Hello,

this is my first post here, so thanks for a bit of leeway

I am desperately looking for a solution that realizes a vision I have.

I would love to shoot good outdoor pictures (digital camera with maybe 3-5 megapixels resolution) from a small blimp that is radio controlled. There is a marvellous region in Austria (near Salzburg) where I want to do kayak tours in the future and I would love group photos of the kayakers taken from above. Same with some of the castles that you can find there. Closeups of these taken from a blimp would be awesome.

Here is the stuff that makes it complicated
1) I don't have a lot of money. If possible the complete solution should cost below $1000

2) I would love to be able to actually control what the camera sees. So any kind of cheap wireless camera (with a receiver on the ground) that points in the same direction as the one that then actually takes the pictures would be great. But I assume that is just too much to ask for within my budget.

Is there anybody who knows where to get such a system? Anybody possibly living in or near Raleigh North Carolina who might be willing to construct such a system for me?

Thanks a lot for your thoughts and help!

Greetings to all
RichHope

Welcome to the group...

I would get a pentax optio s4i or s5i with a mx prisim switch and a digilive from blackwidow.

Thanks lvspark, I will look into that. I hope that solution doesn't require me to do a lot of electronics or even soldering. I am not good at both

Thanks!
RichHope

Its pretty much plug and play. Good luck and post the results!

Originally Posted by RichHope

Thanks lvspark, I will look into that. I hope that solution doesn't require me to do a lot of electronics or even soldering. I am not good at both

Thanks!
RichHope

The PRISM was designed for that very reason. No soldering or messing with the guts of that expensive camera. It plugs into your receiver and acts like a remote control. It uses infrared light to command the camera when to take a picture.

MX
http://www.hexpertsystems.com/prism

I have not heard of any outdoor blimps that were strictly R/C controlled due to the risk of losing them. They all seem to be tethered. A local fellow had his tied up well, but still lost his $2K blimp and some camera gear when the wind surprised him. However, indoor R/C blimps are common at sporting events (not much threat of wind inside a building).

RC-CAM

Traditionally outdoor rc blimps have been gas powered behemoths. This is mostly because to loft all that engine(s), fuel and envelope weight in the air takes a lot of helium volume. Well someone had an idea to change all that see hyperblimps.com for details. Here are small volume high speed blimps with a streamlined shape. This opens up a whole new world of rc vehicles and I think this will be the future of small scale aerial photography. I am currently constructing a larger version for ap. With lipos and brushless motor technologies I think speeds in the forties are possible as long as the length width ratio is kept high. Looks promising with the ability to stop midair and hover along with being very steady should lead to great results.

Oh yeah and it can't crash...!!!!???????????

Thanks a lot guys for the tips! Those hyperblimps look awesome and the prism-pentax solution together with the digilive seems to be the perfect fit. Awesome!

Thanks a lot for your quick help!
RichHope