I have got a couple of webcams, those seems useless to me.
Sometimes i dream to have a binocular which can do video recording and zoom further away just like the spy movies ha ha. So this story is an attempt to make such thing. Not actually the camera in the spy movies, somewhat close to that what i want to build.
So that is the idea, and i started with a couple of magnifying glasses and arranged in series in a line through my window, and started projecting the objects that i can see through my window on a white sheet of paper.
Most of the camera’s uses the same technology to project an image on a slide of film or on a CCD/CMOS camera sensor.
Then I’ve bought a webcam, disassembled it opened the lens and put my magnifying glass on the CMOS sensor and started playing with that level of zoom 😀 . It gave me an awesome result but also have caused some problem.
The magnifying glass combination was not perfect for me cause i can’t customize their magnifying factor/customized magnifying glasses are not available in the local market, the distance of the glass and sensor can not be controllable via electronics(though controllable by hand)/it is hard to make such hardware for me and it is not compact. So, i have searched for a long time to find commercially available zoom lenses/lense used in SLR camera.
But, those are too pricey for me to use in a project. I kept on searching.
One day my digital camera has some problem and repaired it in local camera repairing store. I asked them would they have any damaged/faulty camera and if they want to sell it. They answered no. it was quite hard for me to hear that answer. They told me that sometimes the old camera parts is very useful for them to repair a new one.
I had a scope. I asked them that if there was any such old camera that’s parts cannot reusable then i am going to buy it. They asked me what i want to do with it. I answered about my project. and they gave me a lens of an old handycam.
I opened it, It has some lenses, two stepper motors, and two sensors(i mean infrared limit switch).
I’ve put my webcam on the CCD slot of the lens unit. For this, i had to cut down my webcam motherboard a little bit. If you are going to do this project then you must understand what parts of your webcam motherboard is safest to cut down. Then i removed the two steppers and started playing with the lens unit.
It gave me awesome result. Maybe 20X zoom capability 😀 .
And i started to make a project in arduino to control the steppers by a computer.
It was another story, I will tell you later. Till then………..