Has anyone tried kite aerial photography (KAP)?

[L Stegall]

I wasn't sure whether this was an equipment, technique or other question (really, I guess it's sort of all 3 rolled into 1), so I opted for the "open" forum....but has anyone given kite aerial photography (KAP) a try? I'd definitely like to learn more. I was search Flickr for some travel ideas and found some incredible images taken from kites (search tags "KAP" and/or Moorea in particular). I'm particularly interested in where you get all the gear you need, how you do it, how you travel with the equipment (from some of the home-made rigs shown in Flickr pictures, I can see TSA getting a tad nervous about what's in your bag), etc. I'd love to hear from anyone with any knowledge about this....

Thanks,

Lisa

[Digital Prophet]

I once tied a frog to several helium balloons. He didn't get very far. But then again he didn't have a camera either. And it was balloons and not a kite.

Come to think of it I don't know what I wrote this for.

Prophet out.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Really the weight of a DSLR with a good lens and the potential $$$$ losses of a hard crash lead this to being done with a P+S that has either a remote trigger or a way to fire off shots every few seconds or so automatically.

I looked at possibley doing a shoot with balloons and a dslr mounted in a pvc frame to aim it but the cost of helium to lift the weight was cost prohibitive (around $100 for the shoot and no way to store the helium).

If I would try this with a kite I would try to find some way to attach the camera system to the string say 15--20 ft from a large box type kite or one of the airfoil designs that are less likely to take a fast nose dive like a standard kite design. Also I would test run a package of the same weight many times to see how stable it is before trusting anything other than a P+S that is well padded.

Some people actually have cameras put into their remote control piloted airplanes, even video, wonder what the lift weight is on one of the remote controlled helicopters?

[NathanJK]

I've been really wanting to try this actually. I would use a kite similar to this: http://www.intothewind.com/shop/Trad...th_Drogue_Tail

I still wouldn't use my good cameras though, I've been looking for some sort of cheaper good quality camera I could use for such.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

http://www.kitesrus.com/Merchant2/me...egory_Code=PKF

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

http://store.kittyhawk.com/viewItem....Desc=&Search=N
Don't foget that with the airfoils you can stack them and actually fly several of them in layers to give you plenty of lift and stability, they actually make the big ones that will pull buggys across the sand, surfboarders across the ocean, skiers up mountains and other pulling activities so plenty of lift to get a 3-5kg camera rig up into the air to come crashing down!

[kenw]

a friend mounted a small P&S to an RC plane....used an extra servor channel to activate a cam to press the shutter. Lotsa fun and even sold his services to a few farm and ranch real estate folks.

and a plane is not at the whim of the wind....

[Digital Prophet]

All this talk of planes and copters makes me wonder what kind of shutter speed you have to counteract the vibrations.

Thoughts? Comments? Talk amongst yourselves.

Prophet out.

[Detonate]

There is a guy in DFW that does this with a remote controlled Helocopter.

It takes two people to pilot. One does the Helocopter, and one does the camera Gyro. It includes a monitor that provides a live feed from the camera so you know what you are shooting.

Very cool stuff!

[L Stegall]

Thanks for the input, although I'm not planning to launch any frogs anytime soon (although I was quite entertained by the mental picture of your having done so, D.P.). Nor do I plan to send my 5D into space either. When you look at the technical data for the images on flickr, it does look like most people are using p&s cameras for this purpose. Still, I was pretty impressed with some of the work. As I said, there are some spectacular aerial shots taken in Moorea, in particular. I think you probably do need more than 1 person for this little experiment.....my research continues......

[raevyncent]

I knew a kid back when who sent a frog up in a model rocket.....

[Steelsun]

Here's the primo version:
http://www.crimetime.com/police_spy_cam.htm

[tiffany]

i saw this on youtube the other day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEprozoxnLY

[blonboy]

GOOD GRIEF!!! What happened to the $12 kite??!!

Man when did a kite get so darn expensive!!

[CanonShooter]

I've still got four very large bottles of helium left over from when i was testing end devices. I like to blow up those large black garbage bags and then tie one of those flashing road lights to it and let it go at night. It's fun to watch the blinking light as it floats away. Carthage is such a small town that you can usually hear people the next day talking about seeing a flashing light in the sky . Maybe I shouldn't have said that since it's probably against some law??? I also tied one of my daughters old teddy bears to one of the bags once and released it, I wonder were it ended up at? I can say I won't be tieing my camera to one though.