Well, forget normal 'webcams', they're designed to create video, which means around 30 frames per second. That's fine if you want to catch your chatmate picking their nose or blowing you a kiss, but it's too fast to get decent quality images, especially as I only need one frame every minute. If I used video at 30 fps I would be grabbing just one of the 1800 frames every minute, and throwing away the rest.
Wouldn't it be better to take one good photograph every couple of minutes instead?
All that's needed is a half decent digital camera which can be controlled remotely, a program which can send the relevant commands to the camera and a script to make it all happen.
| In this case it's a 1 megapixel Kodak DC200. |  |
The computer is running ubuntu linux, and I use sdk to control it via a simple script which sets up the camera, takes the shot, resizes it then uploads it to the website via ftp. It's that simple. Although I couldn't have done it without the help of my friend Peter berck.
Thanks Peter.
It's funny, in 1999 this camera was state of the art, now it's almost a museum piece like any other 6 year old gadget. Only one megapixel? Pah! mobile phones have more than that.
This camera thought it was retired, thought it could relax now that it's been superseded. but... I bought it on ebay, and now it's working harder than it ever did before.
I hope my retirement is more relaxing!
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The above photo is the current configuration, taken at 400 x 300 To the left is the original 352 x 288 webcam image. 
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