Camera for aerial photography

padu

Something different now.

I need to specify a camera for a research project I'm doing in my university. I'm going to put this camera in a remote control helicopter to take aerial pictures.

. It "must" have good resolution (both optical and digital), so anything between 5 and 10MP with good glass incorporated (dSLR is too heavy for that I believe).
. It "must" be possible to remote control it shutter (no need to be wirelessly)
. It "should" have optical zoom
. It "should" be weather resistant
. It would be nice to be able to control the zoom remotely


I thought about the canon powershot G7, it seems a nice robust camera, but I think it lacks the remote operation capability.

Price is not a problem

ziggy53

padu wrote:

Something different now.

I need to specify a camera for a research project I'm doing in my university. I'm going to put this camera in a remote control helicopter to take aerial pictures.

. It "must" have good resolution (both optical and digital), so anything between 5 and 10MP with good glass incorporated (dSLR is too heavy for that I believe).
. It "must" be possible to remote control it shutter (no need to be wirelessly)
. It "should" have optical zoom
. It "should" be weather resistant
. It would be nice to be able to control the zoom remotely


I thought about the canon powershot G7, it seems a nice robust camera, but I think it lacks the remote operation capability.

Price is not a problem

What is the payload capacity of the helicopter?
Any size restrictions?
How many remote control channels can you dedicate to the remote operation of the camera?
What field of view do you need for the camera?
How many images per flight?
Flight duration?
Lighting conditions?
Remote vision?
Aiming requirements?

padu

>>What is the payload capacity of the helicopter?

We are looking at some models that can carry from 8 to 20 pounds, but not all of that can be allocated for camera only. Weight is important, but not the most important feature.


>>Any size restrictions?

Yes, but I don't think any digital camera will exceed that size. Take a look at the model we'll probably end up buying:
http://www.bergenrc.com/ObserverTwin.php


>>How many remote control channels can you dedicate to the remote operation of the camera?

As many as we need. The helicopter has built in pan and tilt platform, and it has a 7 channel radio dedicated for that platform (independent of the flight control RC).

>>What field of view do you need for the camera?

It will vary, but something like a 35mm (in the 35mm world) would suffice. The operator will control the field of view by varying altitude, but it would be nice if he could also vary the focal distance without having to move the helicopter

>>How many images per flight?
Not many, 30, 40? It is related to your next question. I guess it is not very important given the memory cards available nowadays.


>>Flight duration?
As long as the helicopter allows with the payload...

>>Lighting conditions?
Daylight... sunny San Diego


>>Remote vision?

Yes, there will be another camera exclusively for navigation with a wireless downlink


>>Aiming requirements?
See pan and tilt above. We'll install a GPS plus a couple of other sensors to try to find out the pose of the camera at the moment the shot was taken and then write software to perform a couple of transformations and annotate geographical information on the pictures. That's close to the final goal of the project.

UP N MTNS

padu wrote:

Yes, but I don't think any digital camera will exceed that size. Take a look at the model we'll probably end up buying:
http://www.bergenrc.com/ObserverTwin.php

Damm 6-10K for a R/C chopper

padu

UP N MTNS wrote:

Damm 6-10K for a R/C chopper

That's definitely not a toy...

ziggy53

A company with a very good reputation for remote controlling cameras is Harbortronics. See especially the RC switch mod:

http://www.harbortronics.com/detail.php?id=17

Compatible cameras:

http://www.harbortronics.com/compatibility.htm

Good luck!

padu

ziggy53 wrote:

A company with a very good reputation for remote controlling cameras is Harbortronics. See especially the RC switch mod:

http://www.harbortronics.com/detail.php?id=17

Compatible cameras:

http://www.harbortronics.com/compatibility.htm

Good luck!

That's cool ziggy,

I could even set up the thing to take pictures by intervals. If the users accept that idea, it would save a lot of time in development.