In need for cameras

I contacted elphel to ask if their cameras could work with max/msp. They were very nice and proposed to lend me an NC353L camera:

Setup

Power on

You need to give some electrical power to the camera through the network cable (POE. The other cable can go directly into your computer or in any network hub.

Connect to camera

Before opening your web browser, you need to make sure your current IP can connect to the default IP on the camera (same sub-network).

In order to ease things out, I changed my IP settings from “DHCP” to:

IP: 192.168.0.10
mask: 255.255.0.0

You can now open 192.168.0.9

TADA, you should get the web configuration interface with an image of what the camera sees !

Exposure, white balance & Co

Here is what you get when you clic on the settings summary:

Notes:

• fps can be
  red: shutter speed is limiting frame rate. You can add gain or open the diaphragm on the lense
  green: shutter speed is limited by the sensor/camera (=maximal speed for this capture size).
• exposure pressing the left button or double clicking the slider turns auto exposure on/off
• gain pressing the left button or double clicking the slider turns auto white balance on/off

You have access to some advanced settings (including streaming options) by clicking on “more details…”.

If you want to change the IP, you have to click on the “world icon” at the top.

Snapshot

Here is a full captor image (I closed the diaphragm a little in order to have a sharp image). Getting a focussed image is a real issue because the lens is small (compared to a reflex camera I am used to) and nano movements changed focus drastically.

vs iPhone

In order to compare, here is the same scene take with an iPhone (known to be a rather bad camera):

See how the image from the iPhone (hand held) is much more focussed. This is easy for such a camera since it has a very small sensor.

vs DV camera (panasonic NV-DS30)

This is a still image taken from an old DV camera (2002 model)

The image of this camera looks really bad. A lot of improvements in DV cameras have happened from 2002 !

vs Macbook Pro iSight

This picture has been taken using “iMovie”. The automatic color balance is really bad.

single image quality conclusion

The image quality is much better then any other video cameras I have at hand but it’s not better then the still images I get from an iPhone because I did not manage to have a focussed image (and I really tried hard).

Here is an image focussed to “infinity” and with a closed diaphragm. In such an image, everything should be clear and focussed, but it’s not the case… why ?

more testing images here