www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I have been looking around and wondered if anyone here could help. A few moths back I was using a moth trap and using a motion detection software that uses a webcam to take a photo everytime something moved past the webcam, but the quality was poor. I have been interested in doing time lapse photography for a while but does anyone know if there is software out there that would work with my Canon 500D so I can just plug in the camera to my laptop, point it at what I want to take photo of and leave it to shoot it everytime something moves past it? I thought about a time lapse remote for the camera, but I am not sure if they can be set to do what I want, I know you can set the settings to take a photo every so often at the same time (say every 2 minutes or whatnot) but I'd end up with a bunch of photos that could be all the same instead of showing movement around or what I am shooting.

Any ideas?

If you can find it Dave, an article about the Wildlife Photographer of the year, 2009 & 2008, may be relevant. That great shot of a Snow Leopard 2008 , and the Wolf jumping the fence, 2009 were, if memory serves, done with motion detectors.

Regards Gruditch

Thanks, I'll have a look about. I remember that wolf image.

Hi Dave,
Although it's only really for canon "compact" cameras - it's worth checking out "chdk" which basically is a group of developers who hack canon cameras , enabling a multitude of scripts to be run. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
You format an sd card with chdk and load it with the scripts you want to run (10 minutes to setup and run).The camera boots from it, and the scripts are available in the menu. I have used this a lot as a timelapse function using "ultra intervalometer" but have found a simple motion detect script too - http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/UBASIC/Scrip ... _Detection
It works on varying luminance in shot, very good for lightning photography but should work just as well for butterflies.
The most amazing thing is, it's all done in camera

Thanks for the link, some useful stuff there great that all this can be done in camera

I tried that motion detection, but can't get it to work on my camera, anything I have to do differently or need to get it to work? I followed the instructions but its not working. I formatted my card and put the code on, nothing when I press firmware update. Says you need Fingalo's build v 119 but I can't find that

I know that Zigview make a clip on digital viewfinder that has motion detection, the Zigview-R.

it has
Motion Detection with User Definable Areas Shutter Release Mode.

http://www.maxmax.com/Zigview.htm

Bet it's an arm and a leg though.