The Video Cam’s I’ve used

Here are the specs your video camera selection needs to satisfy:

1. Manual focus capability (Auto-Focus gets confused as HELL during a Foucault test!)
2. Variable Zoom
3. A method to get the video into the computer @ 320*240 Pixels
1. Often this will be an Analog out on the camera and a standard Video capture system on the computer
2. I use a Hauppauge USB video capture dongle with good results (http://www.hauppauge.com/html/products.htm#usb)
3. In addition the following should work as well:

i. Fire wire capture system

ii. USB web Cam

iii. Any other method to get video into the computer that uses the Window’s video capture driver.

iv. One Thing that doesn’t work very well, is the Snappy adapter by Play Inc (now defunct) Its just to slow for our purposes

4. To date I’ve used 3 different camera for my system (listed below in order of preference)
1. My current Favorite is a Sharp 8mm ‘ViewCam’ circa 1990’s

i. Here are some Foucault images from this system:

ii.

iii. Here’s some images of the camera

iv.

v. (yea its ugly, but it works, never mind the adhesive tape holding it together J)

vi.

2. A B/W Board Cam attached to a lens set robbed from a Junk VHS ‘Suitcase’ sized video camera from the late 80’s

i. While this camera worked OK, it wasn’t great. Mostly due to noise levels.

ii. Here’s a Foucault image made with this camera and slitless Foucault test

iii. Only 30mins of Polish!!

iv. And here’s some view of this home-made camera:

v.

vi.

vii.

3. A Philips Vesta USB web cam, Again with a salvaged lens set attached to it.

i. While this system worked OK as well. Unfortuantly the Philips Video drivers are Terrible CPU hogs. Consequently the resulting Frame rate was less than impressive (4-5 FPS)

ii. And here’s the home made camera set:

iii.