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EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK

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EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« on: 13 / February / 2011, 21:29:23 »
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I have been looking for ways to make it faster and easier to do aerial photography from my EasyStar model airplane. My latest experiment was to use a large piece of velcro to secure my Canon Powershot SD780IS camera to my model airplane for doing vertical format aerial photography. The velcro has plenty of sticking power and leaves all of the camera’s controls available. Also, velcro works well in cold temperatures. I used CHDK with a shutter speed override set to take 1/4000th of a second exposures with the ND filter set to out during the flight to minimize motion blur. I took 350 photos during the 14 minute flight using my CHDK countdown intervalometer script.

You can read more about this experiment on my blog.




















Here is a high resolution aerial mosaic.


A stereoscopic 3D anaglyph aerial photograph. It should be viewed with red / cyan glasses.
« Last Edit: 16 / February / 2012, 23:00:15 by andrewhazelden »
Canon SD780IS

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Offline reyalp

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Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #1 on: 13 / February / 2011, 21:45:01 »
Very nice!
Don't forget what the H stands for.

Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #2 on: 10 / April / 2011, 17:36:41 »
The nice spring weather has made it great for more aerial photography with CHDK and my model airplane. I was able to use CHDK to take more vertical format aerial photos and also made a few stereoscopic 3D anaglyphs from image pairs. I used CHDK with my Countdown Intervalometer script to take 600 photos during each flight.

Higher resolution images and stereoscopic anaglyphs images from these flights can be viewed on my blog.












Canon SD780IS

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Offline philmoz

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Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #3 on: 10 / April / 2011, 18:19:45 »
Fantastic!

You should enter the CHDK challenge on dpreview - http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/Challenge.aspx?ID=1980

Phil.
CHDK ports:
  sx30is (1.00c, 1.00h, 1.00l, 1.00n & 1.00p)
  g12 (1.00c, 1.00e, 1.00f & 1.00g)
  sx130is (1.01d & 1.01f)
  ixus310hs (1.00a & 1.01a)
  sx40hs (1.00d, 1.00g & 1.00i)
  g1x (1.00e, 1.00f & 1.00g)
  g5x (1.00c, 1.01a, 1.01b)
  g7x2 (1.01a, 1.01b, 1.10b)


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Offline achillies

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  • SX130IS
Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #4 on: 10 / April / 2011, 22:06:39 »
Awesome.   The mosaic and anaglyphs are great.  Did you need to counter-balance the plane, or are you just a really good flyer (or is it close enough to the fuselage to simply add weight to the plane)?  In any case, good design, and great pictures.
Don't let the sands of time get in your lunch.

Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #5 on: 11 / April / 2011, 10:17:20 »
The camera is mounted close to the fuselage on one wing and a stack of 4 metal washers at the tip of the other wing keeps the center of gravity fairly balanced. Also, the plane has an FMA CoPilot flight stabilizer that helps keep it level on windy days.

The nice thing with my current setup is I hold the camera on the plane with two large pieces of industrial velcro so I can put the camera on / take it off in seconds.
Canon SD780IS

Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #6 on: 12 / April / 2011, 12:19:02 »
Nice!  Much simpler than mine... I made a carbon fiber bracket that hangs the camera under the wing and although it works well, the controls must all be set before attaching as it hides them physically.  Get ready to fly, notice I forgot to start the script, tear it all down, remove the wings, fix it, put it back together, bla bla bla.  For straight down your setup looks perfect. 

Do you have a method for attaching it to look to the side?
Was: SD1100 IS, Autobuild, V1.01a, dunked in ocean
Next: SD990 IS, Autobuild, used to build sand castles with
Waiting to die: SX230

Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #7 on: 13 / April / 2011, 05:49:02 »
When I shoot aerial video with my Canon Powershot camera I mount the camera near the nose of the plane using a nylon 1/4" bolt that goes through the foam fuselage.

I haven't done much aerial photography looking specifically to one side. However, I am interested in trying to make a stereoscopic 3D phantogram image from the air.
Canon SD780IS


Re: EasyStar Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #8 on: 08 / August / 2011, 07:07:12 »
Canon SD780IS

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Offline funnel

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Re: EasyStar Vertical Format Aerial Photography with CHDK
« Reply #9 on: 08 / August / 2011, 07:25:27 »
Nice pics. I'm still wondering how you can fly it without ailerons with the camera mounted like that, at least I don't see you added them. I put the small cheap keychain 15g camera a few weeks ago on the tip of the wing of my plane and counterbalanced the other tip and was almost unflyable, at the end of the flight I managed to crash it when landing.

 

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