Wik,
I got the Pencam Trio VGA at Wal-Mart THE DAY BEFORE I got the issue of sport rocketry with the camera article in it, that was freaky. Pencams are digital cameras that operate with two buttons, mode and shutter (easy to control with electronics); the trio is about 1.25" x .75" x 5" and slides loosely through a bt-60, (paper towel tube). It weighs about 60g with batteries and holds 26 decent pictures, at least on the ground; I haven't adapted it for flight yet. You can read the whole article at
www.nira-rocketry.org It was originally published in The Leading Edge (Nov/Dec 2002) which is their newsletter and can be downloaded in .pdf at their website, can't remember if they have an html page for it or not. Bob Kaplow (author) used the AYUCR pencam controller sold at
www.ayucr.com to control his pencam 2 which seems to be identical to the pencam trio vga for all practical purposes, check out the whole line at
www.aiptek.com His pencam cost $50 US and the controller with cables and shipping costs about as much.
For me, $100 entirely for pictures is a little too much and I'm already ahead since my camera only cost $30. I think it would be a good idea to use a Basic Stamp Microcontroller to run the camera switches, since the Basic Stamp can be programmed from your computer to do all sorts of things. The Stamp would be programmed to close the switches momentarily in the right sequence and with appropriate timing. Then on another flight it could act as a staging and/or ejection timer, and on another it could be an altimeter, accelerometer, thermometer, etc. The BS-2 could combine these functions in a single flight. See the whole line at
www.parallaxinc.com
Even with this camera/controller, I think the minimum power would be a D12 staged to an E9. Otherwise, go composite with single stage F and G. You can always cluster if you like, just make sure you're extra careful with flight prep; a dead rocket may live again - but dead payloads are cursed.
Wik wrote: "1st rule of life: Never, ever trust a temporary building ie: Tents, marquees and wooden huts."
That is why everyone should have a monolithic dome
www.monolithicdome.com
Peace
Mike