Webcam + Sky = white

[ihouse]

Hello Guys

This is my first post here however i have trolled in here for a while. I am slowly understanding cumulus and weather stations alot more than when i started and im feeling like i can contribute now.

I have a quick (i hope) question for those of you whom have played around with webcams and weather. I have a Logitech USB Webcam, which is probably 5 years old or so. When i use it for anything indoors its great however when i point it outside to use as a weathercam the whole screen goes white (too much light outside?) has anyone encountered this problem? Can you only use specific webcams for this purpose?

Cheers for your help in advance, and thanks for a great site.

[philcdav]

hello mate, just trawling and saw your unanswered post re the web cam.

did u get it sorted?

you will have 2 issues to contend with.

1. the usual 'bright sky' will swamp the camera so you will need 'auto exposure' set.

2. the use of a polarizing filter would assist the definition.

what i would do is set the camera NORTH facing or least South facing to stop overexposure.

fit some polarizing filter system. you could 'blue-tack' a piece of sunglass lense over the lense but it obviously needs to be 'polarizing' glass/plastic.

set the camera to auto-exposure UNLESS you want to use the camera to compare light levels in which case you would need to use the same exposure ALL THE TIME.

Hope this helps and is not too 'down science' haha. Not sure how much u know about cameras/light etc.

Anyway, how are you doing with the wqeather station/Cumulus?

[steve]

unanswered post

It's a duplicate post, Phil, it was answered here: https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3452

Not that your reply isn't useful; it most certainly is.