At 10:01 AM +0530 8/23/01, Sanjay Chakravarty wrote:
>I am, often, in the same situation. I sometimes feel the need of an
>imaginary camera, that not only activates on remote, but also transmits the
>viewfinder image to me, who is hidden somewhere in the bushes. Now I can,
>remotely, observe the scene in front of me, and trip the shutter when I want
>to. With modern wireless technology like bluetooth and what not, this might
>be available just round the bend.
It's doable today. x10.com, of famously unpleasant popup ad fame,
manufacture a small video camera that transmits on the 2.4 GHz band.
You can buy a battery pack for it that uses four AA batteries. Mount
one of these in front of the camera viewfinder with a healthy dose of
gaffer tape, add a Pocket Wizard type radio shutter release, and
you've got exactly what you describe. You'll also have to build a
battery pack for the receiver and add a small LCD video monitor of
the kind meant for camcorders that lack LCD viewfinders.
Only problem is that the X-10 camera ships with a very low-quality
camera that has a pretty wide-angle lens. (the viewfinder ends up
looking like a small rectangle inside a black field if you hold it up
to the camera otherwise)
You can substitute both the camera and the lens with varying degrees
of hackery. The simplest approach is to get a replacement lens with a
longer focal length from a place like supercircuits.com. Their lenses
are of higher quality and are faster than the default X-10 lens.
Replacing the camera involves some simple rewiring - the camera's
simply a cheap NTSC camera.
- Neil K.
--
49N 16' 123W 7' / Vancouver, BC, Canada / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The satin finish provides darkly deviant good looks
*
****
*******
***********************************************************
* For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see:
* http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm
***********************************************************
