Re: Aerial Photography (was Re: Scouting cotton with EIR)

[Colin McKie <colinmckie@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bertha Adamson wrote:

> 
> Coincidence is a funny thing. I live in a hilly area. Today, in an empty lot
> on the hill behind the house, I saw an aerial photographic contraption. A
> camera was suspended below a large balloon in the shape of a small blimp.
> (Maybe 15-20 feet long - but I am really bad at judging size and distance.)
> The operator/photgrapher was below. A harness was around his neck, apparently
> holding up a display screen - I assume the camera was digital. A cable ran
> from the balloon to the operator - quite a lot of extra was looped around his
> arm. He got the ballon up maybe about 40-50 ft in the air. There are some nice
> views and custom houses being built here - we suspect it was real estate
> related rather than government/utility as there were no markings on his van.
> 
> I probably would have gone down to ask him about it, but it was early and I
> was still in my pajamas! :-)
> 
> Bertha

Hi Bertha,

We have a local photographer doing the same in our area (Canterbury, New
Zealand). The camera is a conventional Nikon auto SLR, mounted on a
motorized pan & tilt head, with a video camera module fixed to the
finder eyepiece. All this is wired to the control box round the
operator's neck, and seems to work well, until the cables get wrecked.
I've had to fix them for him a couple of times.

This balloon is decorated in Fuji colours, as is its transport trailer.
Very eye-catching.

Cheers,

Colin

http://www.geocities.com/main_mono/
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