{"id":1536,"date":"2014-05-21T15:28:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T15:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2014-05-21T16:45:36","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T16:45:36","slug":"camera-test-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=1536","title":{"rendered":"Camera Test Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was a flight to test some cameras under the demanding conditions of near space.<\/p>\n

First, I was sent a prototype of a 360-degree camera<\/a> which is the subject of a KickStarter<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

I installed this plus a large external battery (to extend the run time) in a foam polystyrene ball:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0531\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was also sent a pair of 1080 XD Mini<\/a> cameras by ReplayXD<\/a>. These are small and very neat action cameras that can record 1080 line HD video at 25fps, or 720 line at 50fps. We chose the former, and I fitted one camera looking outwards and one upwards to capture the balloon burst. I used my new modular payload system which makes it easy to mix and match different cameras and trackers without having to build a new payload box each time:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0526\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We used one large backup battery and one small one. Even the small battery was enough for the flight so the larger battery would not normally be needed for a balloon flight. Here’s everything including one of Anthony Stirk’s<\/a> early radio tracker boards:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0529\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A third payload was added, with a second radio tracker, and we also added a small GSM tracker. It took several people to hold all the payloads when we launched:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0419\"<\/a><\/p>\n

and it made an impressive sight as it rose in the sky:<\/p>\n

\"chain\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The flight landed in a field about 2 miles from the launch site, though it travelled a long way horizontally as well as vertically to get there! We arrived just in time to rescue it before the cameras were gobbled up by some farm machinery …<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0576\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We were eager to get the cameras back home to have a look at the images, some of which are truly stunning. First, from the Centr camera:<\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, those are just single camera still views from the 360-degree video; I’ll post links to the stitched footage when available.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile both ReplayXD cameras were working well, with the outward-facing camera capturing this shot of the Centr camera shortly after burst!<\/p>\n

\"Centr\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Just before burst, the upward-facing camera got this great shot showing how translucent the balloon is when it’s about to burst:<\/p>\n

\"Translucent\"<\/a>
\nand here’s the burst, all over in about 1\/10th of a second:<\/p>\n

\"Burst<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Burst<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Burst<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was a flight to test some cameras under the demanding conditions of near space. First, I was sent a prototype of a 360-degree camera which is the subject of a KickStarter campaign. I installed this plus a large external battery (to extend the run time) in a foam polystyrene […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1536"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1558,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}