Camera performance (Premium non-serial)

I am building a system for a biology research project, where a motion sensor (when it at some point in time will be fixed) should trigger the camera to take a series of pictures for about 5-10 seconds.

We are not talking video (would be nice though) but a few frames per second would be sufficient to see how the animals react.

My test-setup with the Spider and the normal Camera, I have not been able to squeeze more than one picture per 2-3 seconds out of the thing. Can that be true? Its not encoding or anything?

If this is the case, I might as well switch to the L2 camera and then save some mem, because pics are saved in jpg.

You should be able to get a faster rate than one per three seconds. Are you processing the image before taking the next one?

I just took the sample code from the documentation, and placed a few timestamps. Its an infinte loop just waiting for the cam. I even tried removing the display - no significant change.

@ njbuch - It might help if you posted the exact code you are using. Someone could then try to recreate your issue.

This is the place - this exact code is taking a picture every 2-3 seconds:
http://www.ghielectronics.com/docs/62/camera-module

@ njbuch -

On Spider I think that is max speed (2-3 second for a frame). You can improve the speed by serCam.SetRatio(x), with x from 1-0xFF, and 0xFF is lowest quality, it also means raw data will be smaller.

Beside, if you want, you can re-size to 128x160, (the driver also provides this function), raw data will be smaller.

Finally, since 4.2.10 (Spider) we changed the serCam driver. It streaming a video better but if you take a picture, I think they are same speed.

@ Dat - I believe he is using the USB camera.

Its the camera that came with the Spider Starter Kit…

If it can stream video, is it then possible to capture that stream - by any chance?

I would say if you’re trying to stream (and capture) video then you’re using the wrong tool. I don’t think these devices have anywhere near the sustained throughput for that amount of data.