HD Webcam Modification

[George]

I have been following Gary Honis's modifications on the Microsoft HD Lifecam with growing interest over the last few months.

His results on lunar and planetary imaging have prompted me to take the plunge and buy the Lifecam for modification. I have been watching prices on Ebay for some time and prices never drop below retail so I took the plunge and bought one off Amazon.

I paid £39.95 inc postage using a credit I had left over, normal price is around £45.00.

Anyway on to the gory bits, I used Garys pages as references for the whole project and had no problems so I see no point in replicating the pictorial in full here.

The webcam fresh from Amazon

Dissasembly showing the bits that will be re-used.

The donor body for the cam was an old cheapie eyepiece with the lenses removed, this is ideal as it not only drops into a 1.25 focuser its also threaded should you wish to use a filter etc.

I will be using a UV/IR filter which will also serve to make the new camera airtight and dustproof.

I put a couple of turns of tape around the around the reasembled cam to make it snug in the eyepiece.

The innards all snug in their new home, its a perfect fit.

I packed the cable end with some sponge cut from a scouring pad, this will stop dust etc entering the camera.

The original end cap from the lifecam is glued over cable exit hole with hotmelt glue.

Last job is to black out the blue LED on the business end, easily seen here on the right.

I dabbed on some black paint using a cocktail stick......LED extinguished.

The finished HD webcam.

First results are looking very good and I will post some pictures as soon as I get time to process them.

[SlipperySquid]

That is a really sweet mod there george! I'm still thinking about taking a logitech quickcam pro 9000 apart for lunar imaging!

[samtheeagle]

I'm interested in your progress on this George... I saw the other thread about this camera recently and thought that it looked good. My only slight concern is that the HD might be too much for my wee netbook to cope with! Still I can always drop the res and/or frame rate, not ideal, but if it's good as a planetary camera...

[Tim]

Keen to see the results George. Is that a straight placement into the tube? Does that lifecam have adjustable gain and/or exposure?

Funnily enough I just modded my old webcam in a similar way, but it will only do 7.5fps at anything over 1024x768. It didnt work well on Mars because of the auto exposure, but looks good so far on lunar.

Neat looking job btw

[George]

TJ, Gary's article has some screenshots of the config tools. And yes it fits in a standard eyepiece tube, I wound 2 turns of thin tape around the cam body to make it really snug.

I gave it a quick run last night on the moon and was impressed even tho the moon is just after full, the detail with a x2 barlow was very good.

Will post piccies soon.

[samtheeagle]

Just picked up one of these cameras, sub £40 for a limited time @ PC World. Reserve online for instore pick up, or buy online to get the best price.

Buy the Microsoft Lifecam Cinema Webcam at cheap prices from PC World

Once I get an old EP to take apart I shall be making the modification!

Speaking of which, George, can you tell me how you got the glass out the the EP you used? Is it easy? ANSWER - Very

Initial tests of the camera are very promising, nice clear image, and very good low light performance. All bodes well for planetary work

[rwg]

This is very tempting at that price - I currently have a Logitech Fusion, but while it's ok on the moon, it struggles with excessive noise on planetary targets (a bigger scope than my Skymax 127 would obviously help, but that's more than £40...)

Looks like the fusion uses an 'MT9M011' chip - datasheet here : http://www.datasheetsite.com/extpdf.php?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tranzistoare.ro%2Fdatasheets2%2F82%2F823961_1.pdf

The Microsoft cam uses a OV9712 HD chip - datasheet here : http://www.ovt.com/uploads/parts/OV9712%20PB%20v1.1%20WEB.pdf

The specs give a sensitivity advantage to the Microsoft Cam (3300mv/lux-sec vs 1000mv/lux-sec), although what exactly this means in real life I don't know. Certainly there are reports that the Lifecam is very good at controlling noise (see this cloudynights thread).

Has anyone here managed to use theirs in anger yet - some more positive results would quite likely convince me

Robin

[samtheeagle]

Not yet, I just got the cheap EP so that I can use the body to house the camera. I'll prolly have a go at taking it all apart tonight, but the forecast atm is cloud followed by cloud with a dash of cloud

Check out the sample images here: Modified Microsoft Lifecam Cinema HD Webcam - First Light - Jupiter - by Gary Honis The images look good to me, but of course he's using a 20" dob to get them! But that aside the quality of the captures still seems very good!

Robin, remember that the offer ends on Sunday for that price according to the pc world product page.

[rwg]

Yes, I know I've got to make up my mind soon to get that price. Gary Honis is bringing 16 times as much light onto the chip as I manage in my little Skymax 127, so I'm not sure whether 'better than the fusion' is going to be good enough...

Still, the idea of less noise and improved sensitivity does attract me, since I have both problems with the fusion.

decisions, decisions... I *was* thinking of getting a better barlow

Good luck with the modification!

Robin

[samtheeagle]

Hmmm, I'm no expert but regardless of the aperture I guess the camera is still going to be superior. Gary certainly seems to rate it above his other webcams having read through that Cloudy Nights thread you linked to (thanks btw).

If the weather Gods favour me I hope to test it out on Mars this weekend with my 150mm newt

[Rob]

I think this is very exciting.. super results from people. All power to you, looking forward to some results.

Rob

[rwg]

Still undecided, but anyone who is tempted to buy one should note that you can get 3% cashback on PC World purchases via Quidco

PC World cashback - Quidco

If you haven't used quidco before, you can get cashback for a whole range of online transactions (say buying a new mobile, a holiday, or changing your electricity supplier). They keep the first £5 cashback each year as a fee, you get everything after that. I made about £200 back in my first year.

Robin

[samtheeagle]

Modification complete! Took me an hour ot two last night, but I'm pretty pleased with the final result The only difficulty I had was with step #7 in Gary's instructions, removing the second mount screw. That bit was a nightmare! In the end I managed to wrench it out :S I just couldn't get the driver into the screw head.

The finished item looks neat and tidy, and a basic test seems to suggest that I didn't break it along the way. I just plonked it in to my small refractor and pointed it out of the window. Other than having to really pushing the back focus to the extreme looking at nearby trees and lamp posts, it seemed to give me a pretty clear image.

There's an option in one of the camera dialogs for 50/60hz mains noise removal which was by default at 60. That gave a horrible set of strobing lines across the image, but correcting that setting to the UK 50hz value clear it up a treat.

Will try some more test tonights, but I fear the clouds are here to stay for a while...

[Merlin66]

Can the HD be modified for long exposures?

Or is it still early days......nothing mentioned on Gary's site.

Ken

[samtheeagle]

Not that I am aware of...

[George]

Can the HD be modified for long exposures?

Or is it still early days......nothing mentioned on Gary's site.

Ken

Very early days yet, but as interest gathers momentum I'm sure someone will come up with some extreme mod of somekind

If you use the MS suite that comes with the cam you can do single frame HD snapshots, not tried anything yet myself other than a quick test on the moon and mars, Mars was horrible and far too bright and I couldent get any detail whatsoever but i think this was down to my own setup and very poor seeing. The lunar views even just after full were stunning.

There's some clear sky forecast for tonight and for once (I usually curse luna) I'll be spending some time on the moon.

[neil phillips]

Hi I was very interested in this webcam, i started the thread on this recently. Ive read there is no Gain control with this camera can anyone confirm this ?

Gary has said to me that CMOSS chips have come a long way from the early days and thinks this cam will outperform a toucam ( though not as sensetive from what ive read ) 30 fps is huge benefit, i know what 30 fps can achieve having got great results with a DFK at 30 fps, ( a limiting factor for the SPC )

I am very dissapointed to learn that there is no gain control though, this will make getting just the right signal a very hit and miss affair, the only way tto control signal will be with exposure. and with certain size scopes at certain barlow powers it might be neigh on impossible.

One thinks of scenarios of using a smaller scope to get the the right signal ( or a bigger one lol ) seriously, to get the signal just right one might be able to adjust the magnification for a given exposure setting to get the signal just right.

But for example if you wanted to shoot at 1/ 50th secs exposure on Mars, at 5x barlow power if 1/50 secs is too dim then you might find the next slower exposure setting too bright, one might have to drop to 4x or 3x at this exposure setting, so very limiting.

Though im guessing with certain size scopes and focal lengths and barlow powers some may get lucky.

and the setting will be close to optimum signal.

It may be possible to use tube extensions to act as a sort of gain control. adjusting the signal strength at a particular exposure setting. to get it just right.

I do certainly think at the price you can get these for, it is worth the hassle of doing all this. once a nice high power ( say 5x ) can be acheived at between 1/130th secs and faster exposures 30 fps will be a great benefit. I await results with interest,

i really think the more i think about this, i should be trying this webcam, especially at this price. once your power and exposure has been balanced to achieve say 160 on the k3 ccd tools level meter. Fireworks could happen.

I have no skill in modify one though wonder if anyone could do it for me if i supplied the webcam, A lot to ask i know. but im suspecting i could in theory achieve really great things with this cam. As of yet though i am a little uncertain My results with a spc can be seen on this forum who ever is interested

Neil

[rwg]

I have just bought one of these from PC World - decided to take the plunge and will be 'de-skinning' it over the weekend. Might try a spot of afocal imaging first to see how that goes.

Anyway, I can confirm that there is no gain control on this cam. Is that going to be a problem? No idea yet. I wonder if the gain might be automatic within the camera (pure speculation...).

I can also confirm that I can get 1280x720 @ 30fps with an MJPG codec having uninstalled the MS camera software. I am a little suspicious that this turns off the 'clear frame' noise reduction though, as the video seemed to show a bit more noise. This could just be a result of the shorter shutter speed and/or the mjpeg compression.

I'm pleased that George is reporting Mars being far too bright - sounds like the sort of problem that can be fixed by tinkering with the exposure. Too dim would have been more worrying I think...

Robin

[Kerrp30]

Any pictures of your own you want to share with this Forum especially the moon.

Maybe comparison ones with a DSLR?

Paul

[red dwalf]

looks very interesting, can`t wait for a few images

[samtheeagle]

Ok, so here's my first image... But don't let it put you off! I'm very new to planetary imaging, the conditions were pretty horrid, it was early and so Mars was low in the sky, and I lack registax processing skills! I just wanted to try and make the most of the little bit of clear sky I had...

This was captured using my 150mm f8 newt, using the 2X barlow that comes with the scope. I used a Baader UV/IR rejection filter stacked with a Sky-Watcher 25% ND filter. I used the ND as the camera seems to be very sensitive, and even dropping the exposure down to the minimum setting Mars was a washed out white disk.

The stack is 165 out of 295. I captured at 1280x720 in YUV at 10fps, which my wee netbook handled fine, no dropped frames

So, it's not going to win me any prizes, but there's some detail there, and a tiny hint of an ice cap I think... The lack of quality is more a product of my ineptitude combined with the awful watery seeing, but I think the camera has some real potential in the right hands with good conditions.

[samtheeagle]

Oh yeah, I found that mixing the exposure and brightness values around gave me pretty good control over the image...

[samtheeagle]

Here's a slightly more refined image. I manually selected the best frames from the avi, and then used registax to align and stack. After that I applied a few sharpen and noise reduction tools in Paint.NET. If I recall this is only about 90 frames, so I don't think it's too bad considering. It's the best Mars image I've ever captured anyway!

For comparison purposes, here's what Stellarium says Mars looked like at the same time last night. The rotation is a bit off, due to how the camera was in the scope, but I can see a few features in my image

[Kerrp30]

Okay so If I buy a EP or a damaged one from ebay. You said you used a IR Filter where did you get this and I take it this sits in front of the sensor:D

Is the filter the silver part of the front of the EP? What length does the EP need to be to house the camera

Regards

Paul

[samtheeagle]

I think that both George and I have used the body of a Sky-Watcher 25mm EP, one of the ones that comes free with their scopes. It's a perfect size for the job.

I picked up the IR filter from astrobuysell, but they're a basic item that you can buy from most astro suppliers. The filter screws into the silver part of the EP body, which is indeed in front of the CMOS sensor.