My Canon HV30 is no more! I’ve traded up to a Panasonic TM700. To give my new camera a thorough shake-down, I took it to the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s 22nd anual World War II airshow in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Full-size aircraft for a change
Written by Ian on June 20th, 2011My first live FPV flights!
Written by Ian on September 23rd, 2010Clips from a few Twin Star flights with the Canon SD980. My dream of live First Person Video control has finally become real! The plane has substantial vibration and oscillation problems that I’m looking into. I used a heavy dose of Deshaker to make the footage watchable, but the problem will need a fix at the source to produce video for any professional application.
I’ve been trying to monitor a plane’s point of view via a live video link to the ground for several summers now. The most recent obstacle was severe interference between my 900 mhz video transmitter, any attached camera and my older 72 mhz Futaba radio and receiver. I recently purchased a 2.4 ghz Hitec Aurora 9 radio and Optima 7 receiver which ended my interference problem, making these live view flights possible. I love my new radio!
Liberty Bell Jet Rally 2010 in PA
Written by Ian on August 8th, 2010Yesterday was my first trip to the annual RC jet rally in Marietta, Pennsylvania. I’d never seen a jet in person before so the rally was a real treat. Despite only being able to stay for about an hour, I got some neat shots of the action which I’ve cut together above.
Canon SD980 FPV Video at UMBC
Written by Ian on July 29th, 2010I picked up a Canon PowerShot SD980 point-and-shoot camera for aerial video work. The 1280×720 resolution and wide lens are great, but the vignetting can be annoying. I’ve found the quality of still photos with this camera disappointing, but the video is impressive. A MAJOR advantage of this camera for any type of vehicle-mounted or vibration-prone video is it’s CCD image sensor and therefore global shutter. It has none of the jello effect that virtutally all modern camcorders have.
This flight was at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I spent the afternoon flying with some UMBC Ecology grad students working on creating 3D models of trees using radio controlled aircraft. Below are a few pictures taken with my S90.
McDonogh School from the air
Written by Ian on July 22nd, 2010
At long last, some nice pictures of my high school from the Twin Star. Click on the thumbnails below for a slide show.
