I need to buy a helicopter that can carry a camera
But not a cheap plasticy one like THIS. Does anyone have a source?
I’m intending to take pictures, in broad daylight, on public land, with the subjects’ consent, prior to shooting.
I’m hoping to have images in JPG format, that are 1-3 megs in size.
Have you ever flown a radio-controlled helicopter? They’re tricky.
If you know how to fly one, or don’t mind learning, you can buy one of these (about ~$500) and attach a small camera to it, triggered by a switch on the radio. Flight times will be short (~5 min) and it will not be very stable, especially in high wind.
http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLH1400
If you don’t know how to fly one, you will need to get something more expensive that is self-stabilizing and easier to fly. This one, for instance, costs about $20,000, but of course has some pretty serious equipment.
Thanks, Absolute. I have no experience at all with ROV’s; I’m willing to hire someone to operate it. My budget is, maybe, $10,000 or so, to buy one.
Ah, okay. Well, it looks like the X4 might do it then, at $8,500 or so:
Oh darn.
Now I’m going to have to buy a remote control self stabilizing helicopter with remote video streaming functionality.
You could hire a real plane, a pilot and a camera man for this kinds of money. 
Seriously – does it need to hover? You can get an RC plane, that will be fairly slow moving, but have a lot more air time.
Also, if this is a one-time gig, or just for a few specific things to get pics of, you might look into a local hobbyist club and hire an enthusiast with all the necessary gear. IOW, do you actually need to own the craft?
Fortunately, you can buy one for a lot less than $8,500 if you are willing to give up the industrial-strength features:
Is this a one-time thing? Because I’d think you could hire a company to take the pictures for far less than that. And an alternative to using a remotely-operated plane or helicopter might be kite photography.
Thanks man, that’s an excellent start. I’m kind of asking what the actual State of the Art is. I’m going to have to deal with: Cost, Camera Weight, Flight Time, Maintenance, and Battery Life among others.
You’ve given me a very good start, thanks; anybody else have some ideas?
Keep them coming
Also, I did a thread a few months ago about one that might work for you, the Hexacopter.
Great, now I have to get two remote controlled se
F stabilizing helicopters.
One for play, with my iPad, and one for serious business, like spying on stuff.
This thread is getting expensive. We’d better report it or something.
Go to the RC forums
Here’s aerial photography and both Electric and Fuel helis.
I know a guy who did extensive aerial photography and videos from large electric helis in the DC area, and he made large coin doing real estate spreads. He has since moved on to translator in Afghanistan.
Hmmmm…I guess that rules out a U2, or an SR71?
Best wishes,
hh
Well, yeah. Neither of those are helicopters.
Renting a regular bucket truckwill get you 60 feet off the ground and give a stable shooting platform.
For work we rent real helicopters for about $1,500 an hour. You can sit in them and take all the pictures you want.
Thanks for the ideas guys. It’s a great start. To be even more specific, I would be using this every day to hover over a spot on a river. It would need to stay aloft for maybe 15 minutes at a time and do this 6-10 times a day.
You can hire a Robinson R22 and a pilot for about $250/hour.
Can you tell us how long this has to go on? And maybe something about the point of the whole thing? Is there land nearby where you could mount a camera, say up in a tree? Or a bridge trestle - something like that?
If this goes on for very long, you’re going to need to factor in equipment replacement, at a fairly frequent rate. Especially with weather, you can’t count on a model helicopter to be able to fly that often and reliably.
Also, do you need a really stable picture? Do you need to be able to take some kind of measurements from the images?