Hey Eddie,

I haven't taken a look at all the posts in this thread but this looks neat.  Truly  creative! :-)

Jeff

I made the crude push-button peddle using firewood split into a plank to put the hinge, spring and hardware to connect a three-AAA battery to the red and black wires of the USB cable.    For the switch I used a copper pipe for my sheet metal and soldered to it. The terminals have some spring, but the real spring bottoms out to stop me from pressing too hard on the spring.   If I make another peddle, I will make the bottom board quite a bit larger to allow my heal to sit on it as I press the button for better ergonomics.  I forgot to put the bigger shrink wrap on the connections, but I will rewire later to do this and make it look less like it was done in the bush league.  I tested it with my canon G11 and it worked just fine.  This will make my bee photos work much better.

I have not made my foot peddle.  I have and old one somewhere in my junk, but I could only find it.  It is easy to make a DIY version using springs, a hinge and spacers to keep the push button from damage from Godzilla from squashing it.  The CHDK has a feature to adjust zoom in and out and various functions by pressing the button in different successions.  If you are looking for a canon powershot, since all are fixed-lens cameras, they often have scratches on the lens.  You may ask for example photos, or better a video with the camera panning that will always reveal the scratch.  The G11 and G12 are some the best valued powershot's since they have the reciprocating view finder. 

Yes a go-pro could work, but you will not know the results until you are done.  I use a Canon Powershot series camera (G11) that has the Canon Hardware Development Kit (CHDK) software on it.  It can take continues photos at any interval.  I recently took time lapsed photos that lasted over a week when my 4G flash filed up.  These old point-and-shoot cameras can be purchased on ebay for $30 to $50  and despite being over a ten-year-old tech, it is still superior to most current cell phones in quality.  The intermittent photos (intervalometer) are cumbersome since  you get so many and is easy to loose track which photo belongs where.  With that software I can hook up a USB cable to a foot peddle to snap a shot which I will be doing for my next hive inspection.  For a list of powershot compatible cameras see:

canon Powershot list

and the software downloads for your camera see.

software

and some examples of stop-action animations I have made using this trick:

neowise last July 20

and my pool take down last fall

I will post my setup once I get it rigged up with examples.  My G11 cost me $30 off of ebay.