Slashdot Mirror
The Expensive Hobby Of Kite Aerial Photography
GoneGaryT writes "The BBC is running a cool article
- strapping your digital camera to a kite and doing D.I.Y. aerial photography. Examples of suitable kites can be found here. Anyone want to try this from the top of an apartment building in London or NY? A pretty accessible pastime, so long as you can afford to lose the lot in a sudden gust!" High-res digital cameras have come down somewhat in price since the last time we mentioned this.
obligatory clod comment
we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively - bill hicks
I mind as well dangle $100 dollars on the kite and let it fly around.
Nowadays some 17-year old sniper will probably shoot down my kite cam for the fun of it.
WIth rocket cameras, helicopter cameras, and kite cameras, it's a wonder I haven't seen any model airplane cameras yet. Now that would be neat.
Check out Charles C. Benton's Site for collections from years of kite photography.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Clever people will get a $50 wired video camera, run the wires down the teather and get some funky video capture software going
A pretty accessible pastime, so long as you can afford to lose the lot in a sudden gust!
Eerm, you know you CAN tie knots in said string . . . like for instance tying it to something heavy?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Like, don't fly one of these things on four hundred feet of string inside an ATZ?
Please?
I really wouldn't want to fly into one.
we sometimes strap one of those x10 type wireless cams to rc cars...can be an interesting view especially when your chasing your dog/cat/annoying neighbourhood kid.
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
a friend of mine during college did something like that for his senior engineering project. his team (composed of a few mech eng's, EE's, and some graphic design majors) basically hooked a camera to a kite and then did some processing on the images to generate some simple 3D imagery of the landscape.
if i find links i'll post 'em, but it's going back several years and the webpages have probably been purged.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
The North Koreans will claim your a spy and probably shoot you. I know because I was shot at for doing this very same thing.
http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/
I got a rocket camera for Christmas from my brother :-)
estes rockets
It uses a couple of explosive packs and takes a picture at its apex.
Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
...lying around, try getting the DraganFlyer IV ($750) and mount an EyeCam ($250) on it. The 'flyer looks interesting, as well as the camera. Although, if you don't want to pay out that much, the Super Aviator ($190) looks interesting as well.
Flying a kite in a populated area like New York or London sounds like a nice way to get electrocuted or, failing that (like if you've got underground lines like most people in NYC) it sounds like a good way to cause some traffic accidents and pedestrian injuries... not to mention the cost of the camera.
When was the last time this was mentioned? Three days ago?
Think about it, a kite, assuming you can get a favorable wind direction, makes for an excellent platform to snap spy photos or those n00die photos of Kathleen sunbathing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We did some aerial shooting using a bunch of helium ballons to carry a cheap,light wireless camera.
We then attached the receiever to a camcorder video in to record the results.
You could just as well use a corded camera (we used the wireless one because we had it) but you would have to allwo for the weight of the wire with an extra balloon or two.
The biggest problem is keeping the camera stable but when there isn't too much wind, the balloons provide a nice platform to hang the camera from.
I feel the sudden urge to take up ariel kite photography and go photograph the coastline in and around Malibu. We could document how certain mansions are intruding on the coastline and ruining the view. One in particular seems to obstruct the view more than the others.
Does anybody want to come along? This could be a lot of fun.
-Art
.sig what's that?
Not exactly the same, but look what SonicBoy did with his Sony Clie UX-50 and Fun Cam software.
The way to not loose the kite is to use a deep sea fishing reel. A good modern high-test deep sea fishing line will not break unless your out in weather that would break the kite first anyway.
Yeah, if you want to see her 9 inch tranny-cock. Compared to Taco's 2" geekboycock, it's quite impressive by comparison.
How does $169 delivered sound?
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
You're likely to get a photo of Ms. Streisand herself sunbathing nude, and gouge your own eyes out when you see it...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Try taking a photo of being struck by lightning, however does require flying a kite a night in an electrical storm, well it could be the next adrenalin junkie fix to replace base jumping.
Loudoun Amateur Radio Group has been launhing balloons with both still and video camera's on them for years. Info and pics on all 8 of LARG's fights are avalible here here.
~Paul
If one is worried about losing the kite and camera, then clever use of a weak link could help. Strong kite string would lead to the camera and weaker string would bind the camera to the kite. Excessive force from the wind would severe the link between the kite and camera, not the camera and owner. A parachute tied to a light tertiary line (a rip cord) would yank the camera's parachute when the kite breaks away. (An even better design would design a failure mode into the kite itself so that the kite loses its aerodynamic shape if the wind load becomes too high).
Although there is still a chance of the camera being caught in a kite-eating tree, wind gusts and line breaks need not lead to loss of the camera.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I was doing kite photography 20 years ago with an SLR camera. And yes, I did break more than one camera in the process...
Does anybody remember doing this with model rockets? There was one model that came with a Plexiglas payload and a specially fitted camera. The camera took 110 film (I think), and snapped a single shot at the moment when the engine's ejection charge blew off the nose cone.
See, e.g., here.
Inevitably, everyone I knew would pull out the camera and launch lizards (frogs, bugs, etc.) instead.
"Ouch. Wouldn't that inhibit whacking off? Besides, the rapidly swaying view would turn nauseating."
NG was poking a little fun at the poor phrasing of the parent post, hardly a troll.
The website is kaput - that's disconcerting.
I've seen digital cameras, vis USB for abt 30USD in some places. Catch them on sale!
I am desperately looking for recommendations for a digital camera that supports a remote shutter. A cable assembly is fine, as long as I can get a cable preferably longer than 10-15 feet, though a wireless setup would be ideal. even more ideal would be if this is available in Sony, as all my gear is Sony (in fact, my current digital camera is a well-worn DSC-S75 which is about at its retirement age).
The one piece of advice that I can give for aerial photographers, be they of the kite, airplane, or helicopter variety is this: invest in a wide angle lens. I bought the most expensive and "best quality" wide angle lens for my dsc-s75 that I found on ebay - a .38 lens with adapter for about $70. It opens up a WORLD of possibiltiies for photos taken of the ground from the air. for example, I've taken photos from right above skyscrapers (well, the legal limit above) with the macro and I get some really superb shots that way.
Remote-shutter digital camera recommendations really appreciated. Preferably of the "normal price range" of 500 +- a few hundred at the most.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
Me too. Fucking asshat.
This will also solve the problem of losing the "kite". Well, if you lose it you will have a serious problem.
--
There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels - St IGNUcius
You can make great kites from bamboo, garbage bags and duct tape. The cheap-o rogalo wings scale up just as well as they scaled down to begin with. A large garbage bag or two, with carefully placed duct tape reinforement makes a very large kite, 6 to 9 foot wingspan.
A $100 camera can take good pictures. I've got a nasty old sipix with 1200x1600 resolution that works well. All you really need to worry about is protecting it from the inevitable fall and making a good trigger.
My triggers have used christmas tree lights for a timer. They are light, rugged, cheap and easy. I've used them to fire a solenoid that drew music wire down on the button and to close a relay that did the same thing electronically. This eliminates the need for figuring out how to do things via USB and you get about one picture per second of flight. All you need to worry about is having lots of memory. A 64 MB CF card did well enough for me and a 256 MB would be excellent.
The only thing I've really lacked is time when the wind is blowing. You can see some of this fun and the results here.
When it's all said and done, chances are that you have everything you need to do this already. Go get it! It's lots of fun.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
A guy I know does professional aerial photography with a helium-filled blimp. Anything from medium format film on down.
Finally, a use for those old PDAs: TRGPro + CF 802.11 card + Kodak PalmPix = cheap airborne wireless webcam.
See bill nelson's ice cube trigger here:
http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/equip/ice.html
Suggested items:
1. kite
2. DISPOSABLE camera
3. Camera rigging for kite
4. ice cubes
The main advantage is that the whole thing can be made/bought for $50.00 and is no big loss if it is destroyed/lost.
I've got three Walgreen's Pure Digital camera's on their way to PA right now ... at $9.99 each. And the codeman has hacked a smart-media card into them. If we can get the USB port working, I'll be flying my parafoil with them in the spring.
Gotta use those service plans for something!
Our kiting club held a competition this year, and afterwards a guy from Germany showed us some neat videos he made by strapping a video camera to his Prophecy two-line stunt kite. The quality wasn't great (it was one of those cheap and lightweight battery-operated record-to-CF cams), but he managed to do some Axels, Snap Stalls and other neat tricks with it, and the video sequences were truly impressive.
I'd like to try something like that with my Revo once, quad-liners give you better control over the kite - you can steer the kite towards the ground full tilt and get it into reverse flight just inches before it touches the ground. Another thing that would be worth trying is doing a team routine with two kites and installing the camera on the chasing kite.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
Sig: "All negative mods are now being metamodded as unfair. Think before you abuse."
You're the one abusing the system by blindly metamoderating. If you have negative mods so much, browse at -1.
"You're the one abusing the system by blindly metamoderating."
Why are you so afraid to log in and post? Worried you'll be modded down? Hmmmm....
Funny, the one guy that's annoyed with my irrational actions stand is the guy who should understand my point of view the most.
Greetings Hal.
"Derp de derp."
... why the US is upgraded to a brand spanking orange alert?
The GWS Slow Stick is a very good choice for a beginner plane that is well suited for hauling aloft a little bit of extra weight. Check out the Aerial Photography forum at RC Groups for more info.
The Expensive Hobby Of Kite Aerial Photography
Expensive ?? I had to buy a chopper to take pictures, you insensitive clods.
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Is the an aerial photo of the International Fountain in the Seattle Center, or is that a fountain in Kansas?
If it's in Kansas, I think they stole our fountain, because they look identical...
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
People are complaining about the expensiveness due to the risks of the camera just falling out of the sky. I think it was posted before on /. that this "disposable" camera can be cracked into so you can download the files and then purge.
It is only 1.3 megapixels. But you can adjust the focus and rig the shutter button without having to worry about burning out the cicuits.
The RCGroups Aerial Photography Forum has plenty of information about doing still photography and wireless video from Radio Control aircraft, including helicopters, powered planes, and gliders. There's plenty of sample in-flight photographs as well. The Aiptek pen cams seem to be favored and are easily modified to be actuated by a spare channel via direct plugin to the model's receiver. Very cool stuff, and you can fly where you want as opposed to being restricted by a string.
ultra small TV cameras and transmitters are lighter and cheaper this mag is loaded with them
http://www.nutsvolts.com/
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
High-res digital cameras have come down somewhat in price since the last time we mentioned this.
/.-editor do know the are reposting...
So the
Conductive kite strings are bad....
does this explain all the digital cameras i keep seeing on ebay with scratched-up and broken cases and duct tape residue?
just a thought.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Sometimes I feel that people nowadays are using complex technologies where simple solutions will suffice.
When I was a kid (late'70s early '80s ), I've seen something similar done without expensive digital camera's. they just took a cheap 'chemical' toy camera (plastic lens, thumbwheel transport) which they let ride along the string (I believe the wind blows it along), and they rigged the shutter to go off when the camera reached the top of the string. All done with coathangers and wire. And if it crashed, you didn't lose hundreds of euro's/dollars/pounds.
In this case, I see very little advantage in using a digital camera.
Boy, I feel old.
They actually used these kites (scaled up somewhat) to lift up military observers, so the civilian version should be good for even a video camera...
They're a bitch to get up though, I'd recommend 20-30mph winds for a reliable experience. Also, strong arms: at least 100lb test line is necessary.
where's the estes rocket camera you're talking about?
...is doing a Spherical panoramic picture from a kite, ala my friend and hero Philo.
With the advent of "disposable" digital cameras and protocols to read them, one can use a disposable for this.
Of course, the company selling it would be upset at the modifications required... but if you never return it, they don't really need to know, do they?
And remember, most of the cost of a digital camera is in the screen (followed closely by the battery)... What do you need a screen for if it's on a kite? That's how they get the cost of the disposables down, ditch the screen. And then battery consumption is way down too...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
About the time he was 14, he started taking aerial photographs. "I started taking aerial photographs before anyone ever thought of it," he contends.
Bowers' aerial photos were taken not with a plane, mind you, but with a seven-foot kite and a Brownie camera. Other supplies included some string, a slow-burning fuse, and a rubber band. Bowers lighted the fuse, which burned through the string, which held the shutter release. Then, the rubber band snapped the picture! The entrepreneurial Bowers would drop the kite, advance the film, place the camera in a holster attached to the kite, and take it up for another shot.
Ingenious
Ah the perfect tool to counter the over zealous censorship of aerial photography in Washington DC, as previously featured on /. and reported at http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20031224.gtblurdec24/BNStory/Technology
/.er brave enough to fly a Kite Cam from the Mall in DC? I'd like to take odds on how long before you are hauled away and kept indefinately as an enemy combatant...
Any
On the bright side the weather in the brig in Charleston SC is probably a lot warmer than the weather in DC right now.
http://www.bahneman.com/liem/photos/other/SandSati ons/Aerial/
Using a regular nylon delta kite and some hard drive
packing foam I managed to get the coolpix up for some aerial photography at Long Beach, WA.
The camera has a remote cord that can take pictures at a minimum 2 minute interval, so I activated it,
packed it into the housing and sent it aloft. I didn't have any fancy RC PTZ controls like another fellow at the beach, but it seemed to work fairly well and with the luck of the wind, managed to get a few decent shots off. The maximum height I got was around 150ft.
I was pretty excited to invest in a larger, loftier kite with more payload, but the urge went away and I'm happy with the early results.
- liem
Remember, its called GNU/Linux, but pronounced "Linux".