Re: Scouting cotton with EIR

["Dirk Wright" <wright@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Some of the boom cranes made for amateur movie making are not terribly
>expensive (but $500 plus ??) and portable and can mount to a standard
>tripod. You need counterweight, but this can be water or soil. You 
should be
>able to get close to a 10-foot height. Then you can use the ladder for
>yourself rather than camera mount plus you. If you're willing to 
sacrifice
>appearance, then perhaps a couple of bamboo tripods with crosspiece 
for the
>camera. Might want to use guys for the tripod towers. Again leaving 
the
>ladder for you.
>

I've been reading about weather balloons, and they appear to be the 
cheapest way yet of getting a camera aloft. The balloons are about 50$ 
each, a tank of helium is 40$, then you need some tethers, and a radio 
slave for your motor-driven 35mm camera. You should also get a hands-
free walkie-talkie set for talking to the other person on the other 
tether so you can control the balloon. One person on one side of the 
field and the other on the other side. Choose a day with light to no 
wind. Use a wide angle lens set to infinity focus, a reasonably fast 
shutter speed and you're all set! For example, my Olympus OM-2n has a 
Winder 1 attached that accepts a 1/8" mini phone plug to allow remote 
firing of the camera. I'm sure other brands of camera gear have similar 
remote firing capability. The radio slave is wired into that plug. I 
think a regular flash slave is possible, but maybe only up to a hundred 
feet or less. You could trigger the flash slave with a manually fired 
flash gun from the ground. Hang the camera so that it faces straight 
down for EIR shooting of crops. 

Be seeing you.


Dirk Wright
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