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More Cheap Aerial Photography
ptorrone writes "If you have an old digital camera laying around and pick up a $1.50 Timer Chip from RadioShack or DigiKey you can turn it in to a great aerial photography camera, this how-to from Engadget shows how they did it along with some other projects with the modded camera." We also linked to part 1.
I used to live in Bowling Green, OH and while I was searching around for caches to do in the area (and talking to someone I knew from Toledo) I was directed and half stumbled upon this cache. Basically you need to take pictures from the air of an assigned number. The cache owner didn't particularly care how you accomplished that (whether it was by plane or some more inventive means).
:)
Well, this group did it with helium balloons, ethernet cable, and a webcam. Just as inventive, a lot less solder, and if your picture taking device falls you aren't completely out of luck as it may actually survive the fall.
The only difference I see is that you aren't going to be able to have pictures with the same quality which is certainly a bummer but the coolness/geek factor certainly is way up there
After the webpage in the article gets /.'d, take a look at this more comprehensive site on areial photography Kite Aerial Photography.
Some people have a way with words, others not have way.
You know, I hate to be the "astroturfing nazi" of /., but seeing that the article is written by Phillip Torrone, shouldn't the submitter (Phillip Torrone, it appears) say "... how we did it" ?
I don't like it when I see people submit stories as if they are a third party and just "happened" to come across an article, which they themselves have written.
If you wrote something and find it worthy of the /. crowd, then step forward and claim ownership, dammit! We won't hold it against ya.
Get into this hobby while you can before it becomes difficult and/or illegal.
I've never paid more than 20 cents for a 555, and I can think of at least 5 stores within 10 miles of my house that sell them for that price in single unit quantities.
Anyway, this is the 21st century. Why not do it the "right" way with a $1 PIC12F629?
Jason
ProfQuotes
In my day, we had to climb to the top of a brontosaurus with a stone tablet and a chisel in order to get aerial pictures. You young things have it easy.
/end older fart rant
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
The question, which has remained until now, unanswered: do nerds look like nerds at 1000 feet?
I believe, after reviewing the photographic evidence...yes.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
This is way better than the old method of setting the timer and repeatedly throwing the camera in the air in hopes that it will be pointed down when takes the picture.
The guy behind this, Phillip Torrone, has done a TON more cool stuff. Check out his site/blog for tons more stuff.
This dude is now my personal hero of geekdom. He builds robots and gear and has pics of tons of stuff on his site.
Chris
That's interesting, but I don't know how effective it is.
First, at altitude, focus isn't necessary because everything will be close enough to infinity (hyperfocal). So destroying an autofocus sensor won't help.
Second, my camera can withstand looking at the sun for a period of time (not much time, I'm sure). And that's a focused light source -- it'll be hard to make a laser brighter than the sun over such a large area. (easy to do if you point the laser, but hard to do if it's diffused). No real use in using a laser, though - you don't need the monochromaticity or the coherentness, so you might as well use a large xenon strobe behind an IR filter.
Lastly, won't stop any film-based camera: a cheap disposable or an Estes Cineroc.
Hope not too much taxpayer money is spent on this system!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Back when I flew Radio-Controlled Gliders ( Gentle Lady in particular), I used a third channel servo to click the button on a Kodak 110 Instamatic. This was waaaaay before small digital cameras.
The contraption was very simple: I duct-taped the servo on top of the camera and rubber-banded the camera to the plane. I made sure the center of balance remained exactly the same.
Although the plane was relatively MUCH heavier, it was flyable. Certainly, I was not able to catch thermals or stay up long, but I was still able to take some cool shots of the surrounding area. Since the picture taking was servo activated, I could point the plane at an area I wanted to photograph and snap the picture.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.