Cheap aerial photos?
 

Hi. I'm looking for a way to take cheap aerial photos. I don't need video but if that is easier than I can live with it. I have very VERY little flying experience, but I need to be able to have decent aerial pictures for my business. I have tried model rocked based cameras, but they tend to be inaccurate and usually not the best of quality. I was told by my local model shop that I might be able to find some answers on here. He was thinking that I could use an RC plane with a vid camera mounted on it. The plane he had was a 6' wingspan. I don't know, but I think that would be a bit too big for what I am thinking. The camera he had was a 1 ounce camera, that ran off a 9v and used a radio transmitter to send video to a laptop or TV.

Would there be a cheaper way to accomplish aerial pics other than the $400 option he had?

Thanks.

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

For one you may be asking for some bad trouble. RC Planes my look like a Toy they however can KILL. I am not sure what you want to use this for but something that needs to br considered id
1. Is this plane going to be used to fly over public populated places or businesses
2. Who will be doing the flying
3. What kind of area will you be flying in IE will there be a place to take off and land

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

I will be using it for aerial pictures of houses for my landscaping business. I would be flying it, but not until I learn how from the local RC flying club. The majority of the time I would be flying over houses in the country, with long driveways to take off and land on, and crop fields near by if I need to have a harder landing. I need aerial pictures and the ones I have are too badly pixelated for the scale I am working with.

Maybe there would be something better than an RC plane that you could think of? I thought about RC helicopters, but from what I understand, that comes with even more problems than an RC plane.

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=368283

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

Interesting idea, but I need something that can get photos from 200+ ft, so the entire house is in the picture. Yes I know I could paste all the pics together, but the combined image would end up pretty distorted due to the angles of the camera.

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

http://www.rcgroups.com/aerial-photography-128/

Here are many pages on the topic.

Dan

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

There are clever software programs which can stitch photos together without any problems. Have a look at the gallery on my website and you will see. www.scenefromabove.biz.

I believe a pole 25-30 feet is your best option. Here is a very low resolution picture of a house from 26 feet. I reckon this would come close to meeting your needs without you needing to go through the steep learning curve plus safety issues of flying an aircraft.

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

I agee with all the the stuff above but IF you ever decide to try here is what I did, I first found a cheap 35 mm camera at the Goodwill store, cost me a dollar, self winding,autofucus, they have them by the box full at pawn shops etc, I took a sheet of aluminum about 6X12x1/16 and bent it to fit over the wing saddle of my Telemaster and down the side of the fuse , (left side) I then fastened a piece of lightply to that and a small bracket at the bottom to place the camera on
a couple of small hooks top and bottom to hook elastics to hold the camera in place, next I installed a servo above the camera trigger and made a cam out of a round servo arm to depress it, the servo is hooked up to the retract switch, I flew with the camera "looking "at me, use a good quaitiy film and I got some excellent shots CHEAP!!!! MIke

RE: Cheap aerial photos?
 

I came across a cheap ready to fly plane on Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-RC-ELECTRIC-...QQcmdZViewItem
It's a UAV Predator by Art-Tech $85.00 plus $40.00 shipping. I was told you can find 2 mega pixel camera for approx $20.00? at Wal-Mart, now to activate the camera remotely you need to buy a pico switch from Dimension Engineering (http://www.dimensionengineering.com/) $19.99. You'll need to take apart the camera switch and connect the pico switch to it and then to your RX. When you move your right rudder lever, it will activate the pico switch and take a picture for you. If you google search Art-tech and find their web site you will see more info on the camera part since it is an option for that particular plane but does not advertise how much. If you ask Dimension Engineering on how to connect the pico switch they will help you as well.

I hope this will help you. I own this plane and for taking pictures with a tiny 2 meg camera it's ok. To load it up with video gear, well I think it's not up to the task.

JMS