Im in the process of making an automatic camera to take pictures and video when an animal trips a PIR.
Ive recently come across these very cheap spy cameras.
The video and pictures get stored on a micro sd card and the camera acts as a mass storage device.
So you can just plug it into a pc to retrieve the files.
This gives you a great video camera and storage solution to use with the Arduino.
You can get them for a few pounds on ebay.
Ive stripped it out of the case.
What Ive started doing is attaching flying leads in place of the buttons.
Extending the lead for the microphone as its directly soldered to the board.
Removed the battery and extended the leads.
I may place a photoresistor over the status led for feadback when controlling it with the Arduino.
Im also going to modify the camera for IR with a IR light source for after dark.
Im going to hook it up to an Arduino to provide the logic and timing with a sparkfun ePIR.
Ill have a 12v power source to provide the 3.3v via a regulator needed by the ePIR and camera.
I hope it will give me 24 hours use so I can place it in the field and come back the next day.
A nice interesting project and probably hundreds of pounds cheaper than professional equipment.
Gordon