Aerial Photography

Duncan Wilde has been experimenting with ways of attaching a camera to a model to permit aerial photography to take place. His technique is detailed below, together with photgraphs of the club flying field and the surrounding area, as well as details of the camera mounting.

Introduction

Recently I decided to try something a little bit different and made an attempt to take some photographs from a model aircraft. I used a cheap disposable camera mounted to the plane with elastic bands under the wing and using a spare servo to operate the shutter. The whole process of setting it up was easy and only took about fifteen minutes.

First you need to decide where you are going to mount your camera. Under the wing is a good place or slightly behind it. High wing trainer aircraft should make good camera planes as they have large fuselages and ample room under the wing. If you decide to fit the camera onto the fuselage behind the wing be careful that the camera does not obstruct the movement of the ailerons when the wing is fitted, particularly with fun fly aircraft where the ailerons are often several inches wide. It is best to mount the camera on the side of the fuselage opposite the exhaust to prevent oil residue from getting on the camera lens.

Camera Fixing

1. Take your disposable camera and tape up all of the seams in the plastic case. This is to stop light getting in if you have a heavy landing and the camera case gets knocked. Next get some foam rubber and cut it to suit the shape of the back of your camera. Stick the rubber to the back of the camera using some double-sided tape. Take your shutter servo and using a double sided sticky pad stick it to the top of the camera over the shutter release so that in the down position the servo arm presses the shutter button.

2. Slide two appropriately sized elastic bands onto the fuselage, you may have to remove the undercarriage to do this. Tie wraps are not a good choice because they hold the camera too tightly and transmit vibration to the camera.

3. Slide your camera into position on the aircraft so that it is held securely with the rubber bands.

4. Connect the camera servo to the receiver using an extension lead. Plug the servo into the relevant channel on your receiver so that you can use the gear switch on your transmitter to operate the shutter.

5. Fit the wing and check everything moves without fouling.

6. Take a test picture to check that the whole set-up works.

7. Go and fly!.

Camera Positioning

Using the elastic bands to hold the camera means that you can rotate the camera around the fuselage to take pictures looking out along the wing or vertically down. If the camera is looking straight along the wing the wing will probably appear in your photograph. If you don't want the wing in your photos use a piece of packing foam behind the camera to tilt it downwards slightly. Make sure that the camera is not secured too tightly to the fuselage otherwise vibration will ruin your pictures.

Vibration

The technique to eliminate vibration is to pull your throttle stick right back and adjust the trim so that you get an idle with no vibration. To see how much vibration the camera is experiencing rest your finger on the camera and adjust engine RPM using the trim. Once you have set the throttle trim to obtain an idle with no vibration you can take off and gain some height. Position your aircraft and pull the throttle stick back then try and slow the aircraft as much as possible while keeping it stable, then flick your gear switch and take a picture. It makes sense that the higher you fly the less blurring you will experience on your photographs. Vertical shots tend to come out clearer than sideways shots but need to be taken at quite a high altitude to get enough of the landscape in.

Weather

The best weather to take pictures in is fairly sunny with light winds. If you try to take pictures in heavy wind the turbulence throws your aircraft around meaning that your photographs will most likely come out blurred. Photos taken in overcast or cloudy conditions produce good photographs but sunny weather tends to give the pictures much more contrast and definition. Photographs taken in the late afternoon are interesting because the sun is low in the sky and casts long shadows onto the ground.

Choice of Aircraft

Disposable cameras come with about 30 - 40 exposures and need rewinding after every picture is taken. This means lots of take off and landing practice. Ideally after taking a picture you need to be able to land your aircraft on the strip and be able to stop it and turn it around without running into the long grass and stopping the engine. Because of this you need an aircraft with an engine where you can get a reliable low idle to make landings easy otherwise you will have to restart your engine for every photograph attempt. Ideal aircraft are moderately powered trainers or fun fly aircraft. High powered fast landing aircraft are probably not the best choice but can still be made to work. The technique is to takeoff, get your photograph, land, turn around, wind on the camera and take off again. You can probably get about 4 or 5 photos per flight if you get a good rhythm going.

Results

I have included a selection of the photographs taken. There is also a picture showing how to fit the camera.

[Top of Page]