LifeCam VX-3000 webcam - no colour

[mikehab]

Hi,

I've recently "converted" an old Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 for use in astro-photography - and when I say "converted" I mean taken it apart and unscrewed/removed the lens element, put it back together and used an old 35mm canister as a 1.25" tube for plugging into the scope's eye-piece holder. The problem I'm having is that it now seems to only see black-and-white - it's lost the colour. Is this 'normal' or did I do something wrong when converting it?

(Also wondering whether I'd have more luck with a VX-5000 which I've already asked about in another thread but no responses yet..... )

Any help greatly appreciated...

Thanks,

Mike

[Cornelius Varley]

Have you tried testing the camera in daylight ? What software are you using to capture. If you use Sharpcam a small text file is generated containing the camera settings.

Peter

[mikehab]

Yes - tried in daylight (through the telescope) and same result - even when pointing at green trees the image is still only black-and-white. I've tried using both SharpCam and "Cyberlink YouCam" - same result on both. I did notice that when I unscrewed and removed the lens unit there seems to be some kind of 'filter' glass (probably plastic) on the back of the lens - sort of red-ish in colour... maybe that has something to do with the problem not that's removed?

[Cornelius Varley]

The filter is an IR block filter. This should have no affect on the colour balance if it left inplace and if removed the images should have a pink cast to them. If you have used Sharpcap copy the text file generated by the program, you might have set the colour saturation to low which would account for your mono image.

Peter

[mikehab]

Finally got to the bottom of the colour problem. It seems that when I installed the VX-3000 on Windows7 I didn't install the drivers properly - it wanted to install the whole Windows Live Messenger suite which I didn't really want, so I cancelled the install and this also skipped the install of the drivers. Having re-installed the drivers properly I now have colour. Now just waiting for some clear skies to put it to good use ! ;-)

Many thanks for the suggestions/help.

Mike

[DannyHarvey]

I have the same problem. One one machine it is fine on another it is black and white. this confirms its a driver problem.

ty

Danny