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Confirmed User
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 1,159
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Quote:
Originally posted by fiveyes
Hidden camera work isn't that easy to do, regardless of what the "spy" websites might have you believe. Not only do you have to have an effective rig that will pass casual inspection, it has to be handled properly- technique is more important than gimmacks.
Anyway, what you're talking about is a "body transmitter and field recorder" setup. The field recorder can be any camcorder that has AV line-in capability, meaning it has a VCR mode and has RC phone jacks for audio and video connections. To this, you attach the receiver's audio and video out lines.
Receiver will most likely be 12 volt DC (as well as the transmitter), so you'll need power sources for both. 1 or 2 amp/hour gel cells will work just fine.
On the working end, you'll need a remote camera head. Here you have a number of choices and it will be difficult to decide on a winner out of the gate. The lens is the first variable to consider.
You can go with a pinhole lens for the most covert, hard-to-spot setup. I'm talking a hole the size of this: <BIG>.</BIG> to peer out from the gimmack (the concealing object- such as a purse, baseball cap, tie clasp, etc). However, there is a trade off in going for an (almost) undetectable camera front. The pinhole lens has a fixed-on-infinity focus (where everything is equally a bit out of focus), there's a minor fisheye effect and they require a lot of lighting (small aperture you know).
Another lens choice is the 1/3" turrent mount. This offers the option of different focal lengths, typically 8mm, with about a 70 degree field of view, being the default. Focus must be preset but will give you a very clear picture within the depth of view once it has been attained (an 8mm lens has a forgiving depth of about 2 feet when set for a distance of 5 feet, so things are in sharp focus from 4 to 6 feet away). The lens itself is best mounted on a shiny black surface, where it tends to blend in.
The professional option is a C or CS mount. This is where you'll buy the camera head without the lens and choose a specific lens assembly to go onto it. There are a LOT of options within this category, including zoom and vari-focusing capabilities. Stay clear of this as a beginner but study it, if you do decide to get serious with it, this is really the way to go.
Next, is what the lens is mounted on. This has three choices as well. I'll discuss the board cam first, which is basically a bare printed circuit board with the imager chip mounted on one end of it. Sometimes there are two or three boards joined together with ribbon cable. The advantage with these is being able to configure the boards into different arrangements to suit the gimmack that encloses it. However, they're recommended for the handyman that has a kissing acquaintance with a soldering gun, because a lot of DIY is required to mount these and prevent shorts on the exposed circuitry, etc.
Next, there's the enclosed camera head assembly. These are best for the novice, since they are usually plug-n-play setups and only require mounting in the gimmack. Main consideration here is to ensure that you hook positive and negative correctly on the power supply, get them wrong and the camera is fried.
Finally, there's the professional camera head, they'll almost always have C or CS lens mounts and the video out won't be a RC phone jack. But they will have connections to control the lens assemblies that have focus and zoom capabilities.
The main consideration in the camera unit is the effective lines of resolution. Avoid the low end, 320-360, they'll be a disappointment. Try for 400 or better. Black and white is best for low light situations, can be IR enhanced in no-light situations and will generally offer more line of resolution than color. Also, color cameras have a great deal of variation on rendering color. If you go for color, go for the high end, cheaper won't do it.
Oh, and stay with CCD imagers. Though CMOS is cheaper, it's still a developing technology and the image isn't all that great yet.
Transmitter/receiver choices are many. For a body wire, stay away from 2.4 Gh, the water in the body really limits the range at that frequency. Better is 1.2 Gh and best is 900 Mh, though the last one is difficult to find a field receiver for since it's expected that one will use channel 59 on a cable ready TV for reception.
Let's see, that about covers it. Keep in mind that if the camera is on the person playing the prank, you're going to only see the subject of the prank and not get an overview of the situation. Oh, and if you really want to get some serious information from some practicing experts at this, check out http://www.iiiii.com/webnews/ where they've gone on at length for years about this stuff.
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eh, could you expand on that a bit? 
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