The September 2013 Edition of the ITE Journal is out and I really like how the Journal is evolving. The articles are definitely more interesting AND more useful than past articles.
A great example is the article by Manzell Blakeley and Nathan Gray who detail how they're using cheap time lapse cameras to document parking occupancy/turnover in New York City.
For less than $150, they have a time lapse camera system that can snap photos of about half a city block. They pull the SD cards into the office and review the photos to identify which parking spaces have turned over during their study interval.
They spent about 300 hours collecting data on their Park Slope project by having staff collect the parking data manually the "old-fashioned" way. Based on their experience with the time lapse cameras now, they estimate the data collection would have been reduced to 15 hours. Wow!!!
Here's what you need:
- $100 TimelapseCam 8.0 camera
- $30 mounting bracket (this is our brand mounting bracket, which is $4 more than the one they use, but I think it's more universal)
- $10 in SD cards and batteries (spares of each)
I remember an article on time lapse photography for traffic data collection running in the predecesor to ITE Journal back when I first joined in the 70s…so again, we see a return to the basics as a “novel idea”. Definitely, the technology has improved and become much less expensive (and, Kodak is just about out of business).