Finding tiny camera

[cyberfish]

Hello,

I am looking for a tiny camera for my project (essentially a video camera fixed to glasses that will be recording 24/7).

The smallest I can find is about 1cm diameter, on ebay, marketed as "endoscopes". Things like this -
http://cgi.ebay.ca/5M-USB-Snake-Camera-Tupe-Inspection-Endoscope-borescope-/320656250114?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa89a1502

I believe they are just regular USB webcams.

Does anyone have experience interfacing them to embedded systems? I am thinking about using FTDI's Vinculum II chip as USB host controller + microcontroller. Ideally it would be UVC compatible...

I was wondering if anyone knows where I can find even smaller cameras. Google has been very unhelpful since people like to call 5cm cameras "micro", and whatever other small words I tried.

The interface doesn't really matter. Ideally has hardware encoding (MJPEG is fine, which I believe all UVC cameras support).

Anyone seen something like that?

Thanks!

[Kiriakos-GR]

Get one of those and hack it.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Lighter-DVR-Mini-DV-Spy-Hidden-Camera-Cam-Camcorder-4GB-/120685885460?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c19707814

[Psi]

Sparkfun have a few tiny cameras

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8667

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8668

soldering them could be tricky

[DavidDLC]

For those cameras you solder the base and then snap the camera on it.

Get a camera from a cel phone ?

There are phone's schematics on the internet so you know how to connect them.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Some cellphone cams are super-tiny -ISTR seeing a lowish-res one about a 6mm cube inc lens. These cams generally have a raw pixel data+clock interface, plus I2C for setup, so you'll need to add JPEG etc. compression & all the Bayer processing stuff. Small cams may also need lens shading correction.

[Psi]

Some cellphone cams are super-tiny -ISTR seeing a lowish-res one about a 6mm cube inc lens. These cams generally have a raw pixel data+clock interface, plus I2C for setup, so you'll need to add JPEG etc. compression & all the Bayer processing stuff. Small cams may also need lens shading correction.

yep, thats the exact size/type of the first sparkfun link above.

[cyberfish]

The lighter one looks interesting. I may order one and take it apart.

Sparkfun/cellphone cameras are too big. Smallest one is ~6mm by 6mm. After I put it on a PCB, it would be at least 1cm by 1cm, and my baseline is 1cm diameter cylinder.

[Psi]

While we are on the subject of cameras. Does anyone know what specification to look for in a camera when you want fluid motion. ie, You dont want that typical motion blur you get on some cameras at high resolution and frame rates (720p , >20fps) especially webcams.

[Mechatrommer]

when you want fluid motion. ie, You dont want that typical motion blur you get on some cameras at high resolution and frame rates (720p , >20fps) especially webcams.

confuse me. isnt it established that 25-30fps is the "technical" standard? you can compromise the quality down to 15fps (to save cost etc). even our eye can create that "motion blur" effect. saw something out of a window of a bus/train? about the resolution? hasselblad still got some limitation, compared to our eyes.

[Psi]

when you want fluid motion. ie, You dont want that typical motion blur you get on some cameras at high resolution and frame rates (720p , >20fps) especially webcams.

confuse me. isnt it established that 25-30fps is the "technical" standard? you can compromise the quality down to 15fps (to save cost etc). even our eye can create that "motion blur" effect. saw something out of a window of a bus/train? about the resolution? hasselblad still got some limitation, compared to our eyes.

With lots of webcams they say 1080p @ 25fps, but if you try to record at 25fps @ 1920x1080 and wave your hand in front of the camera the image appears to blur. It looks like motion blur, but i think its a property of the sensor to do with how fast it can respond.
If you try the same thing at 25fps but 640x480 the movement is much shaper and doesnt blur as much.

If you the same thing again, but with an expensive 1080p video camcorder, it has no blur at all.

So there must be some sort of sensor property that causes this effect, i just dont know what its called.

[Mechatrommer]

If you the same thing again, but with an expensive 1080p video camcorder, it has no blur at all.
So there must be some sort of sensor property that causes this effect, i just dont know what its called.

afaik, its called sensor size and sensitivity issue. the solution... money. and of course size, ie, dont expect small sensor to achieve shoulder mount (or even the palm sized) camcorder performance.
edit1: sensor size means, the single sensor size (or pitch), not the whole array in the rectangle. and of course... single sensor size x pixels count = add up to the rectangle (people simply say as "sensor") size.
edit2: i suspect the motion blur on 1080 webcam you are talking about is due to software. ie, the sensor is capable of capturing at said resolution and speed, but the hardware is not capable of transferring all the details (individual frames) at such speed, so the fabulous software is made to combine several frames as one to save bandwitdh. is what you saw in your monitor as blur (combination of many movements/frames in one single frame).

[Psi]

i suspect the motion blur on 1080 webcam you are talking about is due to software. ie, the sensor is capable of capturing at said resolution and speed, but the hardware is not capable of transferring all the details (individual frames) at such speed, so the fabulous software is made to combine several frames as one to save bandwitdh. is what you saw in your monitor as blur (combination of many movements/frames in one single frame).

hm.. good point, it could definitly be a bandwidth issue.

[the_raptor]

The thing is that apart from technical issues you want blur because we have been conditioned by, relatively low frame rate, film to think that blurry footage is more "realistic"*.

If you watch high frame rate digital footage it just looks wrong. This is the reason that adding in blur/dust/noise etc has been the big thing in video game graphics.

But yeah any cheap webcam that claims to be capturing 1080p over USB is probably full of shit. It might be technically delivering 1920x1080 pixels but I bet they are compressed and interpolated to hell.

* The main reason humans see blur is because when we track an object with our eyes our eye motion is actually very jerky and our brain blurs the images together. However movies tend to blur all fast motion even when in real life you wouldn't see noticeable blur.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Pill camera ? http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=pill+endoscopy&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=sCduTem1K9OEhQeuxIk-&ved=0CIgBELAE&biw=1261&bih=913

[sonicj]

808 micro camcorder

[Psi]

The thing is that apart from technical issues you want blur because we have been conditioned by, relatively low frame rate, film to think that blurry footage is more "realistic"*.

? Never said i want blur, said i don't want it.
i hate blur in all forms, i want nice sharp images

[Mechatrommer]

? Never said i want blur, said i don't want it.
i hate blur in all forms, i want nice sharp images

get into still photography, you'll be satisfied. moving picture (video) is entirely different mechanic, building the device is another.