anybody got a favorite cheap webcam with optical (not just digital) zoom, preferably in the under $100 price tag range? Don’t really know much about webcams but there seem to be as many choices as there are cell phones these days. I did the google thing of course but hitting it cold the sheer volume of halfass hits google returned was a bit daunting to plow through. So I figured I’d ask if somebody here already had stumbled on a good one and bookmarked it for future use. 
Does it need to be a web cam or can it be a small videocamera that you can use a digitizer to hook to the PC?
There are lots to look at at www.supercircuits.com
If you use "allintopic: " you will get much better results. This forces all the words in your search to be required to be in the topic of the link.
8-Dale
Here is the one I want to get for my Rover project I have in my mind.
http://www.supercircuits.com/redesign_images/prodImg200/pc165c_angle.jpg
yeah, I saw that one also. Depends on how small you want to go I guess. For around $30 more you can get the hi-res color one and it has the ability to auto zoom as well.
I just remembered it does not come with a lens, so it’s going to be more than $30 more 
thanks for the google search tip Dale.
I should have been more specific in what I was asking about. I want to be able to control the zoom remotely. There is a section on supercircuits called PTZ (pan tilt zoom) but even the less expensive of those all seem like you can set a zoom manually rather than having an electric zoom control. Sort of like setting the zoom so the camera is looking at a specific place they want to monitor, which I guess I don’t see the point of on a pan and tilt since the thing is moving around. Anyway I know so little about cameras and lenses maybe what I am looking for is way out of line with what I was hoping to spend.
Glad to help. 
Can you give me a line to the camera you want? I could not find it. I would want to control everything also.
8-Dale
what about a camcorder most have ir remote ability ,u wld still need a tranmitter but u,d have the best pic,i got a old bazzooka style one with
20 x optical i,m gonna rip it apart and see wht its made of , 
Oh I have not found one yet. I was sort of floating the question here thinking others may have already found something good, or know enough about what is out there that they could guide me to a good choice.
Oh it doesn’t have to be USB, I have a cheap video capture card if I need to use it. I just figured the webcam angle might be cheaper and easier to use, and take less power. If such a beast doesn’t exist then we can figure something out using ntsc or composite/ttl inputs.
Really sad part is once upon a time I took a physics course with optics in the lab and it was so long ago I don’t remember much at all. Those must have been the brain cells that the beer killed first when I was younger.
I think a camcorder might be a bit heavy. I did actually find an app that lets you use a camcorder as a webcam but again I think it will be too much weight and power to go that way. I might have to see if my wife’s digital camera can be used as a webcam… it has a zoom lens on it… although I would not be able to use hers per-se, buying an inexpensive model might be another approach to consider.
by the way I do have a PC on the ROV, not a speed demon but it does give me 1 pci slot and several usb and two firewire input options. I just really had not anticipated spending as much on a camera as the pc or the rov chassis cost. 
an auto zoom lens would now exactly be the cheapest thing, my dad has one out in the garage not hooked up, lens alone cost about 80 bucks, but thrn again , its about a $160 camera 
How about this?
You’ll have to do the interfacing work by yourself, but at this price you can’t go wrong.
HTH
theChipmunk
Hmm, I am wondering if you could take one of the manual zoom lenses and rig a micro servo to adjust the zoom. That might be a way around the $200+ camera approach. I guess I’ll have to study the pictures closely and just pick something that looks like it might work to order and try it.
Eddie,
Just cut loose and splerge. Come on! just do it! slap down a grand and get what you want.
LOL! 
well I found some motorized zoom lenses for a C mount but they are like $250 a pop. they would need a real camera which would be another $50-$75, and that type of camera is NTSC out instead of USB so we’re into a capture card which is another $75-$100. too much. I’m probably just going to get one of the manual zoom ones and see if I can figure out a way to move it with a servo or something. 
Your best bet is to get a small camcorder with analog video output. The camcorders have good zoom, auto focus (which might be very important), and good auto low light capability. You can make a pan/tilt/zoom for most camcorders using just three servos. If the camcorder has a finger rocker switch on top to control the zoom, then this switch can be easily operated using s servo. Some years back a person in europe made this simple setup and used my mini-ssc II web control program to operate it. Might be too large a setup for small robot use, butit worked very well. Instead of a capture card, get an analog to USB capture gizmo (usually $50 or less). Flea markets and yard sales sometimes have camcorders with broken tape drives for cheap prices.