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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
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.
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"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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Expensive Hobby Of Kite Aerial Photography
Expensive ?? I had to buy a chopper to take pictures, you insensitive clods.
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Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Conductive kite strings are bad....