How to mount and power a DSLR on the dash for time-lapse

BobORama wrote:

BabORama's solution comes in at about $40... plus having your camera sitting in the windshield -- and that last part kills IQ. The problem is that your windshield isn't flat, but angled and curved, so you can't get a good optical coupling and there's usually reflections, etc.

Believe it or not, you can get a camera/DVR that is directly designed to be stuck on the windshield/dash and powered by the car to continuously capture timelapse stills or video. In fact, on eBay they start at less than $6 shipped: search for "dash camera" or "dash DVR." The IQ on many is poor, with just 640x480 video resolution, but many have features like motion detection and G-force sensors to trigger the camera when something interesting is happening. In fact, there are even some $30 rear-view mirror camera systems in which one camera is weatherproof and can be placed outside the car -- with no glass in front of the lens. 4K action cams with dash-cam features start around $40. Starting at about $80, you can even get a 360-degree weatherproof camera you could stick on the car roof... should you happen to have the urge to simulate Google's streetview cars....

I haven't used my dash camera/DVRs much, but, thanks to the windshield issues, the IQ is really not significantly worse than when I used a 16MP Canon PowerShot (programmed using CHDK) for the same purpose. These dash cams are so cheap you can just dedicate them to the purpose, and most will even treat the SD card as a circular buffer, so they'll have the last N hours of video any time you pull the card.