Greetings

For the last couple of years I have used a nikon coolpix as a photomic camera for my microscope. The RCA output from the camera I then connected to my Dell monitor for frame selection and focus (rather than the built-in LCD). I now have a new Dell monitor but they no longer have RCA inputs. Does anyone have a suggestion how I may use an external capture device or something so I can still get a real-time image to my monitor? By the way, an internal capture card (or any card for that matter) is not an option since my PC is a state issued variety with no available card slots.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Too specialised for me: unless Smeghead has any suggestions, I'm referring you to the good folk at www.nikonians.org

It somewhat depends on the operating system you use, but it's possible under most.

We have a system at work with a Sony video camera that runs into some flavour of Hauppage capture card, which we use to grab frames for various uses under Linux. Since you can't crack open your PC, however, this solution isn't applicable to you - ours is a PCI card.

Since you don't appear to need to grab frames for processing/storage, then the simplest method would definitely have been to grab a monitor with a composite input. It's a shame your new Dell screen doesn't have this, as some of their higher-end monitors do. For example, the $330 (sale price) 2007WFP does, and it works quite well.

That's not cheap, but it may be cheaper than the alternative, which would be to buy a video capture dongle (either USB or firewire, depending on what your computer has handy) and then potentially having to spend hours getting it working. The drivers for these tend to be very OS-dependent, and Windows tends to have the most support.

I would invest in a better monitor.

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Always looking for cheap digital camera accessories.