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Kite Aerial Photography
j cherney writes "A great combination of digital photography, kite flying, and wireless remote control. Absolutely incredible pictures. Enjoy!" We've mentioned this expensive pursuit a few times before, including a bit on how to build one of your own.
Is the new trend down blouse pictures? I like it already.
and put a camera on it so you can see when it dies. :p
:/
I managed to see one picture before the site died.
Hmm...I forsee great business opportunities for camera repair shops.
Hi there
Pointing your camera at the ground and pressing the shutter does not a piece of art make.
Sure you get a bunch of photos, but can you really say that you, the photographer, were the one taking the random, haphazard pictures?
I hate when people demean art by claiming that their homespun crap is on par with the work of true artists. I'm looking right at you, Thomas Kinkade!
What I think would be alot cooler is if someone stuck a small wireless camera (you can pick them up for like $30 on ebay) on a kite. It would be alot lighter as those things are tiny (the heavyest part would likely be the 9v battery), and you still make stills later if you really wanted to.
Just my 2c.
Apparently there's a fire at the hosting company... Slashdot to the rescue! (batman theme song)
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
I see a use for... http://www.thehaefners.com.nyud.net:8090/gallery/
We're about 7 comments in, it's 10:40 PM PST, and the site is /.ed.
Mirrors? Anybody?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Webmaster - please contact support as soon as possible. Sooomebodyss innn troouubllleee....
Inflate some pool rafts and kiddy pools with helium and start crafting some aerodynamics using the principals observed.
type 'pool raft' in google and hit that 'image' tab if you want to start visualizing it.
might be more like helium-raft-parachute photography but hey.
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
Another example of why you shouldn't host from a dynamic connection...
NS1.DYNAMICNAME.COM
NS2.DYNAMICNAME.COM
Someboodysss innnn trouuuublllle...
I've been interested in photography for as long as I can remember, and kite aerial photography (KAP) seemed like a natural progression. At least it did after my friend, Thomas Dewez, convinced me that it isn't completely ridiculous to suspend an $800 camera from a kite. After seeing the potential in online galleries, I knew that I had to do this! I spent a few months researching equipment, technique, etc. before diving in. I had not flown a kite since I was a kid, so I'm learning as I go...
These web pages will serve as a photo gallery of select images, as well as a general information source on equipment, technique, and other related info. Be sure to see my 360 virtual reality (VR) panoramas taken from a kite's eye view. They might take a while to load (depending on your connection speed), but it should be worth the wait.
Bored? Visit my exciting counter page!
The pic page has crashed and burned.
Either that or the kite did hence no pictures.
No sig for you!!
IN before the server melt down!
Now wouldn't it be great if everyone used a Coraled URL to access the site? It's no help right now since the site is already down, but if it does come up, this would help preserve its bandwidth.
Easier way to do this is to use a camera that just takes a pic every so many minutes and just tie it to a stable kite. It will dangle around randomly but it works and you get a decent picture sometimes. As to putting a wireless camera on a kite, just put a wireless camera on a really high performance stunt kite and then wear a head mounted display while you fly it around at 100mph. That would make an exciting vomit machine.
(Reminds me of Ben Franklin!)
This should teach us all not to expose cameras to lightning when still plugged to servers!
O make me a mask
reminds of the linux powered weather balloon
fifteen jugglers, five believers
My kite kept getting tangled in its string and went spiraling into buildings. Lose more cameras that way :-)
Table-ized A.I.
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Google cache
There's also Photoplane which consists of putting a camera on a radio-guided plane.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
This link was slashdotted with less than 30 posts, holy crap!
Editors, shouldn't it be taken into consideration (the enormous ddos that is slashdot) when linking to sites? posting mirrors or something.. At least a good warning to the site owners is needed! Can you imagine if someone's bandwidth bill just went up from $50 to a couple hundred.... it would be terrible
Please save the poor webservers!
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I think I can see my house just to the right of 'difficulties'!!!
I will work to elevate you, just enough to bring you down
then you and your friends could start shooting at it with a BB guns and bottle rockets until the lens cracked or it spirals to doom from structural damage or fire. it's a good idea where i'm from anyway.
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
Don't forget to license your Ortho-Rectified Kite data to http://www.globexplorer.com/
Panorama 1
Panorama 2
Panorama 3
Panorama 4
You have to get it in the cache before it is Slashdotted... This just doesn't do it. :(
Let's assume that the slashdot editors are really going to inform a webmaster about the traffic that will soon hit his site. What if the webmaster says "thanks but no thanks"? Should the entire story then be cancelled? How many times do you see a website being slashdotted? I agree it's a pity if you get a huge bandwidth-bill, but if you don't want people to see what you put online, don't put it online in the first place. And if you do expect alot of people, make sure you can afford the traffic (both financially and technically).
Informative? I just see a few frames of glittering pixels...
Looks more like something from a dead camera....
Well, since the mentioned site is slashdotted try this one instead for some aerial kite photography.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Imagine the pictures you'd get from flying a kite around that Heffner's house.
Since the site is slashdotted and the google-cache miss the pictures.
t hehaefners.com/kap/
http://web.archive.org/web/20040211231540/http://
Buy all your crazy japanese videogames from
FYI,
it's not "arial " (a font, or a town in South Carolina),
or "ariel " (a character in _The Tempest_, or, more recently, one in Disney's _The Little Mermaid_),
or even "areal " (the adjective form of "area"),
but rather "aerial" when you're talking about things of, in, or related to the air.
the kite flies away? How do I get the pictures I've snapped then..? Oh wait a second....
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Speak of the devil, I did this the other weekend using a $15 stunt kite and my digital camera, a Sony P32 (got it for only $90 at Target, so I felt it was worth the risk)
The video on this little cam is great, 640x480 at 24fps (though it actually seems more like 15fps, some frames are doubled). With a 128M memory stick, I can get 5 minutes of video and audio. Viewing the results on TV is great, it's almost DVCam quality.
I'd love to post the videos here (some flyovers at the beach), but my department's sysadmin would be pissed if I uploaded the 20+M mpgs. There's audio too, but it's basically wind noise, and not very interesting.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Google cache
Ever heard of Duchamp? or the readymade? Duchamp did things like put a toilet in an exhibition. Duchamp didn't demean art in the same way that the photograph didn't/doesn't demean art.
Lookup the whole Dada movement. Art is about it's own destruction as much as it is about anything else.
site:thehaefners.com kap
or follow this [google Germany, oops] Link
--- Eat my sig.
My father did that on Easter Island a few years ago. I wish I had copies of the photos he took.
attach yourself to the kite, and take pictures when YOU jump into the air.
s er1_256. wmv
8 meg WMV which has some pretty hairy shots.
http://www.kitefilm.com/video/completetea
lots of kite discussions here http://www.kiteforum.com
including some nice pics in the gallery
i for one welcome our new kiteboarding overlords.
How long does everyone think it will be before someone gets arrested taking pictures of a bridge using a kite? Or maybe they will simply arrest people for flying kites cameras be damned?
I looked into doing this awhile back myself after having had a BLAST at the beach flying a kite of mine QUITE high. Suspendnig the camera is one issue but something I think could be solved. Figuring out how to remotely trigger it is the PITA. I found one site talking about using a remote control which it looks like this guy is doing too. Getting the camera to not shut down after a shoert time period while you were still getting the kite up in the air might also be a hassle. I've got two crappy digital cams that I'll not ever be using again - one of them looks like it might be perfect for this despite it's crappy resolution.
Hrm, wonder what a night shot would look like? Put a light stick on the kite to track it maybe? Need to figure out how best to trigger the darned thnig - mechanical servos and whatnot seem silly, there needs to be a way to remotely trigger a switch without alot of extra crap going up with it...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
How long has the Estes Astrocam been around? I remember playing with one in the 70's. It was an Estes rocket that you actually built (!!!) and it had a nose-cone with a 110 film cartridge type camera. It was a pretty cheap shutter mechanism and even cheaper lens. Getting good results was rare, but when you're 9 years old, it was the epitome of high-tech.
I think most of the roll ended up being pictures of my hand as I checked out the shutter function, maybe 1 arial shot, and some that misfired when the rocket got back to earth (nothing more frustrating than getting the film developed only to find some sideways pictures of tall grass).
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
is the 4th one Tintagel, Cornwall (UK)?
Following the links in the Archive.org site I've found som interesting things...
s hop.com/switch.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20040309130531/www.kap
and
http://www.harbortronics.com/digisnap5000.asp
So it seems that some cameras can be done remotely without mechanical crap. Never found any of this in my previous research! Apparently, according to one site, some folsk run video cameras up with the kite so they can see what the camera will be taking pics of and even zoom using these dgital switches. Interesting stuff....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
If you're interested in lofting stuff on kites, keep in mind that the original double french military was used for surveillance and is still being used as antennae...
the real pro takes an helicopter around the world and takes nice pictures of what wonders are eroded, destroyed and disapearing because of man.
Regardless though, even with the wind you would atleast have some control.
-asoap
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
Weather Balloon + Tank of Helium + 2 x 3G Video phones.
Stick the video phone on the balloon.
Call the other video phone from the balloon phone.
Let the balloon go.
Watch the video.
The 3G network will give great coverage, in Europe you could see the video as the balloon passes between different counries.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Quick, somebody put up a mirror of the mirror!
I've been working on pigeon aerial photography. It's like KAP only you strap a camera to a pigeon. No this is not a joke. In fact the technology is about 100 years old. If you try it at home you'll find out that it's harder than it appears, but not impossible.
This doesn't have to be an "expensive pursuit" Linky, linky. Cost is 30 bucks, plus BYOK (bring your own kite). It uses a disposable camera (included) triggered mechanically by a control line.
DHLS: All your kites and kamerus are now blong to us/US.
Yakov/Amerikov/Davidov: In Mother USA, Kites bring YOU Down...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
What's the current legal status of link-to policies? Would it be enforceable for me to put a link-to policy prominently on my site that says something like:
Please ask for permission before you link to me. If you link to me and referrals from your site cause over (volume of traffic), you can be held liable for the cost of bandwidth, etc...
Not that I'll ever have anything personally slashdotted (although a client did withstand a slashdotfarking). But maybe link-to policies could go hand-in-hand with Privacy Policies as site must-haves.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
the site http://www.thehaefners.com/kap/ has ben slashdotted and is inaccessible.any ideas to access the kite page?
Why does yahoo do this
I found a company in Spain that offer proffesional services of aereal photografy and other services.
www.altafoto.com
^_^
This is one of my hobbies.
0
= 128
:)
High-lift model aircraft=$30
Electronics for said aircraft=~$100-$300
Cheap 1.3megapixel pocketcam (Aiptek)=~$50
Transmitter=~$100
Total=~$280-$48
Here is a site dedicated to radio controled aircraft and in particular AP.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f
Nothing beats sending up your aircraft (GWS Slowstick in my example) for about 20 minutes at a time, snapping a few dozen pics, landing, and then transfering the pics to your laptop for instant viewing.
So many different variations on a theme, and some ppl even send up their expensive digitals and there are also video camera options available (Aiptek makes a half-way decent one for $99). You can wire them directly to the rx or simply mount a servo to actuate the shutter. Suprised this hasn't come up--I consider this a major geek hobby.
There is simply too much glass..
We've been doing this with model airplanes for awhile now. Next Slashdot will be posting links on how to build your own UAV/RPV... It's easy to get some LIVE video using a camera BlackWidowAV.com sells. Combine that with a GPS Autopilot from u-nav.com and you have your own drone. Set waypoints to fly over your neighbors house and feed back live video of what their kids are doing...
Hilarious shit.
You can do KAP really cheap. I've built a couple kites (surprisingly easy) and used cheap cameras from ebay to to take lots of photos, including some good ones without fancy rigs or remote controls. I've got pictures of the kites and pictures from the kites up: http://3cats.us/gallery/KAP and links to the other sites that I got help from on building the kites and stuff.
Odds are you probably already have some of this stuff lying around already.
Digital camera from ebay $30-100
555 timer and a bit of solder ~$5
11ft Kite built from wood and fabric ~$30
Kite spool and line ~$10-20
Cool photos from the sky - priceless
Also, if you are very interested, the American Kite Association is holding their annual convention in Seaside Oregon October 11th through 16th and they have some workshops on KAP and kitebuilding.
http://aka.kite.org/
- Mike
Person: ... flying a kite way up high... ...brings kite in... ...inspects kite... finds camera and GPS
Gov: Say, do you have a pilot's license for that?
Person: What, for the kite?
Gov: Yeah... bring that down here so I can search it for surveillance equipment... can't be too careful nowadays.
Person: You want to inspect my kite?
Gov: Sir, turn the string over, and no one gets uncomfortable.
Person:
Gov:
Gov: Sir, you have some explaining to do...
and I saw the webcam they put on those little rovers from Thinkgeek, here is Here You can see they actually did it.. Note , videos of the experience. They look pretty cool. This cam might actually be light enough!!
Ham Radio Has been doing this for a LONG time. I attended a speech on it durring a recent trip. I was verry supprised because since they use ATV (amature tv) they can get a EXCELENT picture quality. You can also view video while the kite/baloon is flying.
They have gone far as going into high altitude/low orbit. The baloons fly all the way up there and stech to about 2.5 times thier origional size and burst. You can see video that is transmited the entire time and its really cool to watch. There are some groups that will launch one for free if you make the payload or for a small fee.