More feedback on webcam

E-mail from Eric Mader of the Xerces Society:  

Hi Karen,

The camera has been a nice feature. 

Ultimately, if it could also zoom in on crop flowers, and most importantly to me—the ground areas around bee shelters so that we could monitor our wildflower seedling development—that would result in a lot more camera use on my part.

It did save me a bit of travel time out to the site. And if I had site monitoring like this on many of my projects around the country, it could be a great tool. 

The resolution to date however has not been quite good enough for me to monitor seedling development as accurately I'd ultimately like.

That said, I think this was a great first start at using this technology. Live web cams are tricky enough indoors, but to make it work on a remote site, with little connectivity, and lots of wind/rain I think is a pretty great accomplishment! Thanks for involving Xerces in this process!

-Eric

E-mail from Matt Allen of Pacific Pollination:

 

Dear Karen

Thank you for your email. I would like to say that I found your webcam trial very useful indeed and am delighted you carried out the work. My view is that commercial pollinators as well as researchers will find this technology very advantageous, and ... I can think of several applications that could use the technology as it stands, and more than could be done by developing it.

In terms of feedback on the current set-up, I think the main points have already been touched upon. The camera could be faster to respond, and the definition could be better. However, these issues can be remedied, I am sure.  The key thing is that (a) you have done it and (b) it works. I never did a job yet that I didn't think I could do better the second time round. 

Thank you so much for carrying it through. 

Matt