mclina

I thought it would be kind of fun to try this out. I bought a $20 keychain camera at Walmart, and glued an old servo right to the case. I attached it to the bottom of my GWS Slow Stick with double sided tape. Here's the really goofy part - since I only have a three channel receiver on this plane, I connected the camera servo with a Y harness to my rudder output, so to snap a photo, I have to give full left rudder for about 2 seconds.

The camera with battery weighs about 2.25 ounces. I am flying a Slow Stick with a stock 400 motor, and it hardly notices the weight.

I plan on refining the setup a bit, and the $20 camera is capable of shooting video, so I want to give that a shot as well, but here is the result of the first attempt with this ultra-cheap setup:

Lucas!

Very nice, thanks! I might have to try that. The quality is not that bad either.

mclina

It's actually a 1.3 megapixel camera, but these shots were taken at medium resolution. It can shoot videos up to 2.4MB, but that only amounts to about 15 seconds.

The camera is tough to control. You push a button to scroll through the photo quality settings or video setting, but it seems to default back to medium resolution still photos after a few seconds. It also doesn't have a display for the pictures, so you can see how many have been snapped, but you can't look at them until you download them (or stick the memory card in another camera).

But for a $20 camera taped to a $30 airplane, it's not too bad.

mclina

Here are pictures of my setup. The red plastic case with the servo attached stays stuck to the plane, and the grey camera body slides out so I can put in the battery and activate the camera.

SON OF PALEFACE

My Feedback: (1)

As you can see , the quality of the shot is not the best , Iv'e done that ,been there and wont use anything now under 3mp with a decent lens (my Canon) which the S/stick also don't know is there

noto

You can get very nice pictures from 1.3 MP cameras.
Check out all the samples here.
http://www.rcplanecams.com/rc-photography.html

All those are done with Aiptek 1.3 MP cameras

SON OF PALEFACE

My Feedback: (1)

not as good as my canon

noto

I don't see much of a difference between the photos to be honest but I bet I could spot the difference in the price tag LOL

SON OF PALEFACE

My Feedback: (1)

Yeah , the trouble is when you upload you loose definition , like i said I've had both and the quality of shot in your face (own puter) is much better , like, you want to see the shots from my Pentax optio S60 [8D]

noto

I'm a little afraid to take big (expensive) cameras up... But then again im not that confident in my flying yet lol

jwahrer

Here is my setup, not still photos and a little more wiring involved, but actually works quite well even got a video of the plane crashing in the water.

calvino

mclina you should have used the slo-v with the x port to operate the $20 cammera. It has the "X-port" which with a little work you could probabaly find out the wiring of... A slowflier is wonderfull for taking photo's with (when a $20 cam. is straped to the bottom). Cool idea, any more pics????

mclina

I have the x-port on my Slow Stick, since I used the circuit board from an Aerobird Swift. I did find the plans on line to build the circuitry to activate a camera shutter from the x-port, but it seemed too complicated for me.

I have ordered another Slow Stick, along with a 4 channel receiver. I'll still use my "servo-glued-to-camera" setup, but I'll be able to snap pictures without yanking on the rudder. It should make for some steadier shots. I'm putting floats on my other Slow Stick.

I haven't sent up the camera much lately. These are some of the "better" shots I've gotten, but for every one like this, I get 20 blurry shots of grass and treetops.

I'll post more when i get the 4-channel setup working.

calvino

sadly that is what you get in the way of photo's with a $20.00 cammera [] but I still have to say they are cool with the distortion. I want to get a slo-v and mount a cammera on that... cammera able to take video?? that would be cool to see mini t

moogly

if you can set the shutter speed as high as it will go that would clear up the blur
I don't know if you have that option on you camera I have used a 1.3 mp camera and set the shutter to 500th of a sec.
and got good results but anything slower and I get alot of blur from the movement remember you trying to stop the action (so to speak)
it not so much the mp but the shutter speeds and f stop that nikon has some nice features but a price to go with it

calvino

I know that the minimum that i would shoot 60 MPH trains in a photo class was 1/500 of of a second so setting the shutter as fast as possible will help eliminate the low shutter speed blur. I can see how heli's and airplanes are sortof the same in how the pics came out... Nice work, mini t