- Pan servo (360 degree)
- 5:1 gearing to slow down the pan movement making control more precise.
- battery pack (4 AA)
- power switch
- RC receiver
- tilt servo (90 degrees) from horizon to straight down
- receiver aerial wire
- four coloured wire contain the gentLED electronic shutter control. This little chip eliminates the need for a seperate servo to fire the shutter button.
- Legs to keep the camera safe when landing
- Canon 400D digital SLR (10mp)
- 18-55mm 'kit' lens
- Picavet cross
Kite Aerial Photogarphy rig for Canon 400D
A modified BBKK to carry a Canon 400D digital SLR aloft. Features 1:5 gearing on the 360 pan servo, a gentLED electronic shutter control, and carbon legs to keep the camera out of the mud and sand when landing and taking off.
Comments and faves
__________________________________________________, @PauloZanella, Diaa Sameh, Douglas Milian, and 36 other people added this photo to their favorites.
Peter Sundstrom (60 months ago | reply)
Wow, that's some serious kit. I guess you want to really look after it when it's in the air.
murrayneill (60 months ago | reply)
It hasn't had its first flight yet (waiting for the right conditions), but when it does, counting the kite, line camera and electronics, I'll have close to $3k worth of equipment in the air! Needless to say I will be quite nervous, but he who dares....
kyteman (59 months ago | reply)
It's fascinating to see the adaptation. Did you find that mounting the camera "backwards" (compared to the way I always do it) helped in the layout of the other stuff? Obviously, the pan servo doesn't interfere with tilt, but I would have thought there would be more clearance the other way. Does the camera balance OK on the tilt frame? It appears that you left the camera platform on the frame instead of cutting it off as I've found necessary with an SLR.
Two suggestions I would make: spend just a little more and add ball-bearing blocks to your Picavet to better support all that expensive gear; and use smaller, lighter batteries.
murrayneill (59 months ago | reply)
Brooks,
I found that mounting the camera that way around allowed me to sit it further back, therefore balancing it better. Having the camera around the 'right' way meant sitting it further forward to clear the pan servo. This meant the weight of the lens was making it 'front-heavy' adding more strain on the tilt servo (which I presumed would create more drain on the batteries holding it in its tilt position.) I have cut off camera platform (although its difficult to see that in the image).
So do I have the camera AND the tilt platform backwards, or just the camera?
ps.the little pulleys are on my list (next time I'm in the model shop) but I hadn't thought of smaller batteries. Is there a smaller/lighter size you could recomend which won't shorten the battery lifetime?
kyteman (59 months ago | reply)
I've had good luck with some 160 mAh so-called 1/3 AAA NiMH cells, which seem to drive just about any rig for as long as I want to keep it up -- say, 30-40 minutes. I get them from The Battery Station but I'm sure you can find them in your part of the world too.
If that small size gives you pause, the 2/3 AAA size is 370 mAh, or you can get 600 - 750 mAh AAA NiMH packs too.
Of course, you'll save a whopping amount of weight with Lithium Polymer cells, but that's a whole different package that I haven't gotten into, because all of my chargers would be obsolete.
Thanks for the explanation of the rig configuration. If it works, it's right!
KAPPIX - Ramon (58 months ago | reply)
Hi Murray,
What is your experience with the R/C antenna mounted this way? I did practically the same with mine and it works OK. But Mike Jones had some problems with jitter. Just curious. The RIG looks great, by the way.
murrayneill (58 months ago | reply)
I do occasionally notice a little bit of jitter if the aerial on the controller is not fully extended. Nothing major though.
Gustavo Muleey (55 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Canon EOS 400D - En Español !!!, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group.
sig_equinox (42 months ago | reply)
interesting.
Rodionov Anton (39 months ago | reply)
Amazing device!
Frankie T. (35 months ago | reply)
can i ask the price on the whole rig is? including the modifications??
kurabinya (33 months ago | reply)
great !