Kite Aerial Photography

After building RIG05, RIG06, and RIG07 for Virtual Reality I returned to rectilinear photography for the rig to supercede RIG04.

Lightweight 8Mpixel cameras are just coming onto the market at the start of 2006, but I went for the Nikon 8400 because it has a 24mm (effective) lens, can take a Fisheye, and is 8Mpixel - no other single camera meets this specification. It is also obsolete, and I obtained the camera "new" for a good price on the "surplus" market.

Apart from increased weight, the camera does suffer some other imperfections, most notably poor noise at settings above 50ASA. I considered this acceptable for outdoor work. 

To overcome the weight issue, I set about designing RIG08 with a view to allowing my Pentax 550 (RIG04) to also use the same set up, effectively giving me a lighter weight alternative for light winds.

After some experimentation I discovered that by re-making the bottom bracket of RIG04 and mounting the camera facing backwards I could re-use much of RIG04 rather than building from scratch. The additional height of this camera was offset by the need to drop the lower U bracket to maintain the TILT center of gravity. I also managed to arrange that the Pentax 550 used successfully in RIG04 would still fit this rig (all be it the TILT isn't balanced properly) thus giving a dual 8Mpixel 800g and 5Mpixel 600g solution.

The altimeter and logger features of RIG04 were dropped to keep weight down and simplify the rig construction.

The completed rig is shown right

• Center top. Pan servo with 4:1 gear reduction
• Bottom right: Video downlink, carbon fibre mount for 70cm band aerial, gentled camera trigger.
• Left. From the top, Battery, RC aerial, RC receiver, TILT servo and 4.8 to 9V invertor.

Click image for higher resolution, and look at the 2006 Gallery for results.

The rig has been flight tested. 

James Gentles March 2005 HOME PAGE KAP HOME PAGE