What’s It Really Take?

Back in November 2009, I posted an article about choosing (radio controlled) helicopters for aerial photography. At the time, I was looking for the cheapest way to get professional quality results for both still and video. Back then,  you’d need about $3k worth of helicopter (or more). You’d also need to hire a pilot, or spend a year or more likely two years learning to fly it yourself.

Well, all that’s changed. There are new helicopter designs with ever more sophisticated electronics. The new designs are cheaper, more stable, easier to fly, stay in the air longer, and are safer and easier to repair than “conventional” helicopters. And as digital cameras get smaller and lighter, the loads placed on these helicopters are reduced. This makes it possible to use smaller, less powerful helicopters to get the job done. Sound good? Here are the details…

It’s All In The Computer

As I was building a conventional RC helicopter (an Align TRex 600 ESP) for aerial photography, I was also surfing the web to learn as much as I could about alternative ways to get cameras in the air.  One day, I discovered quadcopters (aka quadrocopters).  A quadcopter is a type of hovering aircraft that has 4 propellers and 4 motors to drive them.  The propellers are often simply bolted onto the motors.  There’s no variable pitch as with a conventional helicopter.  There often aren’t even any gears or servos in a quadcopter.  It’s just 4 motors and a computer to control them.  Very simple, very reliable.

A Good Practice Quadcopter

The first quadcopter I encountered was called a Draganflyer V.  I quickly snapped up a used one on eBay for about $150.  It’s not really powerful enough to lift a camera, but it’s great for learning to fly.  Here’s a picture.

DraganFlyer V Electric Quadcopter

Because it is small and light (475 grams without battery), the DraganFlyer is great for practicing in small spaces, even indoors.  It doesn’t usually break when you crash it.  And when it does break, it’s very cheap and easy to fix (You can get parts from rctoys.com).  It’s very stable, but not so stable that it’s too easy to fly. It will definitely help you develop some skill. But it’s way easier to fly than a collective pitch (conventional) helicopter.  The propellers are made of soft plastic and geared down (unlike most quads) so they are not spinning fast enough to hurt you if an accident happens.

The Learning Curve for Quadcopters vs. Collective Pitch Helicopters

My other practice helicopter is an E-Flite Blade 400.  It’s a conventional, collective pitch helicopter.   It’s a b***h to fly and always hours of work after a crash.  You can make some hardware and software (in the transmitter) changes to make a Blade 400 more stable and easier to fly.  But, and this is a big but, a collective pitch helicopter will never be as stable as a quadcopter.  So, quads are inherently better for photography (and beginning flyers).

Here’s the kicker.  After about 6 months of flying both quadcopters and collective pitch helicopters, I can fly a quadcopter with confidence.  This includes both hovering and flying various patterns.  Nothing fancy, but competent basic flying.  In the same amount of time, I’m still using training gear on my Blade 400.  I can hover it and move it around a little, but I don’t feel that I’ve got it fully under control. I find it very twitchy and difficult to land.  I would NOT risk a camera on it.

On the other hand, I had no hesitation strapping a Nikon D90 with a 20mm lens on my quadcopter and test flying it.  Friends thought I was crazy.  But that’s how predictably a quad flies.

Most expert flyers say it takes the average adult about 2 years to learn to fly a collective pitch helicopter with that level of confidence.  That sounds about right to me.  It only takes a few months to master a quadcopter.  That alone would be a good enough reason to use it for  aerial photography.

A Serious Quadcopter

It didn’t take me long to figure out that my time might be better spent building a quadcopter with the same lifting capacity as my TRex 600.  Around that time, I discovered the aeroquad.com site.  Aeroquad refers to a quadcopter that uses a particular computer and software for stabilization.  Here’s some pictures of a quadcopter I built using the Aeroquad computer.  (This was NOT a kit, but a home brewed design.)

Quadcopter using the Aeroquad computer and a home-brewed airframe.

Quadcopter from above with GoPro Hero HD camera mounted on leg.

As you might be able to tell, the airframe of my quad is made from aluminum tubing (actually, TRex 600 tail booms), pvc elbows and other pipe fittings from Home Depot, a plastic project box from Radio Shack, pipe insulation, nylon wire ties, plywood, wire, switches, motors, and connectors from various sources, and even practice golf balls.   The quadcopter weighs about 1.7 kilograms without a battery or camera.  The distance between motors on the same axis is 32 inches.  The total cost to build this quad was about $400 minus the radio gear.   That’s roughly $200 for the Aeroquad computer and sensors and $200 for the motors, propellars and airframe.  Radio gear varies from around $50 for a transmitter and receiver to around $300.

As it happens, the motors I used (Turnigy 2217, 20 turn 860Kv) are a bit small to match the lifting capacity of the TRex 600.   But the difference in the total cost with more powerful motors (and speed controllers) is less than $50.  I didn’t have enough experience to know that four 220 watt motors would not quite be enough power to lift a dslr and camera mount.  Something around 350 watts is more like it. Here’s a brief video demonstrating the quadcopter with a GoPro HD Video camera on board and a primitive camera mount.

Not Quite Ready for Prime Time

So what’s not to like?  There are some issues with the current release (1.71) of the Aeroquad software.  The Aeroquad computer and software that I’m using has 3 gyros to stabilitze the helicopter.  I also put 3 accelerometers on my computer,  but the software doesn’t currently use the accelerometers effectively.  The accelerometers could be used to provide a much higher degree of stability than you get with just the gyros.

In the Aeroquad software are experimental versions of heading hold, auto leveling and a high stability mode.  I have tried these features and in my opinion they are too buggy to be useful in the current release.    Since the aeroquad team is working to correct the flaws, I chose not to modify the code myself.  Fortunately, the basic gyro controls work extremely well, so the quad is easy to fly at moderate altitudes.   The heading hold, auto leveling and high stability features of the software are likely to be fixed in a near future release.   With free software, you must be willing to wait, or go in and fix it yourself.  I’ll keep you posted on progress in this area.

What’s Required For Aerial Photography?

To use a quadcopter for photography, you often need to fly at high altitudes, where you can barely see the quad.   But when a quadcopter is far away from you, it can get very difficult to tell whether it’s right side up or up side down.  It’s just a little + in the distance.  I crashed the Draganflyer on more than one occasion because I had a split second of confusion about its orientation.   That’s where an auto leveling feature is essential.  You want the quad to right itself when you either push a button or just let go of the controls. So whether you can see it or not, you know it’s flying straight and level.

Currently, the Aeroquad software does not stay level if you take your hands off the controls.  It will drift and eventually crash.  I should mention that the same is true of a conventional helicopter, except that the conventional helicopter will crash a lot faster.   So, an auto leveling feature is a MUST.

What’s Nice To Have

In the ‘nice to have’ category is the ability to set the position and altitude and have the helicopter stay hovering in place while you let go of the controls and operate the camera (also by remote control).  You need a barometer and a GPS for these two features, and the software to use them.

Will the Aeroquad platform have all these features in the near future?  I think probably yes.  The Aeroquad group recently merged with a group at DIYDrones.com. The folks at DIYDrones have an autopilot system for planes with all of the features I’ve mentioned and much more.  They are currently working with the Aeroquad folks to provide all these features for quadcopters and even conventional helicopters.  I expect a release within the next few months.  This is especially exciting because this will be open source, public domain software and non-proprietary hardware.  The benefits of this approach, not to mention the low cost, will be huge.  Stay tuned.

What If I Need A CameraShip Now?

Does having all these stability features sound like a lot to ask?  Well, there are systems that have auto leveling, GPS position hold and altitude hold.  You push a button and the helicopter stays in position within the accuracy of the GPS unit (a few meters) and the altimeter.  You can buy them ready made, or as kits.  Or you can just buy the flight control computer (see below) and build your own helicopter around it.  The fully assembled and ready to fly versions of these systems are very expensive (often around $10,000).  Manufacturers of fully assembled units include www.microdrones.com and www.draganfly.com.  Video taken from these helicopters is quite amazing.  Check out their sites.

But there is a vendor who sells a very high quality system for a moderate price.  We’ll talk about this system next.

MikroKopter quadcopters, hexacopters and octocopters

MikroKopter.de is a German company that makes quadcopters, hexacopters and octocopters (spelled with k’s in German).  The US website can be found at mikrokopter.us.  It is the brainchild of Holger Buss and Ingo Busker.  What got my attention is this amazing video where Holger demonstrates the stability and stunning capabilities of his hexacopter (6 motors). By the way, the unit he’s demonstrating can be purchased in kit form complete for about $1500.

In the video Holger uses a light weight point and shoot for demonstration, though the hexacopter can lift about a 1 kilogram payload.   Notice that throughout the demonstration, there’s always a camera mounted underneath flight controller (circular hub in the middle). You may also notice that the airframe of all the MikroKopters is very thin and light.  If you want to build a MikroKopter to lift a heavier, professional camera, you need to buy or build a stronger airframe, buy bigger motors, and use the MikroKopter computer and motor controllers in it.  I may try this.  If I do, I’ll post the results.

The cost of building a MikroKopter from a kit or using their computer ranges from about $600 US to about $2000 US depending on which model you buy and whether you provide your own airframe and motors.

MikroKopter Videos

A fellow New York photographer, Anthony Jacobs, has gotten a lot of press with his quadcopter, which is built around the MikroKopter computer.   Here’s Jacobs’ video page where you can see how stable his quadcopter is.  Nice work.

Make Your Conventional Helicopter Stable

There are several devices you can use to tame your conventional helicopter and make it more stable.   One is the Copilot II Flight Stabilizer from FMADirect.com.  Another is the Helicommand from Captron.

The Copilot II and Helicommand use completely different approaches to stabilization.  The Copilot II uses 6 thermal sensors to orient the helicopter.  The Helicommand uses a 3 axis gyro and a low res video camera.

To determine the horizon and orient the helicopter, Copilot II uses 4 sensors that look N,S,E,W, one sensor looks up and another looks straight down.  If there are no trees or buildings close to the helicopter, then Copilot II can accurately determine what’s up and down and where the horizon is.   When you let go of the controls, it can quickly right an inverted helicopter.  It can also hold the helicopter in a hover.   But, it can only maintain the helicopter in a specific orientation.  It can’t prevent drift.  So, if there’s wind, the helicopter will not stay in one place without human control.

The Helicommand, on the other hand, uses a 3-axis gyro to maintain orientation.  It also has a small video camera, pointed downward that “looks at” the ground to detect and correct for drift.  So, if there’s enough texture to the ground, the helicommand can hover in one place without drift.  Another advantage of the helicommand, is that it isn’t affected by nearby trees or buildings.  So you can use it anywhere without worrying that it’s going to mistake a tree for the horizon and flip your helicopter over.

I haven’t tested the Helicommand myself.  A short review of it can be found here.

The Copilot and the Quad

I have a Copilot II that I’m currently using on a Blade 400.  It does a very good job of stabilizing the heli when there’s no trees or houses nearby.  I plan to reinstall the Copilot on my quadcopter, to see if that helps the quad stay level when it’s a dot in the sky.  I’ll let you know how it works.

Conclusion

We’ve discussed some great options for getting an easy-enough-to-fly helicopter or quadcopter for aerial photography.

• One option is to use Aeroquad or Arducopter computers and software with a home built or kit airframe.  The estimated cost of such a project is around $500 for the quadcopter.  This option depends on software that has yet to be released, but should be available by Fall, 2010.
• Another option is to build your own airframe and use a MikroKopter computer.  This option will probably cost around $800-$1000 US depending on lifting capacity.
• Another attractive option, if you’ve got deeper pockets, is to buy a Mikrokopter kit.  They range in price from about $1200-$2000 US.  Their airframes are light so you can get flight times of around 30 minutes with a light load.

Post a comment to let us know how your project went.

This is a story that I find inspiring.  Since it’s also about photography and space, I find it even more inspiring. It’s about two MIT students who wanted to photograph the “edge of space.”

It started when Oliver Yeh had a vision. He wanted to see the curvature of the earth and the blackness of space from high up in the stratosphere.  Many of his friends thought he was crazy.  Not Justin Lee. Lee accepted the vision and made it his own.  So together they set out to accomplish the task.

The Ingenuity

Like others before them, Yeh and Lee decided to use a weather balloon  filled with helium  to lift a small camera up into the stratosphere.  They bought a 300 gram latex balloon online.  Balloons are capable of reaching altitudes of 20 miles or more. Unlike others before them, they didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on custom electronics.  Instead, they solved difficult technical problems with inexpensive off-the-shelf solutions.  Here’s how.

From their research, they learned that temperatures in the stratosphere can reach down to -55 degrees Centigrade.  They couldn’t get their freezer to go any colder than -10 degrees Centigrade.  So they couldn’t test whether their point and shoot camera (a Canon A470) and its battery could operate at such a cold temperature.  Batteries stop working and electronics fail when they get cold enough.

What did they do?  They decided to use pocket hand warmers (the kind skiers use) to warm the camera and its battery.  The hand warmers were taped tightly against the electronic devices and batteries. They also put everything (electronic devices and hand warmers) into a styrofoam beer cooler, which became their “spacecraft.”  The hand warmers worked so well,  they were still warm when they recovered the craft after a 5 hour flight.

How did they trigger the camera?  They found a firmware hack, CHDK, that included an intervalometer.  With it, the camera could be programmed to take a picture every 5 seconds.

Another difficult problem for Yeh and Lee was how to recover the craft.  They knew the balloon would burst when it got high enough, since the weight of the atmosphere is no longer compressing the balloon.  So, they created a simple parachute from  a plastic bag.  They tested the parachute by dropping the spacecraft and parachute off a 5 story building with an egg inside.  If the egg didn’t break, then the landing was soft enough for the equipment to survive.

The most difficult problem was how to track the craft so they could find it when it came down. From their research, they discovered that the wind could drag it many miles away from the launch site.  Here’s where their ingenuity really shined.  Neither Yeh nor Lee had any electronics background.  What did they do?  They went to Radio Shack and bought a $50 cell phone with GPS. The cell phone was taped to the camera and constantly reported its GPS location via text messages.  It could also be tracked with Google Earth.

The Launch

On the day of the launch, things did not go exactly as planned. The balloon was launched on Sept. 2, 2009 at 11:45 am. They had previously checked with the University of Wyoming’s balloon trajectory website to estimate the landing site.  So, they launched from Sturbridge, Massachusetts (central Massachusetts) to make sure the balloon didn’t come down in a city or in the Atlantic. Fortunately, the winds were light.

Yeh and Lee remained at the launch site for 4 hours after the launch. During that time, they lost contact with the craft. As time progressed, they wondered: had the phone’s battery died?  Had it froze? Did the craft crash? … They thought of everything that could possibly have gone wrong.

With those thoughts, they headed back home, believing that they had lost the craft.  When they got to Lee’s apartment and checked his computer (presumably Google Earth’s cell tracking service), they found that a signal had been sent by the cell phone before it hit the ground.  The camera had come down 25 miles from the launch site and landed in a construction site near Worcester.  “We were so excited, we jumped right back into the car, and we drove out to Worcester, and we found it. That was a great moment,” Lee said.

The Results

They calculated (from the balloon’s ascent rate and time aloft) that their craft had reached an altitude of about 98,000 feet (over 18 miles).  It was so high that it took 40 minutes for it to come down by parachute.  The pictures are stunning.  Here’s the one most often published.

Oliver Yeh and Justin Lee's photograph from 98,000 feet

You can also see a video of the entire flight on their site, http://space.1337arts.com

The Cost

What is amazing about this story is that the total cost of their spacecraft was $148. You can check out their list of items and costs on their site, http://space.1337arts.com/hardware.

The Possibilities

Why am I re-telling this story?  Because it opens up incredible possibilities that were always there, but we just didn’t see them. In Oliver Yeh’s words,

“The fact that we were able to accomplish space photography on such a low budget and with minimal electronic modifications proves that it’s really possible for anyone—anyone at all—to do. Imagine how many students might be inspired if their high school science teacher took the time to give his students an out-of-this-world experience.”

What other possibilities does this suggest? Here’s just a few that come to mind.

• On similar craft, put a self-addressed, pre-paid Fedex label on the box, so that whoever finds it can just drop it in the mail.
• Use a small transmitter to radio the images and data back to you.  That way, all is not lost if the craft disappears.
• Instead of a styrofoam box, use a styrofoam glider with an electronic autopilot and GPS to bring the craft and camera back to the launch site.  This is a difficult project but not as expensive as you may think.  DiyDrones.com sells a computer with software that they call an “ArduPilot.”  A complete autopilot with GPS can be built from their parts for around $300.
• Instead of letting the balloon rise until it pops, adjust the volume of the balloon and mass of the craft so that it floats at a specified altitude for a while.  You’ll get a lot more pictures.  You may then need to find a way to pop the balloon (a timer and a servo maybe) to get it back.
• Launch a rocket from the balloon to get even more altitude.
• Add a servo to control the camera’s attitude so you can get shots looking straight down as well as out to the side of the craft.

This project also opened up new possibilites for Oliver Yeh and Justin Lee.  They are now known as aerial photographers.  They helped photograph the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico using balloons and kites.  Since our government is placing restrictions on flight over the affected area, getting photos of the devastation is difficult.  Balloons, kites and RC helicopters provide ways of getting around the restrictions and recording the environmental impact for public awareness.

Ask Yourself This

Are there any photographic or scientific projects you’ve always wanted to do but assumed you couldn’t?  It’s well worth taking the time to let go of assumptions about what is possible, and really look with an open mind for creative solutions.   As my mentor and friend Harold Feinstein says, “The problem is everything you know that isn’t so.”

Let your imagination soar!

News Coverage

Here’s the major coverage I found with a Google search.

CNN Story and Video

iReport

Wired

ABC News Video

Fox News Video

With each release of Photoshop, new tools and filters are added, as you would expect from a product that is continually being refined and improved.   Sometimes the consequences of this growth are changes to the user interface that actually make Photoshop a little harder to use for those of us who were used to the previous version.

For example, in CS3 the tool palette has 24 buttons for 59 tools.  That’s a lot of tools that aren’t in plain view.  So if you are a casual user of Photoshop or you’ve just upgraded to a new version, you’ve got some hunting to do.

Exploded View of All Tools

To make it easier to find the tool you want, we’ve created a summary sheet containing all the tools in the tool palette.   There’s one for CS3 and one for CS4.  They are printable and offered free for readers of this site.  Here’s a low resolution peek at one of them.

Photoshop CS3 Expanded Tool Palette

Get Your Copy Free

Use the box below to enter your first name and email address and we will send you PDF files for both of these summary sheets at no charge.

In a previous post, I discussed difficulties I encountered while exporting MP4 files with Final Cut Express 4.0.  In this post, I will discuss difficulties I encountered while importing MP4 files with Final Cut Express. In particular, I noticed that FCE sometimes truncates mp4 clips during import.  I found that I could import 20 megabyte mp4 clips just fine.  But clips just over 30 megabytes in length were shortened.  They were truncated so that they terminated early.  I couldn’t find a setting in the user or system preferences that would allow me to import longer mp4 clips without truncation.

MPEG Streamclip to the Rescue

The solution I found is to split long mp4 clips into shorter clips, each of which can be imported into FCE successfully.  You can put the clips back together once they are inside FCE by dropping them into the same sequence.  The tool I used to split a clip is a very nice freeware conversion and editing utiliy called “MPEG Streamclip.”  You can download MPEG Streamclip at www.squared5.com.  It is available for either Macs or PCs.

Click by Click Solution

Here’s how to split a long clip into two shorter clips with MPEG Streamclip.

• Step 1.  Open your clip in MPEG Streamclip by going to ‘File –> Open Files…‘ and opening the video file you’d like to split into smaller pieces.
  

  Step 1. Open the video file you wish to split.

• Step 2. Set the starting point (the IN point) of the first subclip by placing the playback cursor at the beginning of the clip in the timeline.  The timeline is the playback position indicator at the bottom of the viewer window in MPEG Streamclip.  Now press the ‘i’ key. Alternatively click on ‘Edit –> Select In‘.
  

  Step 2. Set IN point of first subclip.

• Step 3. Set the end (the OUT point) of the first subclip by placing the playback cursor somewhere in the middle of the timeline.  Now press the ‘o‘ key. Alternatively, you can click on ‘Edit –> Select Out‘.  The subclip you have marked should now appear RED in the timeline.
  

  Step 3. Select OUT point of first subclip.

• Step 4. Save the first subclip by clicking on ‘File –> Save As‘.   In the save dialog, fill in the filename and directory where you’d like the subclip to go.  In this example, I named the subclip ‘ExampleSubClip1′.  There’s a menu for the file type at the bottom of the save dialog.  Make sure you set it to MP4, or whatever file type you’d like.  Now click the ‘Save’ button to write the subclip to disk.  This save is very quick, suggesting that it
  doesn’t recompress, but just truncates the data structure.
  

  Step 4. Save the first subclip.

• Step 5. Leaving the cursor EXACTLY where it is on the timeline, clear the in and out points for the first clip.  You can do this by typing the ‘x’ key.  Alternatively, you can click on ‘Edit –> Cancel Selection’.
• Step 6. Set the starting point of the second subclip to the current location of the cursor.  Simply type the ‘i’ key to do this.  This will automatically select the end of the video as the out point of the subclip.
• Step 7. Save the second subclip by clicking on ‘File –> Save As‘.   In the save dialog, fill in the new filename.  In this example, I named the subclip ‘ExampleSubClip2′.  You may want to double check the little file type menu at the bottom of the save window, to make sure subclips 1 and 2 are the same type.  Finally, click the ‘Save’ button.

That’s it!  You now have two clips that you can import into Final Cut Express without truncation.

I’ve been teaching Photoshop to photography students for about 12 years.  When a recent student asked for training videos to supplement the instruction, I decided it was time to make some.  Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I went out and got a copy of Final Cut Express 4.0.  And so the fun begins.

Final Cut Blurries

After reading a few sections of the manual that comes with FCE, I was able to assemble a few mp4 video clips into a sequence.  However, when I tried to export the sequence to get a final video result (also an mp4), I hit a roadblock.  The resulting video was quite blurry and in a dynamic way.   That is, text in the video would sometimes be crisp and sometimes become a blur.  It was as if someone was pouring water over freshly painted watercolor. The blurriness would flow around the image.   I assumed that this was some kind of compression artifact, so I tried using different parameter settings during the export to fix the problem. No luck.  I finally concluded that there must be a bug in FCE’s processing of mp4 files.  So, I tried a different output format.  When I chose the Quicktime Movie format (an mov file), things started to work much better.  With the right settings, I was able to get clean, crisp output.  In this post, I’ll take you through the settings that I found to work, so you can get high quality exports without a fuss.

Click-by-click Solution

My clips were shot with a 720p camera (Nikon D300s) at 24 frames per second.  My goal was to have 720p output that looked as crisp as the original clips.  Certainly no worse.  Here’s the steps that got me output that looked even better than the input.

• Step 1. Click anywhere on the canvas.  This tells FCE which sequence you want to export.
• Step 2. Click on File–>Export–>Using Quicktime Conversion. This will give you a dialog labelled ‘Save‘.
  

  Step 2: Go to File --> Export --> Using Quicktime Conversion

• Step 3. On the ‘Save‘ dialog, type in the name for your movie in the box provided, and select a destination folder.
  

  Step 3: Enter a filename in the 'Save As' box.

• Step 4. Toward the bottom of the ‘Save‘ dialog, there is an item labelled ‘Format:‘.  Choose Format: Quick Time Movie.
  

  Step 4: Select 'Quick Time Movie' format.

• Step 5. Also on the ‘Save‘ dialog toward the bottom, click the ‘Options‘ button, which will pop up a menu with different categories of settings.  This pop up menu will be labelled ‘Movie Settings‘.
• Step 6. In the ‘Movie Settings‘ dialog, you’ll want to make sure that the ‘Settings‘, ‘Filter’ and ‘Size‘ menus are set up correctly.  We’ll walk through each of these in turn.
  

  Step 6. The 'Movie Settings' menu leads to several submenus of settings.

• Step 7. From the ‘Movie Settings‘ dialog, click on ‘Settings‘ to get the ‘Standard Video Compression Settings’ menu. Here’s what I found to work for generally high quality output.
  • Compression Type:   H.264
  • Frame Rate:                Current
  • Key Frames:               Every 24 frames
  • Frame Reordering:   Checked
  • Compressor Quality: Best
  • Encoding:                   Best quality (Multi-pass)
  • Data Rate:                  Automatic
  • Optimized for:           Download

  Click ‘OK‘ when done.

  

  Step 7. Set the compression parameters here.

• Step 8. Also from the ‘Movie Settings‘ dialog, click on ‘Filter…’ for any special effects you’d like.  It’s best to experiment with a small clip, since you can’t see the effects of, say, brightening the image until after the movie is generated.  I prefer only to sharpen at this stage of processing.Sharpen: Amount of sharpening 3
  Click ‘OK‘ when done.
  

  Step 8. Set the amount of sharpening.

• Step 9. Also from the ‘Movie Settings‘ dialog, click on ‘Size‘ to set your pixel dimensions.  Since I shot my material at 1280 x 720p,  I set accordingly.
  • Dimensions:                           1280 x 720 HD
  • Preserve Aspect Ratio:         Unchecked
  • Deinterlace Source Video:   Unchecked

  Click ‘OK‘ when done.

  

  Step 9. Set the desired pixels dimensions and leave boxes unchecked.

• Step 10. With respect to the ‘Movie Settings‘ dialog, I kept the default ‘Sound‘ settings, but you may want to take a peek at this menu to see whether the defaults make sense for you.
• Step 11. Finally, on the ‘Movie Settings‘ dialog, I have set the following.
  Prepare for Internet Streaming: Checked and ‘Fast start‘ selected.
• Step 12. Hit ‘OK‘ when done with the ‘Movie Settings‘.
• Step 13. Click ‘Save‘ on the ‘Save‘ page and prepare to wait while the .mov file is generated.

That’s it. I hope these settings work as well for you as they did for me.

It’s snowing here today.  Such stormy weather can provide opportunities for beautiful and unusual shots. So, I was very eager to get out and see what I could find.  However, there’s nothing worse for your camera than getting either water or sand inside it.   So as I was getting ready to go out and take some pictures,  I looked around the kitchen for something to protect the camera.  Unfortunately, I discovered that I was out of zip-loc bags.

Zip-loc Raincoat

A large zip-loc bag can make an acceptable raincoat for a DSLR or similar camera.   The camera goes inside the bag, and the lens pokes out the opening of the bag.  You can snug the bag around the lens barrel with a rubber band, or sometimes the zip-loc itself will hold.  But what do you do if there are none around?

Cling-wrap Will Do

Camera, lens and lens hood covered with cling-wrap

The one thing I did find in the kitchen was cling-wrap.  I thought I’d give it a try.  Since my lens had no water seals (most don’t),  I wrapped the lens loosely around the lens barrel, overlapping the camera body a bit.  I made sure that the wrap was long enough to go all the way around the lens barrel and overlap itself by several inches.  This kept the wrap from unraveling in the wind.  My camera body does have water seals (some Nikon and Canon bodies have seals), so I didn’t need to completely cover the camera body itself.

I also used a lens hood to help keep snow from falling on the lens.  In such conditions, it’s a good idea to keep a microfiber cloth in your pocket to wipe the lens when it gets wet.   If you do this, use a very gentle touch and make sure there’s no grit on the microfiber cloth.  You want to absorb the water without scratching the lens.  I also put a UV filter over the lens for added protection in such cases.

Because the cling-wrap clings to itself quite well, it managed to stay on the lens even in a moderate wind.  Surprisingly, I had no trouble operating the zoom ring on the lens (the wrap was loose enough for short turns).  All in all, it worked surprisingly well.  The lens was bone dry when I got back home.

Come In Out Of The Cold, Carefully

Incidently, when you bring your camera in out of the cold, make sure you keep the camera in its camera bag with the lens cap on until it has a chance to warm up SLOWLY.   If you bring a cold camera into a warm room with nothing covering it, water will condense on and in the camera and lens.  This can cause internal parts to rust and jam, or even short the electronics.

Snow Photo

Here’s a shot I took with the make-shift wrap.

Snow Covered Tree © Tony Passera 2010

I’m always on the lookout for simple and inexpensive ways of taking pictures.  The term ‘inexpensive’ usually doesn’t go with aerial photography.  However, I recently came across two new products that are moving in the right direction. They are the HD Hero Camera from GoPro, and the FlyCamOne 3 from the Acme game company.  This is neither a preview nor a review of these two new products.  Rather, this post is a quick announcement with some notes about their capabilities.  I will write full reviews after I’ve had a chance to try them out.

Small, Light Weight and Good Image Quality

HD Hero basic camera kit.

The HD Hero is a very small, fixed focus, wide angle video and still camera designed to be worn during extreme sports. Often it is attached to a helmet and shoots everything you see as you race, jump, swim or cycle.  You turn it on and it continues to shoot continuously while you are otherwise occupied. There are optional mounts for attaching the camera to all sorts of things, including car fenders (suction cup), surfboards, handlebars, etc.  The HD Hero can shoot video at 1080p at 30 fps, and 720p at 30 or 60 fps.  It can also shoot 5 megapixel still photos automatically at 2, 5, 10, 30 and 60 second intervals via a built in timer.  The lens is very wide angle, taking in 170 degrees at the 720p setting, and 127 degrees at 1080p.  The aperture is f2.8.  Amazingly, it comes with a waterproof housing that’s good to a depth of 60 meters. The basic camera sells for $259 with battery, mount and underwater housing.

The HD Hero caught my attention for aerial photography for several reasons.  It is extremely small and light, weighing 3.3 ounces (94 grams) including battery, or 5.9 ounces (167 grams) including the waterproof housing and battery.  Its dimensions are 1.6 x 2.4 x 1.2 inches (42mm x 60mm x 30mm).  This makes it suitable for smaller UAV helicopters and airplanes.  Where the HD Hero really surprises is with its image and sound quality.  It uses a point-and-shoot size CMOS sensor with very good light sensitivity.   It shoots to an SD card with no screen, so you don’t see what you’ve got until you can get to a computer.  The videographer, Philip Bloom, has some interesting comments about his first experiences with the HD Hero camera here.

What appeals to me about the HD Hero is the possibility of shooting aerial still photos inexpensively.  Because of its size and weight, it could easily be attached to a 400 series or possibly smaller helicopter.  You could even clamp it to the top of a simple pole or mast.   Shooting real estate aerials could be done by setting its timer to take a picture every 2 seconds.  You fly it attached to your favorite helicopter.  When you want to take a picture, you’ll have to hover, making sure the camera is pointed in the right direction.  If you can hold the hover for 2 seconds, you’ve got the shot.  Since there’s no tilt or pan control, you need to point the helicopter where you want each shot.  It will definitely require a “feel” to get it right, and it won’t be for everybody.  It certainly won’t be fool-proof.  But it could be just the ticket for quick aerial stills where you want to use the smallest, most benign aircraft with very little setup to get into the air.  Let me know if you try it and it works out. Incidently, the sports videos on the GoPro site are amazing. Definitely worth a look.

Smaller and Lighter with Amazing Options

FlyCamOne 3 with downlink

Another camera suitable for very small aircraft is the FlyCamOne 3.  FlyCamOne 3 is the third generation of the popular FlyCamOne series.  What is noteworthy about the new generation is that it has some very useful modules as well as remote tilt and pan control of the camera.  The camera system is comprised of a camera module and a screen module as well as optional transmitter and receiver modules.  The separate camera and screen reduces the flight weight, since you can remove the screen for r/c model flying.  You can mount the screen back on the camera to view video that has been shot and stored in the camera’s SD memory card.  Alternatively, you can mount a FlyCamOne3 transmitter module on the camera, which gives you a real-time video downlink as you fly. The live picture is transferred at 2.4GHz to a receiver module where the removed screen of the camera  can be mounted. Within the near future there will be video goggles will give you a first person view (FPV) from your aircraft. A GPS module is also in the works. Finally, a small hand-held transmitter (433MHz) will be available to remotely tilt and pan the camera, if your r/c receiver doesn’t have extra channels for this purpose.  Typical prices are $139 for the camera module, $99 for the video downlink kit including the transmitter and receiver modules, and $29 for the 433MHz transmitter to control tilt and pan of the camera.

Some of the specs for the FlyCamOne 3 are listed here.

• Size…………………..98mm x 50mm x 15mm
• Weight……………….62 grams
• Battery……………….500mAh Lipo
• LCD…………………..shows battery, memory, mode and action
• Video…………………VGA resolution (640×480) at 28fps
• Head movement…..2 stepper motors for pan and tilt controlled via a standard receiver cable
• Memory……………..micro SD card (4MB/sec write speed).

However, before you get too excited, there are some significant limitations.  First, the transmitter outputs 10 milliwatts and uses spread spectrum technology.   10 milliwatts is fairly low power and will likely limit the downlink range to a few hundred meters.  You should also be aware that transmitting video over spread spectrum could result in the video stream breaking up when there are other flyers using 2.4 gHz nearby.  Of course, this is not a problem for the video streamed to the SD card in the camera.

But that brings us to another limitation.  The camera takes VGA resolution (640 x 480) video at 28 fps.  This, of course, is not suitable for professional purposes.  Video I’ve seen from earlier generations of the camera show the dreaded “jello cam” effect, which is objectionable when there’s a lot of vibration.  This could be more of a problem when FlyCamOne is mounted on a helicopter than on an airplane.

Limitations aside, I find the FlyCamOne 3 to be an exciting development.   The modular design with built in pan and tilt control is very well conceived.  Put in a better camera, a better lens, a bit more power in the transmitter, and you’d have an amazing package for aerial photography.  While FlyCamOne is not intended for the pro photography market, a high end implementation would be exactly what we need.

Aerial Photography: The Essential How-To Guide by Greg McNair

The Bird’s Eye View

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like from a bird’s perspective?  Have you wondered how you might get a small, or maybe not so small, camera airborn to find out?     The book Aerial Photography: The Essential How-To Guide by Greg McNair shows you how to get started with remote controlled (unmanned) aircraft capable of carrying cameras.    I recently bought a copy, which I ordered from his website www.aerialphotobook.com for $49.95.  This post is a brief review of McNair’s book.

The Dreaded AP Mosquito

There’s a rare mosquito that carries the AP virus.  Anyone bitten by such a mosquito finds himself (or herself) obsessed with Aerial Photography.  The symptoms include pouring over books and websites to gather every last bit of information on AP, spending hours on a flight simulator, and hastily buying helicopter kits and parts to assemble a cameraship.  I appear to have the AP virus, since I read Greg McNair’s book in one sitting.  Actually, I was standing.  I tore open the package and read it (it’s only 82 pages) right where I stood.  Fortunately, it was a quick, entertaining and highly informative read.   As you can see from an earlier post, I’ve been exploring remote controlled helicopters as vehicles for photography.   Though I’ve been learning a lot, McNair’s book provided a new flood of information.  It is particularly valuable because it includes so many (web) resources for every aspect of AP.

McNair’s book is meant to be a guide to starting an aerial photography business.  About half the book is devoted to the tools you’ll need to get your camera in the air.  The other half of the book is about building, marketing and maintaining an aerial photography business.

Tools of the Aerial Photography Trade

In the first half of the book he discusses tools that can be used to accomplish the task of getting an aerial view.  These include airplanes, helicopters, weather balloons/blimps, and telescoping masts.  He doesn’t discuss kites, which are another popular means of getting cameras aloft.  This is probably because kites are more dependent on the weather and harder to control than other vehicles. Thus they are less suitable for a business.

For what he does discuss, McNair’s approach is very similar to the approach I’ve taken in previous posts.  He discusses the pros and cons of each type of aircraft and lists numerous resources on the web where you can get more information.  He does not describe how to build anything.  However, he does tell you what  you’ll need to build your cameraship, and where you can get the various modules.  While this is similar in spirit to my posts, his book contains many more resources and more detailed discussions.  It is a treasure of information.  In addition to covering vehicle type (e.g. airplane vs. helicopter), he also discusses the modules or components that are needed to make up a working cameraship.  These include flight assist hardware (GPS and gyro stabilizers), camera mounts, remote camera triggers, downlinks for real-time video monitoring, and cameras. There’s quite a variety of choices for each of these modules.  For example, he discusses 8 different camera triggering devices from as many manufacturers.   Some have mechanical fingers to press the shutter, others use infrared to control the camera, while still others connect to the camera’s USB port, and yet others use the cameras existing electrical shutter release.  Similarly, for camera mounts (harnesses) he discusses about 6 different sources of mounts accommodating everything from point and shoots and palm-size video cameras to DSLR’s and professional video.   Whatever your budget or project goals, he covers something that will do the job.

The Business of Aerial Photography

The second half of the book covers a variety of topics that are important for your business, including how to start your business, marketing secrets, pricing your services, liability insurance, FAA flight restrictions, mitigating risks, and population and ground activity.   These sectoins contain information necessary to run your business profitably and safely.  Everything is based on his first-hand experience.   For example, liability insurance is harder to get for aerial photography because there are so few people doing it.  McNair’s suggestions can save you a lot of time hunting down an underwriter.  Of particular interest is his discussion about potential customers of aerial photography.  His customer list is a lot bigger and more varied than you might guess.  This too is worth the price of the book.  It may surprise you that any FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) flight restrictions apply to remote controlled, unmanned aircraft as well as manned aircraft.  You need to know about any temporary or permanent flight restrictions in the areas you plan to photograph.  For example, events that draw large crowds, such as the Superbowl, are likely to be declared no-fly-zones.  The penalties for violating a flight restriction include jail, 4 or 5 figure fines, and loss of your pilot’s license (if applicable).

Most importantly, the topic of safety is addressed many times throughout the book.  This is of greatest concern with helicopters.   A 600 series RC helicopter has a rotor diameter of 4 feet.  The rotor is a carbon fiber blade spinning at 2000 rpm.  It can kill or maim.   It should be obvious that you must not fly over or near crowds with one of these.  McNair also reminds us that helicopters tend to attract crowds.   It is vital to avoid situations where a crowd might gather.   Otherwise, you need someone on hand, other than the pilot,  who can keep people and pets out of danger.   Dogs and sometimes children may run toward the heli as it is landing or taking off, putting them in extreme danger.  If this should happen, your only choice may be to “ditch” the helicopter, rather than risk injuring someone.

The Right Tool Is Whatever Gets the Shot

At the beginning of the book McNair introduces the mantra, “The remote controlled aircraft is merely a tool for getting the shot.“  He is telling us not to be attached to any one vehicle for getting the shot.  Indeed, the risks and costs of using a helicopter motivated him to get a 55 foot telescoping mast (pole) for “aerial” real estate shots.   This makes perfect sense when you don’t need a high altitude shot, and you’ve got too many trees, telephone poles and people around for an airplane or heli.  Tethered  balloons are another safe and easy alternative.  Whatever method you choose, Aerial Photography: The Essential How-To Guide will provide information and resources to get your camera in the air.

When my D3 first arrived, I had been using a D2x for 2 years.  I never noticed the D2x’s autofocus because it worked so well.  It faded into the background of my attention.   Expecting to have the same experience with the D3, I took it out of the box and brought it with me to a friend’s wedding.   I was seated among the guests right on the aisle.  It was still daylight, so the chapel had adequate lighting.  When the bridal procession began, I expected to get some great shots for my friend, the groom.   As the procession was moving straight toward me, I had only a few seconds to get a shot.  I confidently picked up the camera, framed and pressed the shutter.  Nothing happened.  I noticed that it was in single shot mode (S on the front switch) and realized that the shutter wouldn’t trip unless the focus was spot on.  I immediately switched it to C.  My last chance.  I reeled off a few frames, but all of them were out of focus.  What had gone wrong?   Of course, I switched to manual focus, but that moment was lost.  Fortunately, I wasn’t the hired photographer that day.

To make a long story short, the problem ended up being a firmware issue which was soon fixed.  However, even though the firmware upgrade fixed 70% of the problem, I didn’t have the same degree of confidence in the D3’s autofocus as I had with the D2x.   Subjectively, the D3 hasn’t seemed to nail the focus as often as the D2x does.  This post resulted from my attempt to explore the D3’s autofocus carefully, so I can understand it and use it more effectively.  Mostly, I’m clarifying what’s in the camera’s manual with some additional observations based on my experience with it.

Three’s a Charm

On current Nikon professional cameras, such as the D3 and D300 (and D3s, D300s), there are 3 multi-position switches that affect some aspect of autofocus and what happens when you press the shutter.  These 3 switches interact with each other in surprising ways, which is why we’re discussing them together.  We’re going to try to clarify what each switch does in the context of the others, since we’ve observed a lot of confusion about these controls.  In addition, there are two push button switches that control autofocus as well, but we’ll discuss the multi switches first.

Front Switch Controls the Trigger

Nikon FRONT Switch

Let’s look at the M-S-C switch first. This is a 3-position rotary switch on the front of the camera.  It is just below the lens release button on the right, as you are looking at the camera.  It has 3 positions: M, S and C.  Lets call this the FRONT switch to avoid confusion.

You might think that M, S and C stand for Manual, Single shot and Continuous shooting.  However, these terms might not mean exactly what you expect.

M does stand for ‘manual’ focus. The M setting mechanically  disengages the focus motor from the lens, so you must focus the lens manually. In M mode, the shutter will fire whether your subject is in focus or not.  The green in-focus icon within the viewfinder can be used to tell when you’re in focus, but I find just using the image on the ground glass easier and more accurate.

S stands for ’single servo autofocus’ according to the manual.  When the FRONT switch is set to S, the camera will fire only when the subject is in focus.  In other words, S really means ‘focus priority firing‘.  This means that the subject must be in focus before the camera will fire the shutter.  If whatever is under the focus point is not crisp, nothing will happen when you press the shutter.  This is what happened to me at the wedding.  Furthermore, if your subject is in focus, the S setting will allow the camera to fire off a burst of shots when the TOP switch is set to CL or CH.  In other words, the S on the FRONT switch does allow continuous shooting when the subject is in focus.  It is NOT restricting you to a single shot when you press the shutter.

Next on the FRONT switch, C stands for ‘continuous servo autofocus’ according to the manual.  What this really means is that the camera will fire when you press the shutter, whether the lens is in focus or not.  Now suppose that the FRONT switch is set to C and the TOP switch is set to S.  If you now hold the shutter down, you will get exactly one shot.  You will not get a continuous burst of shots.  In other words, C on the FRONT switch really means ‘trigger finger priority firing.’   It does not mean continuous firing.

C on the FRONT switch has another function associated with it.  It engages ‘predictive focus’ when you partially depress the shutter.  In other words, if the subject is moving toward or away from the camera, the focus mechanism will track its movements, keeping it in focus as it moves.  Try it by moving your finger toward and away from the lens while partially depressing the shutter button.  You’ll see that the lens refocuses as you move your finger.  In practice this improves the chances that your subject will be in focus when you do fully press the shutter to fire.

C mode on the FRONT switch can be very useful when shooting portraits.  If you position the focus sensor on the subject’s eye (using the joystick on the back), then the eye should stay in focus even if you or your subject move back and forth a little.  Just hold your finger lightly on the shutter (or the AF-ON button) and your subject will stay in focus during the flow of the shoot.  This works well with macro subjects too, where subject movements would normally cause you to lose focus from time to time.

Top Switch Controls Frames per Second

Nikon TOP Switch

Next we’ll look at the S-CL-CH switch, whose functions are easier to guess from the labels. This is the switch on the top of the camera to the left of the prism (if you’re now looking down from the back of the camera. This 5-position rotary switch is labelled: S, CL, CH, Lv, Self-Timer, Mup. Let’s call this the TOP switch.

S on the TOP switch takes a single frame (picture) when you fully depress the shutter, even if you continue to hold the shutter down for a while.

CL on the TOP switch stands for ‘Continuous Low’ speed firing.  In this mode when you hold the shutter down, the camera will keep taking pictures until you let up on the shutter (or it runs out of buffer memory).  It will do this at a relatively low speed (settable via the pencil menu under ‘d2 shooting speed’).

CH on the TOP switch stands for ‘Continuous High’ speed firing.  In this mode when you hold the shutter down, the camera will keep taking pictures until you let up on the shutter (or it runs out of buffer memory).  It will do this at a relatively high speed (settable via the pencil menu under ‘d2 shooting speed’).

Lv on the TOP switch stands for ‘Live View.’  In this mode the mirror swings up and the image on the sensor appears on the rear display in real time.

Self-Timer (clock icon) on the TOP switch performs the traditional self-timer function.   You can set the delay in the menu denoted by the pencil icon (under ‘c Timers/AE lock’ –> ‘c3 Self-Timer delay’).

Mup on the TOP switch stands for ‘Mirror Up.’  When you press the shutter once, the mirror swings up, but no picture is taken.  When you press the shutter a second time, the picture is taken and the mirror swings back down.  This is extremely useful for macro or telephoto shots where you want to minimize camera vibrations to get the sharpest possible picture.  The mirror slapping against the bottom of the prism mount causes significant vibration.  So, you want to provide a delay after the mirror slaps before you take the picture.  A second or two is enough. This is a great  option when you don’t happen to have a cable release with you.

Back Switch Creates Confusion

Nikon BACK Switch

Finally, there’s another 3-position rotary switch on the back with three icons enclosed in brackets. These icons are  (1) a white rectangle, (2) a set of brackets with 4 dots around them, and (3) just a set of brackets inside larger brackets. Let’s call this the BACK switch.

On the BACK switch there are the 3 settings, which are for

• (1) ‘Single point autofocus‘       (the bottom position – brackets within brackets),
• (2) ‘Dynamic area auto focus‘ (the middle position – brackets with 4 dots), and
• (3) ‘Auto area autofocus‘          (the top position -  white rectangle inside brackets).

Here’s what each of these settings does.

• (1) Single point autofocus is for relatively static subjects where a single fixed focus point is best.  The focus point is selected by the photographer using the joystick. The focus point appears as a red rectangle in the viewfinder.  This is manual focus point selection, which remains fixed unless you manually change it via the joystick.
• (2) Dynamic area autofocus is for situations where the subject may move away from the initial focus point, which you’ve selected, and you want the camera to keep the subject in focus as it moves.  In other words, you tell the camera where the subject is (at first) by selecting the focus point.  The camera ‘remembers’ what’s on the focus point, and estimates its trajectory.  If the subject moves, the camera looks for it under one of the other focus points, looking first on its trajectory.  Here’s where things get complicated with many different subcases:
  • (a) FRONT switch is set to S (focus priority). Camera focuses on subject in selected focus point only.  That is, no dynamic area autofocus. Surprised?
  • (b) FRONT switch is set to C (trigger finger priority).  Here you do get dynamic area autofocus.  There are several cases depending on menu settings.
    • (i) In the pencil menu, custom setting ‘a3 Dynamic area AF’ must be set to either 9, 21 or 51 focus points (but not the 3D setting).  You select a focus point manually (with the joystick). How you choose from 9, 21 or 51 focus points depends on the amount of movement you expect.
      • For runners and bicycles Nikon recommends 9 focus points. Things moving predictably and not fast.
      • For football, Nikon recommends 21 focus points.  Things moving unpredictably.
      • For birds, Nikon recommends 51 focus points. Things moving quickly and are not easily framed.

      If subject moves out of the selected focus point, the other 8, 20, or 50 focus points will be searched to find the subject and maintain focus.

    • (ii) In the pencil menu, custom setting ‘a3 Dynamic area AF’ is set to ‘3D  51 points (3D-tracking)’. If the subject leaves the selected focus point, the camera will use 3D tracking with all 51 points to search for the subject and refocus.  This is useful for objects that are moving erratically from side to side in the frame, such as tennis players. 3D focus tracking uses color to help identify the subject and track it.  It won’t work if everything in the scene is the same or similar colors.  However, it’s quite amazing to watch it work as you move your finger in front of any lens that can focus closely.  The little red focus points light up and follow your finger.  Guess I’m easily amused.
• (3) Auto area autofocus uses all 51 focus points and identifies where the subject is.  In other words, you don’t give the camera a clue about what the subject is or where it is in the frame.  The camera guesses, perhaps based on some kind of scene analysis. Nikon hints at this in the manual where they say that with a G or D lens, the camera “can distinguish human subjects from the background.”  Unfortunately, Nikon doesn’t say any more about how their algorithm works.  Though after exploring it a little bit, I’ve noticed that it seems to favor strong edges in the center of the field of view.  It may also favor objects closer to the camera, but this is a guess on my part. Fortunately, the camera highlights the focus points in red that were used to find focus when the FRONT switch is set to S (Single).  So, you can see where it’s focusing and correct it if necessary.  I’ve found this mode works well for human faces in studio environments, where you’ve got a simple, uncluttered background.  It locks in on facial features, such as eyes, lips and sometimes the nose.  Curiously, every time you lightly tap on the shutter button, it locks onto slightly different features.  So, focus may vary.  It’s best to experiment with this to see if you like it before using it with a paying client. All things considered, for portrait shooting I still prefer to use a single autofocus point on one of the subject’s eyes.  This rarely fails to nail the focus.

Auto Area Autofocus showing focus points determined by camera

AF-ON and AF-L Buttons

There are two more buttons on the back of the camera that need to be mentioned. First is the AF-ON button.  On the D3, there are two of them (the second one is on the vertical grip). The AF-ON button initiates autofocus by default.  It can be reprogrammed in the pencil menu under ‘a9 AF-ON button’ and ‘a10 Vertical AF-ON button’ which can be programmed independently.

The AE-L/AF-L button duplicates the half shutter press.  It locks both the exposure and the focus until released.  It can be reprogrammed in the pencil menu under ‘f6 Assign AE-L/AF-L button.’

My Settings

For stationary subjects, I use ‘S’ on the FRONT switch and ‘Single point autofocus‘ on the BACK switch. I often use this for portraits if I’m expecting the subject not to move around too much.  I also use ‘S’ on the top switch in studio environments, since strobes need time to recycle.

For portraits of children, pets or anyone who may be moving in the frame (dancers and actors) a bit, I use ‘C’ on the FRONT switch and either ‘Single point autofocus‘ on the BACK switch or ‘Dynamic Area autofocus‘ on the BACK with 21 focus points.

For moving subjects, I use ‘C’ on the FRONT switch and ‘Dyamic area autofocus‘ on the BACK switch with 21 focus points, or sometimes 51 focus points.  I don’t usually shoot wildly erractic subjects, though I do shoot birds and butterflies.

I also like to do HDR (High Dynamic Range) panoramas.  For these, I always focus manually and use exposure bracketing with the TOP switch set to CH.   It’s amazing how fast a D3 can take a few hundred frames on an automated panoramic head.

Conclusion

I hope this helps you to better understand Nikon’s autofocus system in its current incarnation.  You are encouraged to go out and experiment with it.  It may at first seem to be an untamable beast.  And I still find it a little more finicky than the D2x.  But it can do some amazing things.

My previous post contained information about an electric helicopter and camera harness for remote controlled aerial photography, the AeriCam. Since the cost of the AeriCam helicopter and camera harness starts around $9k (in kit form), I wondered whether there was a significantly less expensive way to get professional quality aerial photographs and video. Since I was an avid radio-controlled (RC) airplane builder as an adolescent, I thought I’d do a little research to see what could be constructed with current technology.  Here’s what I discovered.

How to Pick a Helicopter for Photography

After some research, I discovered that there are radio controlled helicopter kits that are capable of carrying professional still and video cameras.  Many retailers offer custom assembly for a fee, so you don’t need to assemble the kits yourself. These are not like the toy helicopters you can buy at your local shopping mall. Rather, they are high tech devices using the latest electronic, material, and battery technologies. Some are developed for the high-end hobbyist market, and others are designed for commercial and military applications.

The better prices can be found in the high-end hobbyist helicopters. These units can be powered by electric, gas, or nitro engines. My preference is for the electric units, since they run clean and don’t require that you travel with volatile chemicals (like nitro).  However, the disadvantage of the electric units is that flight times are short: typically under 10 minutes.

One hobby grade helicopter, that is suitable for photography, is the Align T-Rex 600 CF.  It comes in electric, or nitro versions.

Align T-Rex 600 CF Helicopter

The T-Rex 600 CF is a 600 series helicopter. This means that the size of each of the main rotor blades is roughly 600 millimeters (in this case, 23.62 inches). This is a relatively large helicopter. It is about 1200 mm long (47.25 inches), 15.25 inches high and weighs about 6.6 pounds.  In addition, the T-Rex 600 can carry a payload including a camera and harness whose combined weight is an additional 6.5 pounds. The payload capacity can be increased by replacing the stock motor, servos and battery with higher performance versions. This is easy to do because the kit is offered in several versions, one of which is just the helicopter without radio gear, motor, servos or battery.

Size Matters

The 600 series is the smallest class helicopter that is recommended for professional photography. There are several reasons for this. The smaller heli’s, such as the 400 series, will struggle to lift the weight of even a small DSLR and harness. These smaller birds also tend to vibrate more, so it is difficult to get a sharp picture. In addition, the 400 series are more difficult to control, tend to move more sharply, and are more easily thrown about in the wind. On the other hand, the larger heli’s are easier to see at long distances. Because the camera and harness can be nearly half of the total flight weight, camera movement in the harness can destabilize the helicopter. This is another reason why a bigger helicopter is a better choice.

Even with these considerations, there may be situations where you can get a good result with a 400 series (400mm rotor blades) heli.  Keep in mind that a 400 series helicopter is quite small and light. A typical weight is around 1.5 lbs (665 grams).  The camera and harness should certainly be well under another pound and a half if the heli is going to be able to lift them.  For example, some of the new high end point and shoot cameras (e.g. Panasonic Lumix LX3 is 265 grams) may be small enough and light enough for a 400 series heli to lift. You may even be able to take still photographs at high shutter speeds that are crisp.  I’m not optimistic about shooting video, though.  People have strapped Flip video cameras to small heli’s and gotten pictures.  But I haven’t seen anything I would hand over to a client.

Helicopter Cost

I priced the Align T-Rex 600 at a local hobby shop. The helicopter with the complete radio gear (Spektrum DX7 Transmitter, AR7000 receiver, and DS821 servos), gyro (Futaba GY520), tail servo (Futaba BLS251 Rudder Servo),  and battery (Flightpower Evo 4900 6S1P battery pack) runs a bit under $2000.

Bergen RC's Tazer 800 Electric Helicopter

Another helicopter suitable for photography is Bergen RC’s (www.bergenrc.com/Tazer.php) Tazer 800. This is larger than the T-Rex 600 and is capable of lifting 10 pounds of camera gear for about 10 minutes flight time. The cost of the assembled, complete helicopter and radio gear (no camera harness) is about $2650.

The Camera Harness

HeliCamSolutions Pro60-3x camera harness mounted beneath helicopter.

In addition to the helicopter, you need a harness to hold your camera. There are many types of harnesses. Some just hold the camera and absorb vibrations.  Others have motorized pan, tilt and roll that can be operated remoted (by another radio control transmitter).    Some even have gyro stabilization built in.

One manufacturer of reasonably priced harnesses is www.HeliCamSolutions.com. HelicamSoutions makes a range of harnesses from simple mechanical harnesses at $200, to fully articulated (pan, tilt and roll), remote controlled, gyrostabilized units for $2000.  They also have many models in between. The flight weights of these harnesses range from 2.4 lbs to about 4 lbs. The $2000 units have a complete 6 channel radio transmitter and receiver for independent, in-flight control of the camera’s pan, tilt and roll. A remote camera trigger is $50 extra. Finally, their video downlink system, which  allows you to see what the camera sees, is an additional $850.

Dedicated Gas Powered Cameraships

If you find yourself shopping in the $5000 price range, you may want to look at the dedicated “cameraships.”  These are gas powered helicopters with integrated camera harnesses.  They are designed specifically for photography. They are  all 800 series heli’s or larger.  Their payload capacity is high.  Some models can carry a camera and lens weighing 8 lbs.  Other models can carry a camera and lens up to 25 lbs.  Flight times can be anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours (since they are gas powered).

Bergen RC's Observer Dedicated Cameraship Helicopter

One particularly popular “cameraship” is the Bergen RC Observer.  This RC helicopter has a main rotor diameter approaching 80 inches (two 800mm blades). It weighs 20 pounds. This is a commercial grade platform for video/photography applications. You can get a complete system consisting of helicopter, harness and all radio gear for $5000.  You supply the camera.  It can carry a camera and lens combination weighing 8 lbs and fly for 25 minutes (16 oz gas tank).

Another high quality line of cameraships is offered by AirStar International.  One model, the ASI Mongoose Cameraship can carry 15 lbs of payload (camera and lens) for 30 minutes of flight time.  The flight time can be extended by substituting a larger gas tank.  The complete, assembled system costs $5695.  All you need to add is the camera. These units are used by the motion picture and television industries.

A high capacity heli ofen used for photography is the German made Vario Benzin Trainer. It has a 3.5 horsepower gasoline powered engine. It’s an 800 series helicopter (each rotor blade is about 890 mm), but it is not a dedicated cameraship.  So you need to get a harness from HeliCamSolutions for it.

Learning to Fly

Helicopters are very difficult to fly. The learning curve is brutally steep. So far, it’s taken me about 10 hours just to learn how to hover without crashing immediately. The good news is that there is a very high quality flight simulator, called RealFlight 5 (www.knifeedge.com) that makes learning to fly RC helicopters and airplanes safe, cheap and anxiety free.

In case you were wondering, something like the Microsoft Flight Simulator will not do the job here. Even though Microsoft Flight Sim is a very good simulator, it simulates full-size aircraft from the cockpit perspective. The physics of small aircraft, particularly heli’s, is quite different from people-size aircraft. Small aircraft are much more difficult to keep stable, especially in the wind.  They move extremely quickly, so your responses must be immediate.  Furthermore, you have a different vantage point when flying remotely. You’re outside the aircraft rather than in the cockpit. This is a major difference. When the craft is flying toward you, left and right are reversed. If you haven’t built up the eye-hand coordination for this, terrible things will happen.

To enhance the learning experience, the RealFlight simulator provides an 8-channel control unit made by Futaba, who also makes popular RC transmitters. The Futaba control unit for the simulator operates exactly like their transmitters. Perfect for training. Even at $200 for the software and Futaba (USB) control unit, this is the cheapest way to learn how to fly. Trust me. The cost of a crash can be several hundred dollars in parts for a largish helicopter.   More if you really mangle it.  I have crashed simulated helicopters probably hundreds of times just learning how to hover. Saved quite a lot of money.  It’s wonderful to crash in a relaxed atmosphere.

It Takes Two

Unless you have a simple harness that just locks the camera in one position, flying and shooting is likely to be a two person operation. You’ll need a skilled pilot for the helicopter, and a second person, the photographer, to monitor and control the camera.  For this reason, most of the systems we’ve discussed in this article have two RC transmitters.  One for the pilot and one for the photographer.  This is especially important if you (assuming you’re a photographer) don’t have the time to learn how to fly. Fortunately, RC helicopter pilots are easier to come by (and less expensive) than commercial pilots. If you find one who is into 3D (extreme helicopter stunt flying), his skills will be beyond what you need.

Cameras

With the 600 series helicopters, we have a payload capacity of around 6 1/2 lbs for harness and camera. Harnesses weigh between 2.4 and 4 pounds. This leaves you roughly 2 to 4 pounds for the camera and lens, depending on harness weight. High end consumer HD camcorders are typically around 1.5 pounds, which fits easily within these weight limits. Small SLR’s also fit within these weight limits. For example, a Nikon D90 weighs around 2 to 2.5 pounds with a small zoom lens, so it should be OK with any harness and heli.  The same is true for a Canon Rebel or similar size DSLR. Of course, the new micro 4/3 cameras, such as the Panasonic GH1, G1, and GF1 as well as the Olympus EP1 and EP2 all fit easily within the weight limits of a medium power 600 series heli.

Heavier camera and lens combinations such as a Nikon D300s (33.1 oz for body only), Canon 5dII (30 oz body only) or Canon 7d (30.3 oz body only) are going to fall within the range of 3 to 4 pounds with lens. A small professional video camera weighs even more. The Panasonic HVX200 weighs just under 5 pounds, while the Sony EX1 is about 5.25 pounds. These cameras would require an 800 series helicopter, such as the Tazer 800 if you’re going to use a 4 pound harness.  The Tazer 800 helicopter mentioned earlier can easily handle 10+ pounds of payload. The heavier Nikon and Canon cameras and the professional video cameras are all within its capacity.

Remember that when you weigh down an electric helicopter, you shorten the flight time, because the motor requires more current from the battery to keep all that weight in the air. So, a bigger camera and harness requires a more powerful motor, battery, servos and possibly a larger rotor.  The 800 series helicopters make more sense as the camera and lens get much above 3 pounds.

Airplanes Cost Less

There is another way to go, which I will discuss in detail in a future post. You can use a radio controlled airplane rather than a helicopter. Airplanes have many advantages and one big disadvantage. Airplanes are less complicated to set up, safer and easier to fly, and vibrate quite a bit less. They are also a lot less expensive both to build and to crash. So your cost savings can be huge (half the cost of a heli or less for something that can keep the same camera aloft). However, airplanes usually do not hover, and they require a lot more space for taking off and landing. They are, of course, less nimble in the air. For photography, that’s the big disadvantage. You can only fly toward something or fly by something. But you can’t stop and take a picture, as you can with a heli. But if your photographic goals fit within an airplane’s capabilities, you can get very good quality results for much less money and a considerably shallower learning curve.

The Bottom Line(s)

All this may sound like it’s pretty expensive. It can be. Though for a complete, basic system with helicopter, a minimal harness to absorb vibrations and a remote trigger for your camera, the cost can be as low as $2250 for the Align T-Rex 600, the radio components listed earlier, and the low end HelicamSolutions harness and remote trigger.

If you want full in-flight control of the camera’s pan, tilt and roll as well as gyrostabilization ($2000 from HeliCamSolutions) and a video downlink ($400 to $850) and a suitable helicopter ($2000 to $2650), you’re now in the neighborhood of $5000 for the complete system.  The only thing extra is the camera.  Not cheap, but still half the price of the top end systems.

Suppose you consider an intermediate capability harness (say $500), and shop around for a less expensive video downlink ($500).  Add to that a T-Rex 600 ($2000) and  you’ve got a complete and very competent rig for about $3000.  At this price, you may only have 3 pounds of payload capacity for the camera and lens (unless your harness is very light).

If you want to use a camera that’s heavier than 3 pounds, you may want to opt for the Tazer 800 helicopter (at $2650).  With the Tazer 800 you get a higher payload capacity: 6 lbs for camera and lens, plus 4 lbs for the harness.  Is your brain spinning yet?

Of course, if you have deeper pockets, there’s always the dedicated cameraships mentioned earlier.  They’ll lift most professional camera systems.  Due to their larger size and weight, they’ll handle better on windy days.  Best of all, some of the gas powered ones will give you flight times measured in hours rather than minutes.

Additional Resources

Here are some resources that I found helpful for getting basic information and getting your questions answered.

• www.RunRyder.com is a very popular RC helicopter forum. It has sections on aerial photography and video.
• www.APLanding.com is a photography forum that has a section on all types of aerial photography.
• www.RCHelicopterFun.com presents a good overview of the various types of helicopters that are available and how they work. It also reviews some products and explains how to set up and “tune” RC helicopters.
• www.AerialPhotoBook.com sells a book on RC helicopters and photography. I ordered a copy and will review it as soon as it arrives and i can read it.
• www.BlackWidowAV.com sells wireless video downlink kits and accessories. Very reasonably priced at $300 without monitor.  It is common practise to use a portable DVD player for the downlink monitor, or a small portable lcd tv.
• www.hicam.com is another vendor of wireless video downlinks.
• Electric Helicopter Beginner’s Guide has good introductory information, explains the jargon, and offers sound practical advice.
• Triax-Aerial is another source of gimbaled camera harnesses for aerial photography.
• www.airfoilskycam.com is a manufacturer of low cost camera harnesses. The M1 Carbon 30 mount offers servo controlled roll and tilt (but no pan) at a very low price and low weight.
• Rosauro Photography features aerial panoramas and some useful how-to information.
• PhotoShip One makes camera mounts, some front mounting for TRex 600 and other heli’s. They also 360VR mounts for aerial photography, as well as their own cameraships.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank the folks at HobbyTown in Nanuet, New York for much information and guidance. They wisely talked me into using a simulator before buying anything. Their experience as skilled heli pilots was invaluable for creating this post.

Full Disclosure

The United States the Federal Trade Commission is going to require that, as of December 1, 2009, bloggers and other web authors clearly disclose “their connection, if any, with the advertisers; and also reveal the receipt of free products and or payments from the advertisers”.

In compliance with this requirement, I am not in any way associated with any of the manufacturers or retailers mentioned in this post. I have not received any compensation from them in any form, neither free products nor payments. I am not an affiliate marketer of any company or product mentioned here.