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Camera Meets Speedometer, Travel Across Country Together

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the digital-would-have-been-easier dept.

BluKnight writes "This guy hacked his camera to his speedometer, and ended up taking a picture EVERY MILE during a trip across the US. Kodak has the results (Flash in use!) of this venture. For my next hack, I'm going to interface to my digital camera to take a picture every time I blink -- I'll never miss what I'm seeing again!" The best part is the fact that he stopped every 36 miles to swap film rolls. Sad thing is, I understand this. (I still love film) The interactive map is -really- well done, but requires flash...

11 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. I really hate to inform you of this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    But that's an ODOMETER. Try again, okay?

  2. Old News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I sent this link to my friends, oh, 2 years ago.

    You don't have to stop every 36 miles. Cameras for animation use 35mm film and use stock rolls. Professional photographers have mega-film magazines for normal cameras so that you can shoot 100-200 shots without stopping.

  3. Re:speedometer? by mazachan · · Score: 2, Informative

    I believe the speedometer and the odometer are hooked up on the same wire, which makes sense if you think about it..

  4. Clear a few things up. by jonnythan · · Score: 4, Informative
    If you READ THE SITE,the guy actually changed rolls every 36 miles, but he didn't necessarily stop.
    Shooting through an open window meant no air-conditioning, so he kept the Kodak 5028 VPH film in a cooler. "I would count the miles," he says. "As soon as the thirty-sixth came, I would change rolls, put the exposed roll in a canister, enter its number on a log sheet, take the next one out of the cooler, and insert it. I got to where I could do all that in less than a minute, while steering with my kneecap."
    Also, it was actually attached to his odometer, not speedometer, and he could delay each picture for a moment with a switch if he liked.
    Every time a mile ended, a device attached to the odometer made an electric contact that triggered the shutter release. If a cement wall or other nearby object blocked the view, he had a switch that would delay a picture for a moment.
    And, he did it all twice. First time in a porsche along the interstate, which didn't go so well. Second time in an Explorer along old highways.

    Way nifty :D
  5. Re:seeing the pictures without Flash. (corrected) by CodePoet82 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Damned slashdot broke the url...
    http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/onTheRoad
    / postcards/tellYourFriends.shtml?mile=1

  6. Re:Fishy by Mr.Intel · · Score: 3, Informative

    Look at pictures 613 and 614, for example; they're both ends of the same service station! The same jeep is even in both pictures! Is this service station really a mile long?

    OK, first there is no jeep. Second, 612 is grass/sky, 613 is a service stations and 614 is grass/sky

    --
    ASCII tastes bad dude.
    Binary it is then.
  7. speedometer??? by Gameshow+Bob · · Score: 2, Informative

    wouldn't it be his odometer?

    --

    You Like Science?
    You Like bottomquark.
  8. Re:Stopped? by psavo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well.. it's not Kodak that makes the, but maker of camera.
    For example Nikon has 250 & 750 frame (check them out -- huge) 'backs'. You need to take back from your camera and change it.

    Of course you need lots of film for that too. Pretty much standard is 100ft (30.5m) or 55ft (17m) rolls (with these you can fill standard 36 exposure canisters). That is enough for about 800 exposures.

    --
    fucktard is a tenderhearted description
  9. Re:speedometer? by marauder · · Score: 2, Informative

    They've fixed them, or at least some of them. The F3 now has an odometer check length. But "speedometer" check length actually works better for their purposes, because the reason the check lengths are there is to give you something to do every so often so you don't fall asleep and die. And it certainly seemed to get *you* thinking, even if you didn't count off the clicks :-)

  10. odometer, not speedometer by byrd77 · · Score: 4, Informative

    looks like he hacked his odometer, not his speedometer. Odometers click off the miles, speedometers tell you how fast yer goin'.

    I read the post and envisioned a flash sequence of speedometer readings - ooh look, he's back up at 85 again... doh must've been pulled over, we're stopped.

    --
    - Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
  11. Flash is not evil per se ... by Darth+Paul · · Score: 2, Informative
    "The interactive map is -really- well done, but requires flash..."

    I've seen plenty of places where flash is used well to do things that otherwise couldn't be done. Despite all the anti-flash sentiment around here, it's not flash or macromedia itself which sucks, it's designers which insist on making kludgy, overbranded, full-flash sites which suck. Macromedia is actually trying to educate its users about usability and trying to encourage them in the next flash.

    Flash ain't a bad tool, but only in the right places, and this is one of the better uses I've seen...