I've been doing KAP for about 1.5 years using two different cameras, and I've never broken one. One of the main reasons is that I get a friend or two to help. The couple of times I've come close to damaging a camera happened in gusty wind when raising or lowering the rig, so that it was close to the ground. Having an assistant to either hold the kite or go grab the rig just as it gets within reach avoids problems like this. It also helps to make sure you use decent line that isn't likely to break on you!
Until recently people haven't tended to use digital cameras for KAP, partly because of price and partly because of shutter speed. Even with suspension rigs cameras do tend to bounce around a bit. I have seen a few recent articles with digital being used. The "cheap-ass" digital cameras are the one's least likely to be suited to KAP, unfortunately. I have a couple, and they both have fairly low resolution and require a lot of light.
As to flying height, the low lengths of stunt kites make for fairly boring shots, at least when you take a whole role of them. Higher shots are good, but at some point you have a hard time seeing the camera!
I've been doing fairly basic KAP using Brooks Leffler's basic rig for about 1.5 years now. I've found I get decent results with fairly cheap point-and-shoot cameras.
The first one I used was a 35mm Samsung. I accidentally left it at home on one beach trip and picked up a reasonably cheap Advantix camera at a local CVS. Both cameras work, and I switch between them as needed. I think I've come to prefer the Advantix a little more because I've gotten some great panoramic shots with it, but a little more comparison would be good.
High quality is really not necessary for low-end amateur use, and the less investment the less there is to replace if things get smashed. (Not that I've ever had this happen.) Both of my cameras definitely cost under $100, and I think the Advantix one was under $50.
Here are some caveats with the cheaper cameras:
both of mine have some kind of auto-off feature that I can't seem to disable. This means I have to keep shooting at least 1 picture/minute to keep it on.
with a basic rig you need a camera that autoadvances with each shot. This puts you (I elieve) one pricing tier above the cheapest level of camera.
Brooks said zoom capability wasn't necessary and just adds weight. I'll back this up. The Samsung has zoom, and I never use it.
You probably need a tripod mounting hole to attach the camera to a rig. Don't forget to make certain the camera has one. Even if a quick and dirty rig doesn't need one, you might upgrade in the future.
Some of the pics my team has taken are on our web site. We'll have to update this soon to get some of our more recent stuff up, so check back in about a week if you're interested.
We have considered but not yet tried doing a KAP shoot (perhaps with video) during a "rokakku challenge" style of kite fight. One of the main reasons we haven't yet is that we have generally been participating in the battle, and couldn't be in two places at the same time. Another is the difficulty in keeping the KAP kite from interfering with the battle. (We tend to use rokakku for our KAP platforms.) Putting a camera directly on a fighting kite would be pretty dangerous. It would hammer your maneuverability, most likely break if you got cut, and stand a decent chance of injuring someone.
For more info on our KAP and rokakku fighting activity visit Midnight Squadron.
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Until recently people haven't tended to use digital cameras for KAP, partly because of price and partly because of shutter speed. Even with suspension rigs cameras do tend to bounce around a bit. I have seen a few recent articles with digital being used. The "cheap-ass" digital cameras are the one's least likely to be suited to KAP, unfortunately. I have a couple, and they both have fairly low resolution and require a lot of light.
As to flying height, the low lengths of stunt kites make for fairly boring shots, at least when you take a whole role of them. Higher shots are good, but at some point you have a hard time seeing the camera!
Some of my pics. More to come in about a week.
The first one I used was a 35mm Samsung. I accidentally left it at home on one beach trip and picked up a reasonably cheap Advantix camera at a local CVS. Both cameras work, and I switch between them as needed. I think I've come to prefer the Advantix a little more because I've gotten some great panoramic shots with it, but a little more comparison would be good.
High quality is really not necessary for low-end amateur use, and the less investment the less there is to replace if things get smashed. (Not that I've ever had this happen.) Both of my cameras definitely cost under $100, and I think the Advantix one was under $50.
Here are some caveats with the cheaper cameras:
Some of the pics my team has taken are on our web site. We'll have to update this soon to get some of our more recent stuff up, so check back in about a week if you're interested.
We have considered but not yet tried doing a KAP shoot (perhaps with video) during a "rokakku challenge" style of kite fight. One of the main reasons we haven't yet is that we have generally been participating in the battle, and couldn't be in two places at the same time. Another is the difficulty in keeping the KAP kite from interfering with the battle. (We tend to use rokakku for our KAP platforms.) Putting a camera directly on a fighting kite would be pretty dangerous. It would hammer your maneuverability, most likely break if you got cut, and stand a decent chance of injuring someone. For more info on our KAP and rokakku fighting activity visit Midnight Squadron.