Video in the Round

Sunday weather was glorious, especially the afternoon. Lots of white cloud but plenty of bright blue sky between. Temperature peaked about 21C so I was able to shake the creases out of a pair of shorts and risk scaring the horses.

It was time for a field test of the Arduino unit I had built to rotate a camera while it was making a video. So far it had only been tested in the back garden. I wanted a 'real world' outdoor test or two before deciding whether to take it up on the Lincolnshire Wolds which are designated as an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Here is the finished set up fixed on an old tripod.
This shows the Toshiba camera.
For this test I used the Nikon S9050 as it has a brighter screen to monitor what is going on:


I walked down to the Cricket Field and took a couple of videos there and a couple more at the end of my lane. I wonder what any observers may have thought watching me slowly walk round the tripod so as to keep behind the camera and out of shot.

This is a pair of videos from the Cricket Field played back to back:



A bit jerky. I tried slowing the video down in iMovie but that showed up the jerkiness even more. Part of the problem is slight play in the gears in the small, cheap, stepper motor but it was the only one I could find which works at 5V, the same as the Arduino which controls it. The rest of the problem will be the instant movement every time the motor steps a fraction of a degree. The only way round that as far as I can see is to use a standard motor with suitable reduction gears.

I am now considering a set up with a larger stepper motor which would be capable of holding a Canon camera with the intention of making a time lapse video panorama. Just at the painful thinking stage at the moment.