Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
DCP Directory
MillimeterSpider Cam
Jan 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Michael Goldman
Martin Nicholas has upgraded his method for spying into the private world of rare spiders. In last year's PBS miniseries, Deep Jungle, the U.K.-based adventurer took viewers into tarantula nests using a tiny rolling spy camera he calls the “tarantula-cam.”
Martin Nicholas with the original version of his tiny “tarantula-cam.” The CMOX Ultra-Miniature Color spy camera records to a Sony PD150.
For his new show True Adventures of the Ultimate Spider Hunter, an hourlong PBS special that airs in February, Nicholas added a tiny wireless mic to the configuration to capture ambient sound of the spiders hissing. The audio signal is then sent to a mixing station and recorded to DigiBeta.
The tarantula-cam is a CMOS Ultra-Miniature Color spy camera module (mounting lugs removed), with a 3.6mm wide-angle lens and five tiny battery-powered LED lights attached to a circuit board — all mounted on a rolling Matchbox toy Nicholas manually pushes deep into tarantula burrows using ultra-long forceps. The camera records to a Sony PD150 camera; on his shows, Nicholas watches the imagery in realtime on the PD150's monitor and offers commentary.
“We debated using optical probes or medical endoscopes, but they are too delicate to maneuver into holes,” Nicholas says. Putting wheels on the bottom of the camera made it too wide — hence the Matchbox toy. “We wanted to see the structure and activity in the burrow without having to be invasive — giving us footage that has never been seen before.”
