kursal

Hi,

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, I've only jut found the site.

I am really interested in arial photography. I have a couple of planes but I'm not sure, should I retro-fit them or would it be better to build a new one? What sorts of engines work best (I will assume either gas or glow for the time being)?

Any information you can point me in the direction of would be incredibly helpful.

All the best,

Kursal

imora99

Hello Kursal,

This can a broad topic the way you are presenting it now, but I'll try to help you as much as I can.

First of all my suggestion is that you start with what you have and then as you become more experienced you can buy more "ad-hoc" equipment or airframes, however it would be good to know what kind of planes you currently have, in the sense that you will need an airframe large enough that can properly handle the additional weight of the camera and related equipment. Now for starters, it doesn't have to be a large plane, I have taken pics with a 52" wingspan Miss2, rudder and elevator only.

Also it has to be a stable plane for obvious reasons, trainers type are the best choice, they are cheaper and most of us have one. Now regarding the camera, most of us have already a digital camera. Again if you have one, that is small enough (point and shoot types) just find a way to strap it somehow to your plane and start with it. To be able to take the pics, the easiest way is to strap a servo somehow and using a channel that you don't use, activate the servo. Gear channel is most often as it is on/off type of switch, of course assuming you have a radio that has enough channels.

One thing you will have to deal with before anything else if you only have glow planes, is the exhaust oil. As you know it goes all over the plane and it is very hard to deal with in certain airframes as there is no way to keep the C of G in it's place and have the camera away from the oil at the same time. I eventually decided to go electric. Is clean, does not vibrate, and you can fly more places as it is so quite.

I think with this you can have a general idea of what is store for you. If you can narrow down and state what kind of equipment you have (airplane, camera, budget, type of photography-I have helicopters and airplanes, depending on what I want to do-etc. etc.) I can offer some guidelines that at least will get you started on the right track.

Good luck,

David.

kursal

Looks like there is quite a lot to consider. I have a Parkzone J3, which was my trainer, but it only has a span of 37 1/2" - is that likely to be a problem? I think I have a spare channel on that one (will have to check the plane since I made some modifications). My digital camera is quite small so that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, I have a lot to think about. Thank you very much for that Great info.

mvarzoni

Imora99

I have a nice .60 size trainer plane, and a K800I cellphone... this one has a 3.2Mpixel camera, I have made some videos, but it has bad quality movies...

What camera, tx/rx stuffs woud you recomment for a low budget begginer?

I'm more interested on making movies than FPV at thins moment, I might get to FPV later, so, what would you recommend?

Thanks
Mauricio.