June 25, 2011? What be wrong with "this picture" of our beloved mountain?

Computer glitch?

"Mouse" problem?

Webcamera "heat stroke?"

The computer has lost its "umbilical cord" to the Internet. It is either a hardware communications problem, or the computer's clock battery may be dead.

I've been working with the museum manager, but progress has been slow. He is expecting someone will be in this afternoon to look at it.

Hmmm...

"mouse" problem...


D-Con up!

Looks like "this afternoon" has passed without any help.

...any "zoners" in, or heading to, Lone Pine with a little XP techie experience?

Doug,

Will you please help us out to get our camera up and running.

I might could take a little look at it this weekend Steve... if you want to send me the stats on the system I could do a little research before heading up so I can have some possible solutions on hand...

Thanks, Chris. Wazzu has stepped up, and she'll be there Friday.

I'm available for tech support, have similar equipment & manuals here. Steve, OK to give Wazzu my number.

With wazzu and wagga's help, we were able to check the Whitney webcam computer at the museum in Lone Pine. It turns out the power supply has died. Wazzu is taking the computer home, and we'll get it repaired and back running.

There might be an opportunity for someone heading up from So. Cal to Lone Pine, to deliver and reconnect the computer.

The computer has been repaired and is ready to hook up. Is anyone on this forum heading up in the next week or two, and willing to take it to the museum?

I'll be there in late Sept or early October, doing a few runs around the west and east side before hitting the trail. If you can't find anyone by then, I'll do it

Thanks Fishman. But I should be getting over there by then myself. If nothing else, wazzu might UPS it back to the museum in the next week or two.

Anybody in the So Cal area going up before Aug 28th?

I already have a trip schedule to be in Lone Pine on the 28th.

there's a chance that I am going to head up for a day hike and some fishing at LPL this saturday. I'll let you know when I nail it down.

of course, then I need to get from the valley to OC to get the puter......

I was in Lone Pine most of last week. I could have taken it there, but I'm guessing it was still in the shop at that point. Bad timing, oh, well....

You could meet Wazzu halfway - that is if you both are willing to risk the "psychopath I met on the Internet syndrome".

It's a good guess that each of you own an ice axe, anyway...

wagga - You crack me up!!! LMHO!

Picture is back! Clicking on the thumbnail brings up the old pic, just hit refresh on the browser & it should be good.

Wazzu: Many many tanked ewes!

Thank you thank you, Wazzu! It is so nice to have it back running.

And good luck on your Whitney adventure.

You're welcome.

I do believe, when the clouds move, I see a dusting of new snow up there. Brrrrrrrrrr.

Certainly on Williamson.

I saved one from this afternoon. Check out the cloud, too.

Click on the image for the full-size picture.

Moon set this morning

Click on the image for the full-size picture.

Great moon shot!

What's going on with the focus of the camera?

Or do I need to set up an appt to get my eyes checked?

I'm going to have to switch it to "manual focus", which is not as crisp as automatic (when it works).

Apparently in certain light situations, such as when there are lots of clouds, the focusing mechanism can't figure it out. So we get blurry pictures.

I have just switched it to manual focus, so it will be better now.

I'm heading over this weekend to clean the window of the camera box, so I hope it will help.

well, you'd think that once focused on the mountain, at that distance and then switched to manual, it should be perfect.

> well, you'd think that once focused on the mountain, at that distance and then switched to manual, it should be perfect.

Yes, I thought that too. But the program driving the camera has a focus setting, and setting it to infinity does not achieve the best focus. Go figure.

I am guessing that is why Olympus stopped making the camera with computer-driven capabilities. There currently isn't a reasonably priced camera on the market that provides these features:

  - Zoom level appropriate for the Lone Pine to Whitney distance
  - Can be controlled by computer software.
  - Reasonably priced

Current reasonably priced point-and-shoot cameras will zoom and take better quality pictures. But none can be controlled by computer.

I fantasize about a computer-controlled robotic setup that could be built to run a camera. It would need to be able to mechanically operate the camera, PLUS connect and disconnect the camera-to-computer USB connection, since the current cameras (at least the Panasonic I have) won't take a picture when connected to the computer.

If I find some time I'll take a look at what camera may take images while connected to a computer. I always thought that you can do that with any decent DSLR, bypassing the internal storage while doing studio work. Gonna have to see what I can find out. Once you have a DSLR that can do it, manual focus glass is a dime a dozen and worlds better than anything you get these days on a point and shoot camera unless you go with something exotic like the Nex-5 or Leica.

Triggering the camera may require a little more, but I know I can run my cameras on the panorama bot fully unattended and that doesn't even take a computer, just a PDA. Just not sure if I can do that directly to computer drive. Never tried it.

Fish, I really appreciate your looking into it. But beware of the price of the DSLR. Of course, we don't need new -- used cameras are ok.

wel, that didn't take more htan one google serach - my old (and dirt cheap) Nikon D40 has this setup option:



Nikon and many others have created software for it. Have not really looked for the right solution but here's a youtube clip showing the basics:

'

From what I can gather, the software used in the video is free

http://www.gphoto.org/

hey - maybe your camera is listed as supported:

http://www.gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php

even my old point and shoot Canon PowerShot A590 IS is listed as supported.

Obviously, this all requires that the rest of your setup can deal with an image input directory, rather than directly control the software.


more interesting reading: http://www.gphoto.org/doc/remote/ shows that you won't ever run out of memory card space

and lots of usefull info here http://www.moreno.marzolla.name/software/time_lapse_movies/

I'm sure if I had a real goal, I could probably build my own webcam app using these tools. In fact, I bet there's a lot of people out there reselling stuff based on these libraries.

A used D40 like mine is worth about $120-150, and then add a 55-200mm lens (can turn AF off) and you're set. $120-150 max for the lens and it rocks for the money, giving you 300mm equivalent range)

Interesting links, thanks. Looks like the gphoto site lists the Olympus SP500 among the many supported cameras. The drawback for gphoto is that it doesn't run on a Windows platform. We'd have to completely redo our host computers.

In the discussion, they lament that most cameras will no longer support remote control -- the ability to take a picture and upload it to a computer automatically.

That is why I was fantasizing about using robotics: Mechanical robotic controls, driven by the computer, to take the picture. Then a control to switch over to connect to the camera via USB, and transfer the picture off the camera's memory card into the computer, and erase the memory card file.


...I'll look at your links more.

yeah, the unix platform is a bummer, but it's about the only way to control cameras that aren't high end. Seems like even expensive dedicated windows software like Nikon Camera Control Pro may be limited in the capabilities useful to set up a web cam.

They have a free trial - I'll grab it later this year when I get some time and play with it. Thing is - software, camera, lens, and you're suddenly spending $500 on stuff.

Whitney webcam working - check

Williamson webcam working - ?????

Steve, do you need to order another power supply for Williamson?

Well, someone is paying attention!

The Williamson webcam computer is on-line, but not the camera. That camera is an older camera model, Olympus C740. The Whitney cam is an Olympus SP500 UZ.

Unfortunately, there was a power outage yesterday. When that occurs, the C740 needs to be shut off, and back on again. Pulling the power and plugging back in doesn't work.

I have emailed Dmatt to ask him to do that. It is on the back porch of his office, so not a huge operation.

Here's the older C740


And the Olympus SP500

Monday evening's whitney webcam image at 6:56pm was pretty spectacular. Had to save that one to my desktop.

It almost looks like there was a light filter on the camera to get the burnt sienna tone.

Spectacular indeed!

Here's the picture Tom saved:

      (click on it for full-size)


And another from last evening:

over the last 2 years I saved about 30 shots I liked - they keep cycling randomly as backgrounds on my laptop. One day I'll get around to making a small gallery. Everything from sunsets to blowing snow.

Hope the Twins are in at least one of the 30 or so shots

I have been saving both Whitney and Williamson webcam shots if they are very nice.
Within each webcam's separate folder on my hard drive, I simply name each successive pic 1.jpg, 2.jpg, 3.jpg, etc.
After saving the two beautiful Whitney pics posted just above, I am now up to 102.jpg in my Whitney webcam folder (considerably less in the Williamson folder).

CaT

I guess that my idea to save webcam shots was not so original...

Mine are listed by date, however, they are just sitting in a big mass of pictures from hikes that I don't bother to look at (all of my pictures just sit in one random collecton -- no grouping whatsoever....how unscientific of me!)

The Whitney pics are one of the few pictures that I have actually looked at several times; I like the idea of making a slide show screen saver with them.

Williamson webcam finally came back on-line today!

computer glitch i think

What's up with the Whitney cam? Nice shot of 4 flying objects, but last update is 7:49am on 10-10-2011.

Thanks for the heads up, wazzu. It appears that the internet service at the Film History Museum has flaked out. I can connect to the webcam computer, but it cannot connect to any internet pages -- so it can't post the pictures it is taking.

I'm asking the museum staff look into that.

Edit: Called museum staff at 2 PM, found that they could not reach any Internet websites. Suggested they call their Internet service provider. Webcam came back online at 2:17!

This morning the webcam was aimed too high, with only the Whitney crest visible. Something has shifted the camera's aim -- a big bird or strong wind gust, or ???.

I zoomed it back out, so now we can see more of Mt Whitney ...and more of the Sierra crest, too.

We'll need to adjust it back down eventually.

There was a 4.1 quake down around Inyokern around 8:30 in the morning of November 1. How long has the webcame been out of alignment?

CaT

It shifted last night or this morning -- yesterday's pictures are all ok, even to the last one at 6:30. Here's the 6:05 PM view:



Note... these pics will switch to new ones Saturday morning (they do every morning).
You can review the pictures on this page: Webcam picture sequence page

Who is on the roster for this month?

Hmmmm....looks like it's my turn
http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/topics/18488/Webcam_Cleaning#Post18488

SteveC will be out at Lone Pine today, so keep an eye out for a change in the picture.

It's happening. 11:33, tilt is fixed, but it's out of focus.

Focus fixed. That camera model's software has problems with manual focus when run from the computer software. Have to zoom out just a little and adjust the focus.

On auto-focus, it works well, even zoomed all the way to 10x, but then when it is cloudy, the focus completely fails, with terribly fuzzy pictures.

So what we have is a compromise: zoomed out a little, with manual focus.

Here's the current setup:

Thanks, Steve. 7:15 this morning is a keeper.

Nice job on the camera.

Did you need to rope up and use ice axe & crampons?

No ice axe, but several specialized ascenders and descenders had to be positioned on the route.

Here's the crux move:

Just need a couple of forklifts...

New camera angle today at 12:14pm?

I zoomed out the Whitney webcam, since today's weather appears to be dumping on Mt. Whitney, and all we could see was a big gray cloud. I was hoping the Alabama Hills would have some snow, but no luck.

I see the clouds parting now, and lots of snow is appearing just beyond the Alabama Hills.

I'll zoom it back in once the storm clears.

Here is yesterday's webcam video. It shows smoke starting from the controlled burn.

Both webcams were down, so was the one at the hostel. I called the Film History museum, and they said there is power, but all cellular and internet connections are dead in the Owens Valley.

From the last time on the webcam pictures, it looks like things failed about 6:40 this morning. And now the first pictures are coming in at 12:25.