questions about mobile broadband & making a timelapse video of a roadtrip in the US

[lund99]

Me and a couple of friends are planning to rent a RV and take a 6 week long road trip through the US next summer.

But coming from Norway we have no idea of what mobile broadband providers have the best coverage and bandwith so we are unsure of what solution to go for.

If anyone has any opinon about what type of solution would provide us with the best coverage and bandwith while driving from the east to the west coast, I would love to hear it

Also, for the trip, we were wondering about making a timelapse video of the entire drive, we figured that if we put my Canon EOS 450D in the front of the RV taking pictures every 10, 20 , 30 seconds or so and compile all the images taken while driving we would end up with a lot of great shots than can be compiled down to a 2-5 minute long timelapse video of the entire drive through the united states..

Does anyone have suggestions on how to solve this? Do i need a software connected to the computer or can i set the camera to do this on its own?

Any help on either of these topics will be greatly appreciated

[radioraiders]

For the mobile-broadband part, the 2 largest nation-wide carriers are AT&T (GSM/UMTS) and Verizon (CDMA). Their coverage should be more-or-less equal. If you are coming from Norway, then you should be familiar with GSM/UMTS since that's the 2G/3G technology used in Europe, so you may want to get an unlocked data card, so you could use it back home in Norway as well. Just be aware, in Europe GSM is on frequencies 900 and 1800 and UMTS on 2100, while in the USA GSM and UMTS are both on 850/1900. So check the frequencies before buying any data cards. Most newer cards support all freqs, for example:

Newegg.com - AT&T Sierra AC885 USB Unlock 3G Data Card - Cell Phone Accessories

[MikeCa]

I do not believe the 450D supports time lapse photo on it's onboard OS. Read this thread on the 450D and time lapse.

TImelapse with 450D and no computer.: Canon EOS 1000D / 500D - 300D Forum: Digital Photography Review

[lund99]

thanks for the replies folks!

I was guessing that Verizon or AT&T would be the reccomendations, I guess these have the best data coverage?

I will check out the different offers they have, seing as I already have a SIM card reader in my Lenovo, all I really need is a SIM card with a reasonable data plan..


As for the Timelapse project I found an app that can do this for me, the drawback is that I need to have the camera connected to a computer all the time but I will check the link supplied in the previous post to see if there is any way to avoid this issue.

Thanks for all the help

[Jac01]

I checked out the CHDK wiki and your camera is not supported, although if you are willing to get a camera that is supported by CHDK you can do almost anything you would like, as CHDK is linux that runs on Cannon cameras.

Another link that pertains to your camera; if you wanted to replace a high def video camera with a computer and your DSLR, is this-

Hack Adds Hi-Def Video to All Canon DSLRs | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

[lund99]

Great link, thanks! Thats definitely worth a look but like the forum post said, you should be a bit restrictive when it is unknown executeables from an unknown russian hacker

As for the CHDK, that was news to be but I guess I'll have to keep my camera for a little while longer seeing as its only about 6 months since i got it

[Jac01]

You could buy this camera

A450 - CHDK Wiki

I was finding them for about $50 on ebay

Make a suction cup mount for it and then make it your dedicated time-lapse camera for about 60-70 bucks... get a massive SD card and have it save the pics in RAW and then dump it to a computer at the end of every day.

[lund99]

hmmm great suggestion .. i would love a dedicated time lapse camera but I've been wanting those time lapses in pretty high def as well .. 5 MP might be to small for me ....

but thanks a lot, i'm gonna give this some thought

[radioraiders]

I was guessing that Verizon or AT&T would be the reccomendations, I guess these have the best data coverage?

I will check out the different offers they have, seing as I already have a SIM card reader in my Lenovo, all I really need is a SIM card with a reasonable data plan..

I think you need AT&T then, since CDMA (what verizon uses) is not compatible with GSM/UMTS modems. CDMA also doesn't use a removable SIM cards, but has the account info written directly to the modem (ie: you can't swap SIM cards like GSM/UMTS, but rather have to take the phone/modem to the Verizon dealer and they will write the account info on the modem)