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A little moon on a stick but....
I'm looking for a camera that can live outside (on a lamp post) and takes 1 picture every hour. I was thinking a wildlife camera but they seem to be triggered not timed.
It's for tracking numbers using a new pumptrack (there will be notices to say pictures will be taken). One of the funders wants numbers and a breakdown of user groups.
Easiest solution I reckon would be old/cheap Android phone, Airplane mode, running a time-lapse photo app (of which there are many free ones I'm sure).
Obviously you'd have to mount it in a suitably boring looking case so no-one tried to get at it or nick it! And retrieve it every day/couple of days to get the pics & recharge it.
BEST solution would be Raspberry Pi with power bank/solar panels, running wireless hotspot so you can download the photos standing under it. Then you could mount it pretty high as you wouldn't need to physically access it until finished. Great new hi-res camera just released for Pi as well!
Most wildlife cameras do have a timelapse mode. I've got a couple here that do anyway. Should last for weeks or months on a set of batteries.
How will 1 photo an hr be accurate? What if there's 1 person riding at 11am when it takes a shot, 50 people turn up from 11:05-11:55 and everyone goes home before the next shot at 12?
Will the numbers be audited 😉
My Pentax w60 will do that. I've done a 1 month time lapse with it. Think it was all from a single charge. It's waterproof (tested mine snorkeling). It's pretty old so should be cheap second hand. I'm sure other models in the range will work, too
How will 1 photo an hr be accurate?
This.... how can that possibly be vaguely accurate?
RasPi running a [couple of quid] ultrasonic sensor that triggers every time someone goes past on the track - or, even easier, a camera running motion detection app that counts the numbers of times it's triggered (actually just let it take a picture and then count the number of pics per day/hour).
It’s for tracking numbers using a new pumptrack (there will be notices to say pictures will be taken). One of the funders wants numbers and a breakdown of user groups.
Given the limited method reliability of the photo method, why not ask volunteers who are keen to ride anyway to take numbers for you? They'll be having very regular breaks anyway, give them a little book/sheet with M/F columns, age range rows and ask them to keep a wee tally of unique users every every hour.
This…. how can that possibly be vaguely accurate?
It depends on what question they are trying to answer or what problem they are trying to solve.
It won't be the only method we'll ask for volunteers but volunteers being that your can't put expectation on them. It's almost like they expect us to have someone there all the time. There are loads of flaws but....
Also hoping to get one of those path counters for raw numbers but we need to get a snapshot of the demographic using it.
Look up ‘outdoor footfall trackers’ Places like country parks use them to track visitor numbers
edit - typing while you posted the above
your funders want a number - could be number of visitors or number of runs
Two well placed trackers would give you both - how many people visit and how much they use the track. the number of visits is a measure of how good your marketing, the amount those visitors use the track is a measure of how good the track is.
a footfall tracker has no cctv / data protection type issues too
demographic you can cover by just observing on a typical day - you or a volunteer can do that. It just needs to be a snapshot you don’t have to do it all day every day