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The Expensive Hobby Of Kite Aerial Photography

Posted by timothy on Mon Dec 29, 2003 06:45 PM
from the where-do-you-get-6mp-for-cheap dept.
Toys Technology
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.
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  • Hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 77Punker (673758)
    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.
    • Been done, for years... I've (and many others) have flown both digital cameras and also x10 and the like wireless video cameras on planes and helis... take a look at http://www.ryankramer.com/planes/avistar.shtml (near the bottom I've got some arial pics)
    • Well then, you're obviously not an Afghan guerrilla [go.com].
    • I saw a show on TV once that had these guys (im thinking it was in the northern midwest states someplace, wisconsin rings a bell). They would take fairly large remote control planes (probably, 8ft wingspan it lookd like) and put a camera on board. They then would have to fly to a target and take the best picture. The pilot with the best picture won the contest. Pretty interesting I thought.

  • Kite photo gallery (Score:5, Informative)

    by linuxwrangler (582055) on Monday December 29 2003, @06:48PM (#7831488)
    Check out Charles C. Benton's Site [berkeley.edu] for collections from years of kite photography.

  • on the other hand (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Neophytus (642863) * on Monday December 29 2003, @06:48PM (#7831489)
    Clever people will get a $50 wired video camera, run the wires down the teather and get some funky video capture software going
    • Yeah, what a great idea. Make sure you take video of the kite flyer on the ground, so we have a visual record of what happens when the kite string and wires comes in contact with power lines.
    • hmmm, I dunno what sort of wind you have around where you live, but most of my long line kite flying the string becomes a major weight component.

      you're already carrying a deadweight of camera and now you want to add kilo's of wire?

      Quite tricky tensioning to prevent the wire becoming load-bearing at any point I imagine as well.

      Wireless could be interesting, you should have quality LOS.
      • I'm with you. There is no way you could just strap a camera on and run the wires down.

        What you'd need to do is get a tiny camera from somewhere (like this [ramseyelectronics.com] or this [ramseyelectronics.com] one). Then you'd attach it to a strong tini transmitter (like this one [ramseyelectronics.com]) and hook it all up to a battery. Instant spy kite. Not that a kite above a compeditor's company all day every day with no one flying it would ever look suspicous. Still might be too heavy though.

      • What about using the wire directly as the tether? Two is all it takes for video. You'd need to insulate them if you wanted to do loops though!!
        • if you can find a wire with a 25lb breaking strength I suppose you could.

          cost of the wire might run to more than the wireless kit though.

          and it would still be much heavier with a worse breaking strain than dedicated kite string.

    • Re:on the other hand (Score:4, Insightful)

      by freeweed (309734) on Monday December 29 2003, @08:31PM (#7832002)
      Read the article, learn basic math, and buy yourself a scale.

      These guys are taking pictures at incredibly high altitudes for what you suggest. 100 metres is considered LOW. That's 300 feet, in case you're a yank. Ever pick up 300 feet of RCA cabling? These guys use 6 foot wide kites just to handle the weight of the camera, which is probably 1/5th of the weight of that much wiring, if that.

      Now just try it with 2, 3, or 400 metres of wire. Yup, that's sure clever.
  • 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?
  • 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.

  • what about strapping camera's to rc cars? (Score:5, Funny)

    by narkotix (576944) on Monday December 29 2003, @06:50PM (#7831510)
    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.

  • a friend did do that (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jeffy124 (453342) on Monday December 29 2003, @06:50PM (#7831512) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:a friend did do that (Score:5, Informative)

      by jeffy124 (453342) on Monday December 29 2003, @06:59PM (#7831576) Homepage Journal
      found it! http://prism.mem.drexel.edu/projects/kite/index.ht ml [drexel.edu]

      IIRC, they had to develop a business case for the project (in other words, what engineers developed had to have a practical usage), and there was also some sort of entrpreneurial business plan competition sponsored by the business school going on at about the same time, so they also entered that contest using their kite project as a product and got an honorable mention. the page linked is what they submitted to that contest.

  • Or you could use a balloon (Score:4, Informative)

    by gotr00t (563828) on Monday December 29 2003, @06:53PM (#7831532) Journal
    This was featured earlier on /. about creating a Linux powered balloon that had a camera on it. Quite an amazing feat, even though the pictures were a little low resolution.

    http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/ [vpizza.org]

  • Rocket cameras are much cheaper and easier (Score:3, Interesting)

    by weeble (50918) on Monday December 29 2003, @06:54PM (#7831540) Homepage
    I got a rocket camera for Christmas from my brother :-)

    estes rockets [esteseducator.com]

    It uses a couple of explosive packs and takes a picture at its apex.
    • Sure, and those are cool, but you get only one picture, and you have no control over where the camera is pointed. The nifty think about kite aerial photography is that the photographer can aim the camera, and pictures are normally taken from relatively low altitude. With practice and some luck, you get great photos taken from a very different perspective from what you're used to.

  • If you have an extra $1,000.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by herrvinny (698679) on Monday December 29 2003, @06:56PM (#7831552)
    ...lying around, try getting the DraganFlyer IV ($750) [rctoys.com] and mount an EyeCam ($250) [rctoys.com] 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) [rctoys.com] looks interesting as well.

  • Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iamdrscience (541136) <[michaelmtripp] [at] [gmail.com]> on Monday December 29 2003, @06:56PM (#7831556) Homepage
    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.

  • helium balloons (Score:4, Interesting)

    by actiondan (445169) on Monday December 29 2003, @07:02PM (#7831600)
    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.

  • Don't loose the kite (Score:3, Informative)

    by Charles Gaudette (103519) on Monday December 29 2003, @07:04PM (#7831611) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Amateur Radio Groups Having Done This For Years (Score:4, Informative)

    by gpmidi256 (638924) on Monday December 29 2003, @07:23PM (#7831704) Homepage
    Loudoun Amateur Radio Group [k4lrg.org] 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 [k4lrg.org].

  • Solution: Breakable Link and parachute (Score:4, Informative)

    by G4from128k (686170) on Monday December 29 2003, @07:23PM (#7831711)
    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.

  • When I was a lad... (Score:4, Informative)

    by CmdrWiggle (697247) on Monday December 29 2003, @07:24PM (#7831718)
    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 [mindspring.com].

    Inevitably, everyone I knew would pull out the camera and launch lizards (frogs, bugs, etc.) instead.

  • I've strapped cameras to airplanes.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by mumblestheclown (569987) on Monday December 29 2003, @07:55PM (#7831828)
    my two hobbies are aviation and photography. As a small airplane owner and a fairly experienced pilot, I have the luxury of being able to and knowing where I can safely attach a camera to the outside of the airplane to get some interesting shots. however, to date I've only attached a video camera (using duct tape--seriously) to the outside of the airplane and never a still camera. Why? because I don't have a digital camera that supports a remote shutter like i would like.

    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.

    • Really, garbage bags. Kite photography does not have to cost lots of money.

      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 fro

    • While not as good as a remote shutter, you might want to look into a timed shutter. My new digicam can take one picture every X minutes until it fills the card. If you set that to one minute, you should be able to anticipate where the plane will be when the shutter goes off (And make a couple of extra passes to make sure).
  • Finally, a use for those old PDAs: TRGPro + CF 802.11 card + Kodak PalmPix = cheap airborne wireless webcam.
  • 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 [prismkites.com] 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 [prismkites.com], 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 [revkites.com] once, quad-liners give you better control over the kite

  • Cheapskates (Score:3, Funny)

    by Molina the Bofh (99621) on Monday December 29 2003, @11:38PM (#7832880) Homepage
    The Expensive Hobby Of Kite Aerial Photography

    Expensive ?? I had to buy a chopper to take pictures, you insensitive clods.
      • "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.
        • "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.
      • Well, maybe a sniper older than 17, and probably not in England, but near White House, Washington, D.C. You might have heard [google.com] they don't like being photographed. :)

        Waiting to see a ban on kites in that city...

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