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Kite Aerial Photography
SethJohnson writes "People have been attaching cameras to kites for quick-and-dirty aerial photographs for almost a hundred years. Hobbyists have progressed the art far beyond it's quick-and-dirty origins to produce stunning results. NASA even has a fairly detailed how-to using a disposable camera. Looks like a fun science fair project for those dads out there with kids."
Over the nudist beach!
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
now all i need are a couple of hot models to move in next door and sun bathe naked for test objects and i'll be good to go!!
;-)
oh wait.. that's the whole purpose of my roof
plus it's november.. so i guess i better put this idea off..
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
I have a feeling many cameras will be returned to the store for "spontaneously fragmenting."
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
you mean areola photos?
Those along waterfronts know that daily patterns of onshore and offshore breezes can aid in getting good wind.
Brooks Leffler pioneered the art with a magazine (!!!) that he still has back issues of. He even sells stabilizing tails. The most stunning pictures in my opinion have been by the vastly-experienced Chris Benton... he inspired my finally getting into this. $100 for the kite, $80 for the camera, $100 radio+misc, and you're up and going.
I don't want to think about all the lawsuits that could arise from a curious kid with a camera on a kite! *shudder*
As opposed to... ?
example.org - powered by Linux!
...but how will all those cameras affect Charlie Brown's kite-eating tree? I'd imagine they're not too healthy.
Okay, that wasn't funny. It's late. Night night.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Remember when you used to play wargames as a kid? Now you can do it with your very own Spy Satellite.
"Now you'll know all of your enemies moves; where they're keeping the water ballon stash, how many they have, and if that teenage girl in the house across the street is sun bathing topless again."
huh?
I looked into these, radio controlled airplanes, and others. Kites are a) very cool b) very broad in design c) what spawned aircraft. It's also fairly cheap combined with the amount of control. You can go up to SLR cameras (any may do) and I've seen enough sadness in my dad's RC plane buddies to know that losing a plane *and* a camera would be devistating. Kites of course need wind, and in lack of wind there's always balloons, but I felt in my study of all of this that it was less risky than other low-altitude photography.
High Alt Balloon Group
real-time video feed from kite
sure is a lot cheaper than a remote control helicopter. =)
My life in the land of the rising sun.
As opposed to... ?
A pimp-daddy.
You know the pirates around here do some slave trading on the weekends. Gotta supplement the ol' VCD business in order to support that luxurious case-modder lifestyle with the $400 a month video card habit.
I run a kite site and am fanatical about the sport, so i should hope to have a little authority on the subject. While i haven't done any KAP myself, i've read extensively on the subject. There are some amazing photos coming back from people lofting cameras on their kites. There is also some interesting tech going into the works too. I've seem plans for radio controlled microcontrollers that will depress the camera trigger, hold it till a beep for the camera to focus, then press the trigger harder to take the photo. There are setups using small video cameras and transmitters that allow the user to see what he's about to take a photo of. There are a bunch of pan-rotate-zoom setups using servos and the like. It's mostly R/C tech, but still quite cool.
My fav site for KAP is here.
My website (in sig) doesn't have much for KAP resources, but it is useful to look at to see some of the other spiffy stuff.
By the way, the kite obelisk folks are still at it, planning an even bigger lift, and with period materials. Should be exciting, but I don't have the full scoop, they are keeping it quiet until they pull it off.
At my high school (http://rhs.seattleschools.org) we have an after school club that builds rigs for kite arial photography. The trick is making the rig lightweight, yet strong enough that it doesnt suddenly snap 500 ft above the surface. Our mentor will be traveling to Antarctica this winter, and he will be taking a few of the rigs we have built. The Drachen Foundation has more info.
Dads whose kids were killed by 40 pound kites with sharp metal parts attached falling out of the sky.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
I attach a small, cheap, 1.3MP digital Pencam to my R/C planes for aerial shots. Aiptek makes a 1.3MP "pencam" that weighs about 50grams. (without batteries) that works pretty well. The pictures out of the CMOS sensor and the cheap lens aren't as nice as conventional photographs - even from disposable cameras - but you can take a lot of them, and the really bad ones don't cost anything to develop.
The camera is ~US$60-70 at Walmart and Circuit City.
The official Pencam web site
And a picture taken with my pencam from my R/C plane
While it's a good idea to keep things light, it's not the over-riding factor. The kites being used for KAP are usually capable of lifting considerable weights. There are quite a few kites out there (in the $300 or more price range) that need about 250-300 pounds of sand anchors to be safely operated. I've heard of large inflatable show kites that will pull two dumpsters full of sand across the beach.
As for control, it's all R/C servos. It can be done with as little as one servo to pull the trigger but most people like to be able to at least pan some, so that's another servo. There are also some triggers out there that are just timer based... you set the timer, and hope you can get the rig up to altitude and pointing at the target by the time the trigger goes off... not flexible, but cheap and effective.
I used to fly kites a lot as a kid (was also when I did the model rocket photography) and never had a problem but now that I have these so called stunt kites, all that I'm ever able to do is a nose dive.
The more I think about this, the more I like the idea though. If I get a better kite (that's a lot easier to fly and requires less wind), and I use a small wireless camera transmitting to my laptop, I wonder what kind of images I could get... could be quite impressive.
How come all of the good ideas involving the outdoors seem to come around when the rainy season hits? I live in Seattle and the rainy season is upon us... I'll have to wait until the beach has some people worth photographing and then I'll give this a try. What's a very cheap wireless camera that can survive slamming into the ground repeatedly when the kite crashes? Any ideas?
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Looks like NASA has finally declassified it's old 1960's reconnaissance techniques...
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
don't laugh, some 3rd world countries are using this technique for air reconassance.
In modern countries, ppl are using it to spy on there neighbors. Must we wait before there is a kiteonacamera.com ? "Kites flown over hollywood celebrities residences, 100% legal. For $5.95 a month you can have 24hr aerial vision of a hollywood supermodels".
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Looks like a fun science fair project for those dads out there with kids.
*ahem* And moms. :p
You don't have to be the person you've become.
There are also plenty of people who take pictures and/or videos from high-power rockets as well - and I'm not talking about the cheap Estes camera rockets. The preferred way to get still-shots is to use a decent-enough "point-and-shoot" with auto-advance, and wire a timer to the contacts of the button which takes the picture, although others use a servo to actuate the button, like this example.
It seems like even more people take videos, however - everything from a tiny "X10"-style camera with a transmitter to the full monty, where multiple digital video cameras are mounted inside the rockets. One of the founders of Xircom, Dirk Gates, has some very high-quality DV videos of his rocket flights at http://gbrocketry.com/movie_theater.htm.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Are there any camera/trigger combo mechanisms which could take more than one picture per flight? I mean if I let a kite out for 6 minutes, it's going to get a great shot from really high up...but then I have to reel the kite back in to take another picture.
Anybody have any ideas on a fairly easy way to hook up something like an RC button to both shoot the picture and advance the film...or maybe a lightweight camera that auto-advances...so the RC motor only has to hit the exposure button...?
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
For an outsider like me, it seems that the risk of ending with a totally broken camera is high. How often does it happen ?
I've browsed the pages and they dont seem to mention digital cameras. Is it because they are too expensive to risk them ? (my aim is NOT to reopen the passionate discussion about digital/conventional cameras !)
Nice Kite: $100
:)
:)
$100? hohoho, spot the guy who doesn't fly em
if you're making it yourself then thats 10 times too much, and if you're buying a nice kite from a shop then thats not enough
my pbsk warrior standard was over $300, although, to be fair, thats a damn nice kite.
if you're talking commerical parafoil's (ie the ones that look like james bond style controllable parachutes) then really you're talking up to and over $1000 depending on how big and what make, although the second hand market can get you some good deals, my best friend recently bought an 11.8 metre (yes, metre) wipika waterkite for a few hundred quid
dave
People have been attaching cameras to kites for quick-and-dirty aerial photographs for almost a hundred years.
Either this story has been in the queue for way too long, or you need to verify your sources.
Kite Aerial Photograhy began at least as early as the late 1880's with the work of Arthur Batut in Labruguiere, France - including this 1889 image of the city. He went so far as to use an altimeter to automatically adjust the focal length of the camera
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KAP seems like a great application for one of those X10 wireless cameras. Outdoors they have a range of maybe 200 feet and that could probably be enhanced with a directional antenna.
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After 911 the cops have given me much more problems. On more than one occasion I have the police come up and ask me what I have hanging from my kite. Usually after I explain things it is cool with them, but I have heard stories of people having the cops pull guns on them thinking they are distributing anthrax or other badness.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
Phillipe Hurbain, a fellow panoramic/spherical panoramic photographer in France, has a site up on how he took a full-spherical panoramic picture from a kite. He's obviously much braver than me to put a $800 camera hanging underneath a kite!
Pretty cool, and the panoramas are literally like you're floating in mid-air.
http://philohome.free.fr/kitephoto/kapp.htm