Off topic. Advice in building inspection camera.

[larry0071]

A person can buy a Gopro 3 black and use wifi to send the image to a Nexus tablet where the user can take photos or start and stop video. This we have purchased and tried. The goal was to attach the gopro to a long rod and insert it into a place a human wouldn't be desired to go.
The problems we gave is that the go pro doesn't allow for focus up close and doesn't have zoom ability. It also lacks lighting and pan/tilt ability.

So I'm thinking that there had to be a way to use RC and/or wifi together to have a better camera for high resolution up close, pan and tilt, focus and zoom, and operate remotely without cables. I've not found it.

So, can I build it? Is the technology out there where I can build a system that would allow me perform detailed inspections of equipment using a wifi or RC controlled gimbal and camera as well as add lighting?

With the LiPo battery products on the market, getting remote power is easy. But building a working system would be a new challenge for me, but I'm willing to try.

Can anyone help get me going in a direction? Camera's, gimbal, control board, lighting.... There are multiple facets that would all need brought together.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.

[Witmore]

Just a cursory search, There are some cell phones with remote control capabilities with laptops and tablets, alot of cell phones are getting camera capabilities that meet or exceed the gopro3 and include an auto focus feature it sounds like if you were willing to generate a gimble system to hold one and remote it. an off contract used modern cell phone runs about that

in my 5 minute research I havent confirmed what brands have full remote control capability, I did notice that my galaxy S3 has a screen share app,