AP Ship #4 - Mountain Models Miniflash. Sticking to the theme of small and nimble, this plane was a handful! If it weren't for 'expo' and the reflexes I mustered from flying the heli I would never have been able to take pictures with this plane. But to just rip up the skies with this little beast was a blast! At 200 watts in (2.4:1 thrust to weight) this plane had no problems carrying two cameras. Yes you can gang up these cameras with an approximate 30° offset and take panoramas (you can still do panoramic shots with just a single camera as well).
I essentially used the same camera mounting method as with the SB3D, camera just in front of the wing - on the fuselage side and tape, tape and more tape.
At this time a fellow came up with the idea of using two camera simultaneously to take pictures and produced 'panoramic' images of excellent quality. The software that accompanied these cameras allowed for 'stitching' multiple images together with relative ease. Adjustments to image alignment as well as color, brightness, etc. could all be done in s/w.
I borrowed on his method and was able to take this panoramic, lining up the plane to take the shots required nothing more than careful planning and execution. I've described this method to others using this baseball diamond analogy...
You are standing at 'Home Plate'.
You fly the plane from 1st base towards home and snap when the plane is overhead.
Fly around and approach from the 2nd basemans position and repeat.
Repeat for the remaining infielders positions, snapping when the plane is overhead.
What you have achieved is a shot every 22.5° which can easily be stitched together to form a panoramic!
The second image was generated by a second camera placed side by side (no offset) with the first unit on the plane. This camera was modified as part of an experiment to improve on the cameras ability to shoot pictures in low light conditions. What I ended up with was a camera that was highly IR sensitive and I'll elaborate on that later.