover a wide
enough angle but you'd be lucky to spot a visibility orange painted oil
drum at half a cable, or it can pick out a buoy at 2+ NM but covers such
a tiny sector that a supertanker could be on top of you before you saw
anything.

With luck, if its fairly wide angle with a decent screen size and you
stare at it non-stop you *may* be able to spot ferries in time to
dodge, if you were at the controls rather than down below. Not going to
get much done down below staring at it that you couldn't better do on
deck while keeping a proper lookout. I'd also bet that with an
unstabilised camera, the picture could make *anyone* puke in other than
a flat calm in under ten minutes.

I did hope I'd been sufficiently pessimistic as to what could be
achieved with a CCTV camera with a decent lens, but obviously not. A
webcam with the usual crappy lens, no iris or focus etc. would be even
worse. :-(
 
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Peter

Jan 1, 1970
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The camera wil not be a replacement for crew, but a little bis extra look
aut in front of the boat. I know Raytheon has a camera for their expensive
systems. I Has a computer with a navigation program on board. It cout be a
popup screen for the camera.
Extra I have a Asus EEE netbook with a 10"screen. This one coult be used
for the camera. The question is: Is there anyone in the newsgroup who uses a
webcam for the long distance.
Peter
 
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Steve Lusardi

Jan 1, 1970
0
Peter,
I am going to do this myself, but you will not be able to do this with an
inexpensive camera for all the reasons mentioned by others in this thread.
Both Bosch and Panasonic offer PTZ cameras with low light capability,
something like .4 LUX or lower. the camera with motorized lens is around
$1,500. Add to this a watertight housing with heater for another $1,000.
Spider control with web cutting wiper adds another $500. Please also note
that you will have to use stabilization software to compensate for vibration
in order to see at distance. If you want motorized filters, add that cost on
top. This solution would allow the boat to be operated blindly. If all you
want is watch cameras for security reasons, the solution with software is
around $800 with 3 cameras. The later solution uses RS 485 differential,
serial interface and records to disk as well as creates images for web
distribution.
Steve
 
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Sjouke Burry

Jan 1, 1970
0
Peter said:
The camera wil not be a replacement for crew, but a little bis extra look
aut in front of the boat. I know Raytheon has a camera for their expensive
systems. I Has a computer with a navigation program on board. It cout be a
popup screen for the camera.
Extra I have a Asus EEE netbook with a 10"screen. This one coult be used
for the camera. The question is: Is there anyone in the newsgroup who uses a
webcam for the long distance.
Peter
Alas, usb cable(max ~3-5 m, sometimes a bit more then 10 m)
in most cases cannot be extended to the length you would need in most
cases, so you would be out of luck.
Network cabling has a reach of up to 100 meters(yards :) ), so
a network camera on a middle class boat will work.
Also most usb cams would probably not survive a healthy dose of
sea air.
 
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