cheap wiress digital photography

[deamer]

I am a student doing and engineering project at college. We have are designing an aeriel camera with the use of a kite we are presently designing and constructing. We are looking for the cheapest way to have a digital camera mounted to the kite which can send us a live signal back to the ground which could be displayed on a laptop, lcd screen, etc so we can see what we are snapping photos of. The problem is the wireless digital cameras I have found are all out of our price range. The second problem is that the only power source we will have up there is batteries....any suggestions or ideas on how we could go about accomplishing this would be more than appreciated,
Thanks
Doug

 

[hobbes28]

The Nikon Coolpix P1 is about the cheapest on the market, I think, and you can find it for as cheap as $300 if you look around enough. They sell at major retailers for $400 but, depending on how many people are working on the project, it could be pretty cheap per student. Other than that, I have no idea.

 

[markc]

You mention a live signal, so I guess you are looking for a video camera. This forum is more geared towards still imagery. You might want to try a video forum or one that deals with hacking electronics.

 

[deamer]

Thanks for the reply...I know it's probably impossible to find anything very much cheaper, but thats still a little pricey...the thing is we only need at least 2 megapixels. After some more though I was wondering if there is anyway to broadcast/send a signal from the camera back to the ground via a transmitter or modem and then pick it up on the ground...then we could incorporate a shutter mechanism into our pan/tilt system???dunno its just an idea?

 

[deamer]

Yea I know what you mean...part of our project I guess is to use a digital camera..that's what we will be taking is still images...we just need a way to preview the pictures we are taking.

 

[Rob]

I'd recommend a radio controlled helicopter over a kite really... you won't get any directional control with a kite. There's loads of stuff out there to do that, maybe you could find a R/C forum and persuade someone to help you out for a few beers instead of shelling out loads on kit you're only going to use once.

Rob
http://www.trendtimes.com/spy-camera-wireless.html
http://www.hicam.com.au/art_bw1.htm

 

[markc]

Do you mean you want a 2Mp live image? That's high-definition 1080p at 1,920 x 1,080. You I seriously doubt you will be able to transmit that cheaply. Even if you are talking about transmitting the image from a still camera at that size, it will have to be the taken image. The one that gets sent to the LCD is very reduced from the one that the sensor sees and sends to storage. My guess is to get a high-quality digital still from a kite wirelessly is going to take some hardware hacking. You'd probably have to have a Palm or the like attached to the camera and the Palm reads the data and sends it to the ground. Of course you'd have to rig the palm device to work wirelessly.

 

[markc]

Yea I know what you mean...part of our project I guess is to use a digital camera..that's what we will be taking is still images...we just need a way to preview the pictures we are taking.

Ah, so you don't need the stored images transmitted, just the preview? Then I think you still need a hardware hack, as you need a way of intercepting the data sent to the LCD and sent it to the ground. You'd also need someone who could code a way to interpret that data.

The "easy" way would be to have both a digital still camera and a cheap wireless video camera pointed in the same direction. You won't get the exact shot, but it would give you an idea of what's getting captured. Or you could point the video camera at the still camera's LCD, but I don't know if you would get enough quality for that, especially with the image shifting constantly.

Either way, if you want preview, I don't see how it can be done cheaply.

 

[markc]

maybe you could find a R/C forum and persuade someone to help you out for a few beers instead of shelling out loads on kit you're only going to use once.

Yeah, I think he'd have too. Helicopters aren't easy to fly. Unless he had a lot of time to practice.

 

[DocFrankenstein]

Helicopters are very expensive. My friend is into it, and only a remote was about 2 grand.

If you want preview, you can get a security camera. They are light and ridiculously cheap - only about 100 bucks with a radio receiver which you plug into TV/VCR on the ground.

You can use it as preview and take pictures with a still camera. You can trigger a still camera with an IR remote.

Most IR remotes only work at less than 10 meters, so you'll need to amplify the signal and send it to a more intense IR source.


http://www.footprintsecurity.com.au/product_images/full_spy_camera_indoor.jpg
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgu...firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N

Of course the resolution isn't going to be great, but you'll be able to frame your shot effectively.

Good luck

 

[DocFrankenstein]

BTW: there are people who are doing kite photography for a living. Search google for that.

 

[kemplefan]

i dont know how high up this kite will be tou mtie be able to b or find a cord tjat you can atack and extend with the line if not nikon makes a wierles transmiter but i dont know hwo you would triger it so i realy am not much help

 

[DocFrankenstein]

what's the budget btw?

 

[deamer]

the kite will be about 200ft up and our budget is for the whole project is 600$ i would say that no more than 300 will be able to go to the camera...i know its tight but thats all we're aloud to spend.

 

[hobbes28]

If you want preview, you can get a security camera. They are light and ridiculously cheap - only about 100 bucks with a radio receiver which you plug into TV/VCR on the ground.

With that budget, this may be your best bet.