$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

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

[dpbsmith]

Speaking of gadgets to use in projects like this one...

In the July 24th Boston Globe, Ritz is advertising something called a "Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera."

Now, I've seen a "digital single-use cameras" from Kodak which just used film, and the only thing "digital" about them is that when you send them in for processing, they scan the negatives and send you a CD along with the prints.

But this one SAYS "Delete and Retake Last Shot," which, to me, suggests that it really IS digital. It's $10.99. It says it will take 25 images. No indication of resolution. And no indication of precisely what you do after you have taken the pictures.

I probably need to get one and crack one open. It sounds like a very interesting device for hacking.

It will be very annoying if it turns out that $10.99 means that you pay $60.00 up front and get $49.01 back when you bring it in for "processing," though.

Googling on "Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera" and even "Digital Single-Use Camera" doesn't turn up anything except that phony Kodak film camera...

Automobile traffic analysis

[ErikTheRed]

Funny that this story should come up; I was making an exceptionally long commute to a project today (80 miles each way, 40 of which were in heavy traffic) and was thinking about an analysis of traffic patterns - starting with the hypothesis that the density and speed of vehicles in each lane constitutes a form of pressure and the how this is affected by the number of cars entering and exiting at each intersection, and also the addition / subtraction of lanes along the course of the route. I was thinking that this could be accomplished with some custom image recognition software and a medium-resolution video stream from a several cameras a few thousand feet up (I was thinking helicopters, circling aircraft, and even blimps, but all would be much too expensive). I hadn't considered that a balloon might work so well.....