Daylight Image Whiteout

ButchinOKLA · Post by **ButchinOKLA** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:00 pm

YAWCAM is working great. But the image streamed out is so whited out, one can hardly see a car go by. I have tried 2 inexpensive webcams, one even has brightness adjustment, but to no avail. I have the webcam mounted outside my window in the bright sunlight. Is there a webcam or way to have it work outside? Maybe a better webcam? Or even a CCTV camera? Will YAWCAM work with a PCI DVR Card with a CCTV camera? Or is there a good quality webcam that will automatically adjust the brightness down so it works outside in the bright sunlight? Thanks.

Butch in Oklahoma

Butch · Post by **Butch** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:06 pm

Sorry everyone. I didnt not realize I was only a GUEST when I posted this message. Boy, I need to get with the program.

tinman · Post by **tinman** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:00 pm

the web cam I have has an exposure setting which you can adjust...or maybe if you can put a piece of card or something over the the top of the camera to shield it from the sun a little....

as I'm in Scotland we don't suffer too many problems with too much sun! Unfortunately.....

oh and on the off chance...I have just started using the 25 version of yawcam but all I can get when I use the ftp setting to upload the pics to site is the 'offline' image. Any idea how I rectify this? I have two files being uploaded 'out.jpg' and 'out.jpg.temp'.....the 'out.jpg' is the offline pic....

cheers

Jii · Post by **Jii** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 2:26 pm

I have tried 2 inexpensive webcams, one even has brightness adjustment, but to no avail. I have the webcam mounted outside my window in the bright sunlight.

The problem presents itself. There is a high probability that your webcam driver is the root cause of the problem. Only a handful of drivers give user control over the exposure of the image and unfortunately most of them lack this feature, leaving user relying on luck. You should try to get the latest driver for your webcam and see if that has any effect.

In addition, you are risking in breaking your webcam! Leaving the webcam in sunlight can severely damage the CMOS/CCD sensor of the webcam. An overexposed image is one good warning from the camera that it is starting to suffer from sunlight. Try building a visor over the webcam and see if that helps.

Is there a webcam or way to have it work outside? Maybe a better webcam?

Not that I know of. Putting the webcam outside is generally not a good idea since webcams are designed to work indoors only. They are not protected against temperature extremes or rain.

Or even a CCTV camera? Will YAWCAM work with a PCI DVR Card with a CCTV camera?

If your PCI DVR Card supports VFW (Video For Windows) then it will work. Some standard TV cards support VFW. You'll find that from the card's manual.
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Post by **malun** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:46 pm

Jii wrote:
Or even a CCTV camera? Will YAWCAM work with a PCI DVR Card with a CCTV camera?
If your PCI DVR Card supports VFW (Video For Windows) then it will work. Some standard TV cards support VFW. You'll find that from the card's manual.

Some users have used Yawcam and more advanced cams together after installing a separate software. Take a look at this site:
http://www.orangeware.com/endusers/webcamdv.html

/malun

tamtheram · Post by **tamtheram** » Sun May 22, 2011 12:01 am

I used an old Neutral density filter from my 35mm camera.
It was a 2.5" square plastic type ND4 (4 stop exposure decrease) .
These are available for about $9.
I cut it into 4 pieces and put 4 layers together.
Caution the cutting takes care as the hard optical plastic shatters easily. Also I used masking tape to protect it from scratches till finished.
Quick polish and I used silicone seal around the edge to stick them together and keep out moisture. Super glued the stack of filters to the webcam lens ring.
Not pretty but it worked.

mdviz · Post by **mdviz** » Tue May 24, 2011 2:57 pm

I get the same white out problems decribed in the first post.
I can access the software camera controls for the camera through Yawcam and change the Exposure from auto and reduce it to -10 which fixes the problem.

My issue is that the auto settings do not automatically adjust the settings and do this automatically, I have to do it manually. Any one got any idea why?

Yawcam