Mast mounted camera?

[Roy M]

Soft Air: www.scdlink.com/

They are good people. I have done a lot of business with them. They will help you design an entire system, provide installation info, and give great followup service.

[Soft Air]

Thanks Roy, good info, I will contact them soon.

[Foozinator]

Sorry for resurrecting a dead thread, but technology has moved on, and my hypothetical use is for a different reason.

In the Dashew books, they repeatedly talk about sending someone up to the spreaders to keep a lookout for reefs and other hazards.

Would a camera with a polarized lens (and potentially other enhancements) be as effective as having a person aloft? It certainly would be safer and could be available 24/7...

[MBWhite]

If you could figure out a way to keep the lens clean I think it could be a nice addition. Possibly something like a long pole with a sponge, first to wet it down and then to dry it off when needed. Or if it could be some sort of moveable mount where the camera could either be moved/removed or raised/lowered easily.

Whatever you do, keep us updated on your progress as I'm certain a lot of others are wondering the same thing.

[hellosailor]

All you need is money. Weathercams have been mounted on skyscrapers for TV Nooze for years now. They pan, they zoom, they tilt, just like a human head. They have wipers to keep the rain off, either swinging wipers or a "clearview screen" rotating pane, which I thought was called a "kahn" on ships".

So price one out and by all means enjoy it. Oh, and of course, you'd want about a thousand more bucks for a really good daylight readable screen to mount at the helm to go with it.

[hpeer]

My Wife has noted she would like bigger port holes so to see put better.

I won't want to poke any more or bigger holes in the hull thank you.

But I have thought of bulkhead mounting a monitor linked to a camera as a "virtual porthole."

Not in the money or time budget right now.

[kmason]

Get a quadcopter and a GoPro camera. Fly up and inspect the mast from the deck with your laptop. With a quadcopter and a GoPro you can take hi-res pictures to examine later in better detail or very high definition video. Maybe provide a $ervice to fellow boaters who need an assessment of the top of their stick.

How about a stable platform you can just hoist a camera up the mast? Take some remote photos and bring it back down? You might be able to put together something that mounts on a mast car that you can manipulate while it is up the pole.

Don't put permanent stuff up on a mast that would require additional maintenance later on. Eventually you'll have to go up there and fix it anyway and at that point I'd recommend taking a camera with you.

[sailersteve]

Maren, I feel i know what your looking for.I've also have been looking for what you describe. Roy M's recommendation is the closest for me except those cams are 9in wide & my mast is only 5.5in wide.But after 2 years looking, technology is catching up. If what i describe is what your looking for let me know & when i fine a very good working cam i'll let you know. I will be mounting 2 cams 1 on each side of the mast , IP CAMs for controlling from phone / tablet etc. For security 1 cam to watch each hatch, w/2 way audio,let the thief hear you calling 911 on him,from anywhere in the world, most NVRs/DVRs have motion detection,( ONVIF ) allows mix match brand NVR/DVRs to ( ONVIF ) CAMs w/ IR INF-RED to see 100ft in the dark. IP66 waterproof, MINI DOME ( small as 4.5in wide) , PTZ, Pan 360de Tilt 90de Zoom ( OPTICAL ZOOM ) makes the difference & the only way to go AND ONLY OPTICAL ZOOM, 12x OZ read a plate across a large parking lot , 23x to 27x OZ be 1 mile to 4 miles out & not only see the restaurant on shore you want, but count how many empty tables there are & see who's eating chicken wings, also great for seeing anything in the water in front of you, from your tablet / phone , chartplotter etc. So far i've found 12x Op/Zoom $200.00 - 23x op zoom $400.00 27x op zoom $800.00 . All from the CCTV camera capital of the world CHINA with a lot of manufactures & hundreds of sellers . I have not bought yet because i still need too make sure the IP CAMERA i buy will have STABILIZED VIDEO ,with the mast bobbing back & forth and all . And i'm still trying to get the 27x zoom for under $500.00 ea. And i was told to go wired, to many thing can go wrong with wireless .

[hellosailor]

"STABILIZED VIDEO ,with the mast bobbing back & forth and all"


That's gonna be one incredibly expensive stabilization system! They're usually designed for a little "shake", not rock'n'roll. Not till you get to the newscopter-and-predator ball turret range.

[Stardate2010]

I can see putting a camera up by the spreaders looking down at a 45* angle with underwater led lights for low light navigation in coral or reef infested waters.... jmo