I have also been shooting with a various laptops, USB cameras (mostly Canon PowerShot A-series), software (including my own badly rolled C++ tool using CanonSDK

I have also been shooting with a various laptops, USB cameras (mostly Canon PowerShot A-series), software (including my own badly rolled C++ tool using CanonSDK) before finally settling on GBTimelapse, which ended up being the killer "app" for controlling multiple cameras at once. I just did a count of ~3 million images, here are some of my more dodgy installations using my now defunct beloved waterproof Panasonic touchbook: https://imgur.com/a/jyNLP https://imgur.com/a/jyNLP I still continue to shoot but I've moved on to using GoPro 5 and various Nikon DSLRs and I have to absolutely agree: nothing comes close to DSLR and decent optics! The only problem is that you get slight fluctuations in image brightness even when shooting identical shutter speed, etc. which necessitates a non-free tool like GBDeflickr or LRTimelapse to get flicker-free video. Alternately just stick to using non-SLR cameras such as GoPro or other Compact with the function builtin, which I've noticed is becoming quite standard in most cameras. As for controlling your Canon, if you want to skip a step (and extra hardware requirements) you could just put MagicLantern on an SD card and write a LUA script (or download one of the many available ones out there).