From time to time through the years i thought about taking pictures from above. I didn't
realize this idea, because i was afraid of risking my expensive camera. On the other hand the cheap oneway
cameras showed bad results. Furthermore these had no motor for filmtransport, so it would have only been possible
to shoot one single picture per flight. All this changed, when cheap digital cameras with CMOS chipset hit the
market. In 2003 i jumped in and bought a cheap Mustek Gsmart2 mini at ebay.
My first aerial picture was not so bad and i went on.
What's a good carrier? It is not easy to answer this question, because there are many things to think about. What do you want? Able to start and land on small places or huge and stable for real high flying? Slow or fast? What`s the weight of the load? Cam orientated more upward or downward, lateral or in flight direction? There are many questions to answer and i doubt, that just one plane can be the answer to all of them. My first carrier was a Indoor- slowflyer named Daktari weighing 300 gramm and with 130 centimetres span. Despite problems with windy conditions this one was not so bad, as i know today. There was enough power installed, it could fly in narrow places and was stable enough to cruise high above. The small cam Mustek Gsmart 2 could easily be taped to different locations of the fuselage.
After Daktaris life ended on a wall during an indoor- session, there was need for a
replacement. My target was high climb rate at low flight speed over ground for flying in limited space. The result
was a plane completely made of 6 millimetre Depron with a span of 140 centimetres and fixed plaps on the rear edge
of the wing. As motor i used a DoubleConrad with a 3s2p 1100er Konion- Li-Ion accumulator.
That all worked pretty good, till the battery-eliminator-circuit decided to take a break during flight and leave the
rx temporarily without juice. I managed to fly back to the place i stood, but landed in a tree. The cam at this flight
was a cheap Aiptek Pencam. Have fun with the video of this flight.
What now? The yellow one was destroyed. I decided to use my old trusty electric sailplane
E-soft for the next AP- adventures. I could snap many good pictures, because E-soft was a very smooth flyer.
During that period i stepped up to a better camera with a CCD- chipset. I bought a Nikon CP 3700.
The original motor, a geared Keller 22/9 with 8 NiCad- cells 1300 mAH was not adequate any more. So i replaced
this with a hot winded DoubleConrad with 3S2P 1100 Konion lithium-ion cells.
The climbrate was very sufficient after that replacement and i saved the weight of the camera in comparison with the
original motor. The following video shows an average climb, camera is a cheap Aiptek SD2meg, looking back.
Video: Climbing. Later i played around with different camera positions.
One of the most active aerial-photography group is located at RC-groups. Everyone there seems
to fly a modell named SlowStick, manufactured by the taiwanese company GWS. I bought a kit for a surprisingly low
amount of money. This kit can be puzzled together within two hours without using any tool. The lit includes a Mabuchi
Speed 400 motor with a gear with ball bearings and a corresponding GWS propeller. Nice!
I used a little bit of strapping tape for reinforcement on the wing. Slowstick flies very smooth and very slow. The motor
fits good to the plane, but is a little bit noisy. So i replaced it later with a Conrad
with 3s1p 1100mAH Konion li-ion cells. Now Slowstick is really silent. Cool plane for flying in limited space.
The Easy Glider from Multiplex is easy to convert. I bought the Sailplane version after having
seen a few reports about the poor quality of the original electric drive unit. A double Conrad
was lying around and waiting for a new workplace. This motor is with 100 gramms a bit heavy for the Easy Glider,
so i decided to put the camera behind the center of gravity. Climbing is nice with a two cells 1800 mAH Polyquest XP
lipo on a Graupner CamGear prop 11x8. Total flying weight including cam is now 1050 gramms. First testflights were
promising. :-)
I don't want to go to deep into this topic, because i don't know much about it. Apparently there
are two systems of digital cameras on the market. One type uses a so called CMOS- chip, the other type uses CCD- chip
technology. I try to describe the differences from a practical view, please do not take this as an engineers approach.
All the cheap cams i had, used a CMOS chip. This chip is responsible for converting the light into a digital information
and for storing it to the storage medium, normally a storage card. CMOS chips are storing line by line, which means, that
pics from a moving camera show from time to time strange waves. You can see a nice example on the bottom of this page. Sharpness, colours and
saturation and contrast are subject to good light. As most of these cheap cams come with a low quality lense system, the
pictures are not so good in generell. Conclusion: Good for the start, cheap, for experiments, for good light conditions. I know three methods. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. My cam has no IR- port. If she had one,
i would for sure use one of the small IR- switches available. Why? Read more.....
This is a simple method. Just glue a small servo to the camera, so that the lever will push the
trigger button. Reduce the output, so that the servo will not destroy the button or detach itself from the cam.
Only disadvantage is, that you need another servo and a free channel on your rx. If your cam has an automatic cutoff,
you are forced to make a picture before this happens, otherwise your cam is off and a servo will not solve this. This is a more elegant way. If your cam has an IR- port, you may use an IR-switch. Just place it near the
port and connect it with your rx. It will trigger your cam by sending an IR signal without the need of glueing something
to the cam or soldering inside the cam. Check here RCgroups.com for the user
"MX" or search for Michelle Schiepatti, link later on this page. This is my preferred method right now. My Nikon has a sports-program. If you push the button and keep it
pushed, the cam will shoot 200 pics during the next 400 seconds. Normally there are 30 acceptable and four to five good pictures
included. The rest will be cancelled. No glue, no soldering, just a rubberband to keep the button pushed. Easy, isn't it. :-)Video:Fathers day 2004
The yellow High-decker.
Here's an example with the Aiptek mounted to the wingtip.
E-soft
Slowstick
Easy Glider
If you are looking for better results and are able to spend more money, you should go for a cam with CCD-chip. During the
last years a range of small, lightweight cams has been developed. They weigh between 100 and 200 gramms and have many features.
The picture quality is good. I own a Nikon Coolpix 3700, which fits into this class. There are many other good cams, for example
from Pentax. Check the RC-groups aerial photography forum for tons of advice. Conclusion: higher price, good pictures, many
features, bigger pain in case of loss :-).
I wouldn't have started aerial photography without the cheap Aiptek and Mustek cams with CMOS- chip. After being hooked i upgraded
to a CCD- chip camera. This is, what happens to the average aerial photographer. Think about it :-).
Another group of small switches by-passes the trigger button. The big disadvantage is, that you have to open your camera
and solder fine cables to the pcb inside your cam. You need soldering skills, not much place to work. You loose the guarantee,
that's sure. You will have to make a slot in the housing to get the cable out of the cam. On the other hand most of these
switches, as the IR-switches, have a few nice features like auto- on to overcome the automatic cutoff. I have very good experience
with the switch from Michelle Schiepatti from Italy.Schiepatti-switch.
Nice price, fast delivery and very functional.
All pictures are heavily reduced in size for the internet.
Cam with CMOS- Chip
Cam with CCD- Chip
My actual favourite. A flight over our house on Oct.08.2006. Starting and landing
was a challenge because of the high surrounding trees, but everything went well. Too bad, that the quality is strongly reduced
because reduction of picture-size for internet. Plane was trusty SlowStick. Can you spot me? :-)
