$50 Aerial Digital Photography from a Balloon

jizmonkey writes "This guy built a balloon to take digital aerial photographs from thousands of feet up. It cost less than $50 altogether, including the image sensor, controller, and balloon. The circuit is surprisingly straightforward: just a hacked Vivitar minicamera, a 555 timer chip driving a relay through a voltage regulator, and a one-meter party balloon like the ones you see at used car dealerships. It just so happens that the entire circuit, strapped to a piece of a pizza box and tied to a really long string, is light enough to be lifted by the balloon. What could low-cost aerial photography be used for? I'm sure some people have some ideas...."

Comments

Planes...

[Romeozulu]

As a private pilot, I hope he keeps this thing below 1,000 feet.

Doesn't sound like as much fun...

[kzinti]

...as Kite Aerial Photography. Same idea, except you suspend the camera from a kite.

Re:Doesn't sound like as much fun...

[heli0]

Kites can lift a lot more weight and subsequently people are usign higher quality (SLR) cameras.

Here is a project camtroller to use a Parrallax Basic Stamp to control a digital camera on a kite.

More info here: rc-soar

REAAAAALLLLLY high balloon pics

[AmigaAvenger]

Or, for only two or three hundred more, you can get pictures from the edge of space on a balloon. We have gone to over 110k feet and recovered inexpensive film cameras, and have some incredible shots.

Photos

or

High Altitude Balloon Project

Here's some other examples using kites:

[Kheldar99]

William Freeman has a good page on his MIT AI lab homepage about doing the same thing except using kites to take pictures. (Btw, check out William T Freemans MIT e-mail address...)
http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/wtf/kite.html

And another link to a good site is Charles Benton's site.
http://www.arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/

Its interesting to note that there are lots of methos for creating unstructured panoramas. Where you have a set of images and the algorithm does its best to determine how to stick the images together to form a panorama. You could imagine a similar algorithm using these images to auotmatically create aerial maps... might make a good paper.

Re:Not a free balloon

[sglider]

Excellent point. The regulations for a Tethered balloon are:

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, no person may operate a moored balloon or kite- (1) Less than 500 feet from the base of any cloud; (2) More than 500 feet above the surface of the earth; (3) From an area where the ground visibility is less than three miles; or (4) Within five miles of the boundary of any airport. (b) Paragraph (a) of this section does not apply to the operation of a balloon or kite below the top of any structure and within 250 feet of it, if that shielded operation does not obscure any lighting on the structure.

This regulation is even worse, due to the limitation of 500 feet above ground. Again, thanks to Google and to these guys.

Re:"Dakota DIGITAL single-use camera," $11???

[heli0]

I think Walgreens beat them: Walgreen's single-use digital camera

"it's 'the only single use camera' with a delete button to let them retake shots"