Aerial photos from RC helicopter or tethered unmanned balloon?

Factual Questions
1

I want aerial photographs of regions about 50’ to 300’ in size, which are too small to see with enough detail on the photos I can find on the web. I think I want to be able to get up hundreds of feet. I’ve done some photos with a handheld camera in a small plane, but this is pretty challenging to make work - and I’m pretty nervous about launching lunch on somebody’s interior (my last experience turned pretty green, cold, sweaty and shakey).

Maybe a digital camera on a radio controlled helicopter or a helium balloon on a string would do it.

Anybody have advice on the subject? In particular, do radio controlled airplane and helicopter enthusiasts already do this kind of thing?

2

They absolutely do. I’ve done it quite a bit. Strangely enough, you’re actually better off with a stable, slow-flying RC airplane than an RC helicopter, though some people do it that way.

You’ll definitely need to develop some skills as an RC pilot first, before you start carrying valuable payload (like a digital camera).

The definitive reference for this is the popular messageboard RC Groups, which I frequent quite a bit. There’s a sub-forum there dedicated to Aerial Photography where the pros hang out. People are very eager to help out and answer questions.
For some eye candy, check out this listof aerial photography contests that they run every once in a while. People post their submissions with amazing results.

3

You may be able to find somebody offering this sort of service in your area using an RC airplane or one of those small blimps.

If you don’t already have an RC airplane, doing this yourself could be expensive, and will take some time to develop the skills to position the plane.

Here’s the first ready-made balloon setup I found on Google… http://www.floatograph.com/sale/1.htm

4

I work in an Aerial Photo Lab, & have for 13± years now.

Forget this bull!@#$.

Go to/phone your State Department of Transportation, & ask for photos of the correct area, from their most recent flyover.

Cheap & easy.

You’d be suprised. I can use a magnifier to see the tools in the back of a pickup truck, in a shot taken from almost 5 miles up.

Enlargements are usually available.

Or, ask your State Legislsator for help. He might get you the photos free!

5

Here’s an RC helicopter ready made with a wireless camera built in. Not sure if that camera is good enough for your purposes but as others have noted this is definitely doable.

6

Help if I posted the link: http://www.raidentech.com/rchemispycam.html

7

A kite is another option.Lots of links

8

Just to slip this in, one of the great news photos ever taken, of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, was taken from a kite-mounted camera.

9

I also believe that there are model rockets that have cameras built in to take a photo at the apex…just another idea

10

Thanks, everybody! I don’t think I can consider taking up the RC hobby but if I could find somebody in a club who would participate in this project with me, fantastic! I wonder how ready someone would be. Seems like a lot of trouble from there end, but then the whole project I’m doing seems like a lot of trouble if you look at it that way.

I did some web searching on balloon photography and was surprised to find so much out there. This sounds more approachable than the RC method.

Bosda, your reply is the most intriguing - I hadn’t even thought of this. I use terraserver.com and topozone.com and get, at best, 0.75 m per pixel color photos. If there’s a much higher res source out there it would help tremendously!

11

I wasn’t talking about a website.

We store chemical photo negative here in a vault. Each roll of negatives is the size of an artillery shell.

We continually map & re-map our State on a constant basis. Our collection of negatives dates to 1965, at a variety of altitudes. We can give you a b&w image, enlarged to the size of a tablecloth.

Your own State Gov lab can probably do even better, & likely in color.

12

That’s an excellent idea. Made me think of one other possibility, but I don’t know if it’ll help the OP or not.

Many county auditor’s websites have aerial photos on them. I can go to my county’s site and see an aerial view of my own house that’s a lot better than anything else online.

13

I’ve always wanted to get into r/c aircraft for this very reason, because it’s flat-out so freaking cool.

Here’s a link to someone who upped the ante in absolute amateur geekery coolness: a VR helmet controlling the motorized camera on his r/c plane

I have nothing more to add - I just wish I had a few thousand bucks and half a year to drop on this hobby. :slight_smile:

14

RC helicopters are renowned for being very difficult to fly. If you’re not already proficient, it probably isn’t worth it for photography.

15

>RC helicopters are renowned for being very difficult to fly. If you’re not already proficient, it probably isn’t worth it for photography.

Wow, are you kidding? I can’t even get the hang of a radio controlled CAR. I spend enough money on my mapping projects without tying cameras, helecopters, and radios together and aiming them at the creek…

>I wasn’t talking about a website.
Certainly not, and I wasn’t hearing about one either. This remains by far the most promising - not the least because getting images in years past and at different seasons (especially with just a touch of snow on the ground) would be a huge plus. Thanks for this excellent post.