Rig modified (again)

Following on from my last posting about the frustrations of my Optio S12, I've changed camera and modified the rig yet again.

I decided that the S12 and GentLED were a lost cause, so decided I would up the ante and replace the S12 with a W80. This is a waterproof and shockproof camera, which is a bonus, but more importanly for me it includes a built in intervalometer that can be set to a specidied number of shots, or to continue shooting until it the card is full, the battery dies or you stop it manually. The interval can be set to anything from 10 seconds up to 24 hours. Once again Digigood on eBay was my source and the camera was delivered promptly (must remember to leave feedback!

So on inspection, the camera was a different form to the S12. On the S12 the tripod mount was roughly in the centre. On the W80 it is at the far right as viewed from the rear. This gave me a little bit of a problem as I had saved weight in my rig by only having the camera mount large enough to reach the mounton the S12, so I needed to extend this down. So I cut the existing mounting plate off and bolted on a new, larger mounting plate. Fortunately, none of this is visible when the camera is installed. While I was at it, I drilled out the rivets to the gentLED bracket and removed that.

The W80 is slightly larger and heavier than the S12, but fortunately I don't think I've upset the balance of the rig.

While I was at it, I modified the picavet slightly. Originally, the lines had been running through the eyes in the cross. My friend Ramon Palares from Holland suggested that I add in some split rings to hang the rig from as these have smoother edges than the cross itself and so will reduce the likelihood of fraying.

Pictures of the new rig to follow.

Oh what a frustrating day

I had a day off yesterday, and following on from some problems I'd had with the IR shutter release on my Optio, I decided to redesign my rig based on some very good advise from the folks over on Cris Benton's KAP forum.

So having quickly modified the rig, I then proceeded to spend several hours trying to get the IR sensor to work. It seemed that if I had the remote trigger in fron of the lens then the shutter would release consistently, but if I pointed the remote at the sensor, triggering became much less reliable. It didn't matter whether I shaded the whole lot, built a canopy, or whatever, getting anything more than one release in ten was just impossible. So in the end, I decided it was a "feature" of the camera and decide to look for an alternative approach. I found an Optio W80 on eBay. The W80 includes an interval timer, but no IR, so I can manage with setting the camera to click away on its own.

Look out for an S10 on eBay soon!

(I'll upload images of the modified rig when I get a minute.

Issues uncovered and problems solved?

Last week in Hythe I discovered a couple of issues with both my RC and autokap rigs. I think I have solved both of them this week...

The R/C rig only seemed to by operating the shutter on every thrid operation. I've been experimenting all week with SDM and can't seem to get this behaviour to change with any consistency. I've followed the various suggestions on the interweb but to no avail. So in the end, or in frustration, I've gone back to plain vanilla CHDK. So this means I've got to run a script to operate via USB, but I can live with that, and now I'm back operational with the shutter operating on every operation :)

the autokap rig was a bit more tricky to resolve. As I mentioned last week, the camera seemed to stop shooting after about 10 shots when in the air. I experimented with the camera on the ground this week and it seemed to shoot the first couple of shots, then become very inconsistent. No matter what I did, I still couldn't get any consistency. So I asked for some guidance on the KAP discussion forum. Initial advise led me to believe I had a faulty Gentled. Then someone asked if I had the camera set for manual focus or fixed at infinity. So I tried some further experiments. Certainly the gentled wasn't faulty as I could clearly see the IR led flashing. But with the camera focus fixed at infinity, the operation of the shutter was at best random and at worst non-existant. So I switched the camera over to manual focus with focus set to infinity. Immediately the camera started to respond to every flash of the gentled. I also tried it on auto and the shutter continued to respond. Interesting behaviou, but problem solved, so I can go away happy :)

First steps in AutoKAP

Sunday 31st January 2010 saw my first tentative steps into the AutoKAP arena, which wasn't entirely successful! For Christmas I'd got the various components I needed to build a simple autokap rig. It is powered by a small 3v electric motor with gearing that brings it down to about 2rpm. The rig is designed to take a Pentax Optio S10 camera and the shutter is fired by a GentLED auto. The battery pack is mounted behind the motor.



Having built it, and checked the balance, I found that I needed to move the battery pack slightly in order to achieve good balance with the camera.

Anyway. So off to Hythe I trotted on Sunday afternoon to meet up with some kite flyers. I wasn't too hopeful as there was no breeze at home. But when I got to Hythe I was pleasantly surprised. Very cold but gloriously sunny day with a light breeze that grew a bit once you'd got out of the turbulence.

So with a 78" rokkaku in the air, I attached the rig and did all the sensible gorund checks. Then let it gain height. Certainly the rig was turning, but there was no indication of the shutter firing. So I left it flying for about 10 minutes. Given that the shutter should fire every 10-15 seconds, I should get between 40 and 60 photographs. By now the rig had stopped roatating. So I brought it down to earth and checked a few things. Well the rig batteries seemed to be flat. Disappointing. I know they are not knew, but I would hope they managed a bit better than that. I'll have to check the current draw of the motor. OK. What about the photos. 13! Only 13! what had gone wrong. Well it looks as though the shutter doesn't trigger on every release of the GentLED. I need to check this out. It could be the position of the GentLED or it could be the time it takes the camera to recycle after storing a shot. I will need to do some experiments on this. But out of the 13 shots, I had three that weren't blurred. This one is the Dukes Head pub, just across the road from the field we were flying on.



OK so having given up on AutoKAP for now, time to try R/C KAP again. Again I've been a busy boy, having converted my rig to use 2.4GHz from 35 MHz. I've also swithed my camera (a Canon G9) from plain vanilla CHDK to SDM. So here lies a problem. With CHDK, I could start up my USB script and every time I signalled the shutter it would fire. With SDM the same script seems to only fire on the third trigger, and then only if the triggers are in quick succession. It seems as though the first trigger wakes the camera, but it isn't sleeping, the second trigger operates focus, like a half press, and the third operates the shutter. Again I need to check this out. Unfortunately the documentation is a bit out of date as I am using the 1.82 release. But it looks as if I may need to change the focus setting to a digiscope setting and also switch off camera sync. but it looks like switching off the sync needs to be done before every shot, so must be managed in the script. Anyway, having figured out what was heppening, I happily clicked away and got a much higher success rate. This one is of Hythe town centre viewed across the Royal Military Canal.

October/November

Hello folks, have you missed me? Bet not. I've not been entirely inactive, but changes at work have meant I've got more travelling to do which is eating into my time.

Anyway, Saturday 31st saw KKF doing its bit for light up the sky. We were in Margate and battling with little wind and sea mist, so ended up with two soaked kites again, but did manage to raise over £60 for Children in Need, which is great.

Sunday 8th November saw KKF in Canterbury for our regular fly in. Again it looked like low wind was going to spoil the day, but ultimately the wind picked up enough and it turned into a good flying day. Low level turbulence was a bit of a problem, but I got a conyne up to about 600 feet and it was quite stable up there. Not entirely sure it was legal though as I doubt I was 1000 feet below the cloud base. There was a big sag in the line, but tremendous pull, it would have been great to get a camera up there, but I hadn't come equipped! Silly boy.

Next weekend we've got a sports kite workshop in Tonbridge, so we'll have to see how that goes.

OSOW 2009

After some sunshine on Saturday and the promise of more sun next week, Sunday 11th October was met with cloudy skies. But never mind, its OSOW time to go out flying! So around about lunchtime I headed off to Singleton Environment in Ashford where Kent Kite Flyers had scheduled their OSOW meet.

When I got there, the clouds were fairly high and there was a good stiff breeze. Lots of flotail deltas in the sky, so I decided to join in and soon had one of my own flying high amongst the rest.

Time to set up for some KAP. As the breeze was brisk, I chose to use a 56 inch rokkaku. This is a nice kite when the wind is up a bit. I launched the kite and pegged it down and went back to the car to get the camera rig. With the rig set up and attached to the line, time to try to KAP the visitor centre. Now I know I'm a bit dumb at times, but I had a funny feeling that the camera was not shooting. Of course it helps if you enable CHDK and start the USB script! So having been clicking away for a while, I recovered the camera, and enabled the script. Slightly more confident, I let out line, but we now seemed to be in a lull in the breeze, Still I managed to get high enough to get some photos.





As the wind had dropped a bit, I brought the camera and kite down and decided to have another go with a flowform 30. It was a bit troublesome to launch but soon gathered wind and climbed. By the time I was ready to attach the kite again, the wind had picked up a bit again, and the kite was pulling a bit. This time, I made abso9lutely sure that the camera was working before letting it climb!



So I launched with some confidence. But the kite was not flying with any stability and it really wasn't a very pleasant experience. I did manage to get a couple of photos that weren't too blurred, but the rest were rubbish.



Recovery became the next issue, as the wind was up, the kite was dancing a bit and the line was tight. But with the kite firmly anchored, it was a case of walk down, pull in and tie off until the camera was low enough to take off. The first spots of damp started to drizzle down.So I concentrated on geting the camera put away, and a couple of bits back to the car, leaving the flowform lifting a pig and the flotail flying. While at the car, the wind suddenly dropped, and two flotails suddenly appeared above. One (mine) landed in the trees, and the other (Gerties) settled over the fence in the school playing fields. Both being soaking wet, I retreived Gert's flowtail, and moved the line out of the road, then retrieved my own. Both were sopping wet.

So walking back to the field, I found my flowform had also landed in the hedge and the pig was also resting in the bushes. Bill volunteered to reover the kite, while I recovered the pig. Again, both were saturated! With the kites and laundry recovered, it was time to wind in line and help others recover their kites and line beofre heading for home. So tonight, there is lots of material hinging up to dry in various parts of the house much to my wife's annoyance.

Fun in the sun at Hardelot

Well I didn't get to KAP, but it was great fun anyway.

Saturday 26th September saw KKF on their annual outing to celebrate Christmas, this year it was 2005. Its a long story, so you'll need to ask me for an explanation. Anyway as Hardelot festival had been put back from its normal May slot to late September, we decided to combine the two and have som efun on the beach.

Most of us took a leisurely journey, whilst the advanced party of 1 took the train and was asking where we were, whilst we were just leaving Dover! Gloriously smoooth crossingand arrived in Calais in good sunshine for the steady drive down to Hardelot. We managed to find somewhere to park on the beach, and spotted the advance party flying already.



She had already set up the Christmas theme, much to the surprise of those around us. So we got our act together and were soon playing in the sun and the sand. There were lots of interesting kites to see and with the tide out, plenty of space (please note Margate organisers!) We had a couple of hours flying and making friends. There were a lot of Kapers there, so I decided not to bother getting anything out of the car. Anyway, I was enjoying myself too much.

About 3pm UK time, we decided to go to find something to eat, but unfortuinately most of the restaurants were closed! However there was one that was willing to serve us, so we settled down on the terrace for our Christmas dinner.



We seemed to get a few strange looks from the locals as crackers were pulled and we generally caused disruption! Fed and watered it was time to head back to the beach. Where had everyone gone? Well the tide was coming in and most of the display kites had come down and the beach was almost deserted. Being muilt of stronger stuff at KKF, we decided to have a rok fight, and spent another hour in the sun before deciding that it was time to head off to catch the ferry home.



A quick drive up to Calais and straight onto the ferry, to settled down to crisps and Christmas cake for supper. Great day out and thanks to eveeryone who came along and made it such fun.

Margate - better late than never

A bit late, but finally I've got some time to post a quick item on Margate festival. Wasn't it fun? Saturday was sunny and warm with a very gentle breeze. Everyone seemed to be moaning about the lack of wind. What was the problem? I managed to get a premier rok up to about 800 feet and later in the day, got my maxi dopero flying serenely above the crowds, stable like it was nailed to the sky!

Sunday was much cooler, much windier and much duller. In the morning, it was a case of flying a ribbon box, which again I let climb to about 800 feet. In the afternoon, I decided to do some KAP from a 56 inch rok. Now interesting, this is the same kite I used in Gillingham the week before, in less wind, but today it as providing less lift. The only difference was the amount of bow put into the spreaders. Anyway, it was a bit of a struggle. I had Matt flying while I operated the remote. We wandered around as best we could, but more of that later.



Lunch was provided at a local cafe and was excellent, enjoyed by all. Meanwhile others carried on flying.



OK that's the fun bit. Now here comes the criticism. Not enough space guys. If you are going to have a kite festival for the public, you need some space for public flying, but the only usable space was a walkway between the two arenas. More space next year please.

Tests seem OK

Following on from the Will Adams festival, I spent an hour last night testing the USB release of my camera without a problem. I noticed that when the LCD went into power save mode, it took about 3 - 4 seconds from operating the remote to the camera waking and taking the picture, but other than that it went without a hitch. Ah well, we'll try again and this time I'll try to count how many times I think I operate the shutter.

Will Adams Festival - a busy day

What started out looking like it may be a struggle, turned into a really successful day. When we arrived in the morning, we had been allocated an arena that stretched along one side of the field. Unfortunately, the wind direction meant that we were in the lea of some rather large horse chestnut trees and was blowing diagonally across the arena. Never mind, we'll just bomb the inoccent passers buy. We got the club gazebo up, then concentrated on getting teddy dropping set up. With the wind direction as it was, a long launch of a pair of stacked rokkakus was needed to get into the clearer air. But once up, the kites stayed there for the rest of the day. Whilst Bill tested gear, everyone else concentrated on getting out a display of kites.





With a bit of help from my friends, I managed to get a flotail delta and a 56 inch rokkaku up into the airstream where they were quite stable. But by now, with the crowds begining to gather it was becomeing difficult to launch from outside the arena. But the sun came out, and we spent the afternoon under clear blue skies.

After a while, I decided to try some KAP, so used the rokkaku that was already flying to carry the rig. This was going to be at relatively low level. Whilst wandering around, I was asked to move by the guy who was about to do a birds of prey demonstration. Interesting that birds of prey with very keen eyesight can't spot a kite line. Anyway, happy to oblige I moved away and got a couple of pics from the other side of the arena.



Meanwhile, the guys back at base were doing a roaring trade keeping the public interested in kites and handing out fliers and cards. A lot of genuine interest was shown, which makes a refreshing change. Bill was also doing a roaring tade with bear dropping. After a delicious lunch of noodles with ginger, I decided to go out and have another go from higher up. I must have speant a good hour wandering around, though I wasn't really taking a lot of photos as I speant a huge amount of time chatting to people who were interested in what I was doing - and surprised that I would trust a camera to a kite. See if you can spot the people in this photo who have spotted the camera.



A day not without incident. And I have to spend some time this week checking the trigger mechanism, as I am not sure it is firing every time. But a good day all the same.

Kites over Capstone 2009

Phew, that was hard work! Not the kite festival, uploading some photos to Flickr. It took three attempts to get them uploaded, and it was only 15 images!

Anyway, enough of a rant. Sunday was Kites over Capstone, a fun day at an event that, until 3 weeks ago was cancelled. Then it was suddenly resurrected. I have to say, the council did a sterling job in getting everything laid on in 3 weeks, and are committed to having the event agian next year, but with a bit more time for planning this time!

So what was it like. Well, as I drove over boxley hill, I could see the kites in the distance. By the time I drove into the park, they were all back on the ground! It was to be like that for a couple of hours until we finally gots some decent wind as it shifted around a bit. Eventually there was enough for me to stick a camera onto a rokaku and try to get some photos. But I wasn't allowed to fly where I wanted to be! "You can't fly that there." "Why not?" "Because it is a designated walking area" What utter nonsense. Eventually the council relented and let people fly and enjoy themselves. In the meantime I took a few photos of the ground and some kites.



Then a little later on, I decided to give my new pole an outing. I was quite surprised at how heavy the camera was on the end of the pole, how much the pole flexed, and how much the camera caught the breeze and tried to pull everything out of my hands. But I had a good wander round and managed to capture some of the goings on at the event.

Completed and tested pole kit

Well I promised I would add more as I completed the PAP mount. Today, I finished it off by opening up the holes that go over the poles so that it would fit on the bottom 6 sections. The mount now fits at the very top of the top section, which I've wrapped with insulating tape just to stop the mount wearing the pole. After all, insulating tape is relatively cheap and easy to replace compared to a £100 carp pole.

This is what the mount looks like



As you can see it is very simple.

Next was time for a test drive. On a very windy day, I decided not to use the bottom two sections of the pole, taking off about 3 metres of height. But it was plenty difficult to control the pole as the wind blew across from the garage roof. Here is one view of part of our back garden, the lower deck with swing seat and water feature. You can see the table made out of an old morello cherry tree stump behind the swing seat, and the area on the right where the washing pole stands is ready to be paved.



Not bad for a first attempt.

Moving to wards PAP

I'v ebeen thinking about it for some time now, and finally decided to take the plunge and set up for Pole Aerial Photography (PAP). My Canon G9 is ideally suited to PAP as it is CHDK compatible and so I can run an intervalometer script on it quite easily.

The first step is to acquire a suitable pole. Typically poles come in at 5, 6 and 7 metres in fibreglass, then start moving towards carbon for the longer poles. The two different types are the telecsopic style, and the fit over style, which doesn't have the tendency to collapse unexpectidely, so is a better choice for this application. Looking on Cris Benton's site shows that 11 metres seems to be the length of choice, and typically the top two sections need to be discarded as too flexible. Some research on the internet shows the cheapest poles to be available from Decathlon. But further research shows they don't seem to be stock items and have to be ordered in, which is inconvenient. A search on ebay shows that 11 metre poles are available at just under £100 including postage. So taking the plunge a Shakespear pole is ordered, which arrived a day or so later via courier.

The first surprise is just how long the pole is in its collapsed state. It is as tall as me at qbout 1.8 metres. Having errected the pole, I decided to try using all but the very top section. This is partly because I don't have drill bit large enough to fit the third section. So I set about making a simple mount for the camera. This is fabricated using left over aluminium from the cradle for my KAP rig. The mount only took a couple of hours to create - I did say it was simple - and the rig is mounted onto the pole. The test shows that there is a bit too much flexibility to be comfortable, so I will need to pop out and get some larger drill bits to open up the holes in the rig so I can mount it onto the pole slightly lower down. So tomorrow I'll go out and buy a slightly larger drill bit and modify the rig to how I want.

Playing with radio transmitters

Late last year I bought a new transmitter, basically because the old one is pretty old, heavy and dented. It seemed a shame to throw the old one out, and knowing many have "customized" their transmitters I thought I would have a go.

So the case was opened and investigations began. There are two circuit boards. presumably one that provides power and the aerial connection, and the other does all the encoding. Having taken the pots out of the joysticks and removed all the trimmers from the casing, I checked that it all still worked, and labelled up each pot with the channel number.

Then it was time to go at it with some cutters and try replacing the pots. The idea is this:
The pan controlled doesn't really need any fine control, it just needs to be capable of being swithed clickwise, anti-clockwise or stopped. This should be achievable with a switch provided I can find the sweet spot on the pot where the servo changes direction.
The tilt servo I'd like to contorl with a slider rather than a rotating pot.
The shutter should be controllable with a simple push switch.

I've checked the pots and they are all marked as 5K. Time is fairly short, but I'll let you know how I progress.

Teston Mini Festival 2009

Tradition has it that Teston has almost no wind. June 2009 was to keep up this fine tradition. Actually that's unfair as Saturday was quite a good day for wind. Unfortunately my rig was at home.

Sunday was typical Teston, very little wind, lots of thermals and glorious sunshine. But for a little while in the afternoon, there was enough wind to launch the maxi Dopero and get a camera aloft. I needed to fly the kite as it had been lying on the ground for most of the day, and was therefore soaked. A launch and a couple of shakes made sure that Janet and Gerty got a shower before we headed up into the sky. Having confirmed there was sufficient lift to carry the rig, I brought the kite down and set up the rig. Ready to fly again, I put the camera on the line and off we went. But soon I had tangled with a Flying Empress squid. The dopero did a big loop in the sky. Looking closely I saw that the kites weren't tangled, but I had got under his line so walked the kite down a bit. Although the squid was being flown by quite a young lad, he was experienced and we soon separated lines and went our own way.

So time to get aloft. With 500ft clearance, it was easy to get plenty high enough to get some decent general shots of the area. This one shows the campers and overflow carparks, and lots of kites, most of them on the ground!



From this height, I also managed to get a good shot of the bridge, and guess what, It was perfectly framed - no cropping required!

Singleton Environmental

Hey, long time no speak and all my fault. Yes I've been a bit quiet with other things going on in my life. But on Sunday I met up with Friends from Kent Kite Flyers for some flying at a community country park called Singleton Environmental in Ashford. It was a warm sunny day and a stiff breeze, but th eprofile of the site meant that there was a very turbulent airstream.

Never mind. Time to do some KAP with my new rig. Because it was a stiff breeze, I decided to try a 56 inch rokkaku. The wind at ground level, and up to about 50 feet was very turbulent and getting a launch wasn't easy, but eventually I got into the air. The kite certainly needed trimming, but I decided to go with it anyway. So attached the camera and off we went. Well it was a struggle to keep the camera in the air as the kite was pulling hard but not really lifting and certainly not climbing. The kite was flying at totally the wrong angle and so wasn't getting out of the turbulent air at all. I did manage to get a couple of photographs though.



Enough of this! too much like hard work. So I brought the camera and kite down and decided to re-trim. The kite doesn't have an easily adjustable bridle, but a little tweak and we had a much better flying angle. This meant I could get higher out of the turbulent airflow and hopefully into the clear airstream. So with the camera re-attached, off we went again. This second flight was much better. But we were still in very turbulent air. I tried walking towards the interesting sculputure at the bottom of the park, but as this was down in the valley, as I walked towards it, the kite started swinging dramatically, and the camera was penduluming alarmingly. Some drastic action slowed the swing and I got a couple of shots, then headed back towards the high ground.



Whilst from the KAP purist point of view it wasn't the most successful outing, it is a lovely site with a good cafe and facilities. Lets hope we go back soon,

Bear Bunging in Tankerton

Well today saw a long hard day's teddy parachuting on tankerton Slopes in aid of the Whitstable and Herne Bay Lions. During the early part of the day it was a constant battle to keep the kite aloft and therefore create enough lift to get even the smallest bear off the ground. The result was we used a total of 4 different kites during the day trying to find the one best suited to the conditions. However in the afternoon the wind moved around a little bit and picked up and we were droping bears consistently down the slopes. In total we must have done something in the order of 200 jumps to keep the children (and adults) amused.

And so to Berck

So off to Berck we head, and the weather forecast looks good, at least for the first couple of days. This year, I decided to try the new LD Lines service from Dover to Boulogne. Despite the early start on Thursday morning, I've got to say that I was impressed, and I think Bill was too. So following a safe arrival in Boulogne and a short drive down to Berck, we arrived at about 10 am in bruight sun, if somewhat chilly conditions.

The weather was to prove good throughout the weekend, though on one morning the wind was blowing extremely powerfully. So much so, that Bill persuaded me to play with a mini-gem. ME FLYING A BENSON?! Well I enjoyed it soooo much, I bought it. Unfortunately, the wind was to prove extemely fickle throughout the weekend. On the Friday, it was extremely difficult to get anything to stay airborne. I met up with some fellow KAPpers, who were bemoaning the wind, but enjoying the fact that there had been no rain (so far).

I don't know whether it was the wind conditions, or economic climate or what, but the number of kite flying attendees seemed very down on previous years. So throughout the weekend the sky seemed bare. In fact, two of the single line arenas seemed positively deserted and one of the German teams went home on Sunday morning. Also the wind garden was a mere shadow of its former self. It did mean that Bill and I probably spent more time flying than at any other Berck, but unfortunately, conditions were not really good for KAP, and whilst I managed to get aloft for a brief flight, getting where I wanted to be was impossible, so I had to make do with some shots of people on the beach. However, my KKF rok and Janet's KKF roller both got an airing.



Despite the glorious sun most of the time, there was a distinct chill in the air, which forced us to keep well wrapped up. And so the weekend was spent flying, sitting in the bar(s) looking around the shops and various displays and generally chilling out! Come Monday morning, and the day of departure. There had been some overnight rain, and the wind was blowing very strong at the beach. So a wander up to the museum (like the rest of France - closed Mondays) an eventually time to take our leave and head back to Blighty. Certainly a relaxing time, and I think Baz and Janet enjoyed the trip too.

Long awaited photo

Well it seems like along time ago that I promised a phot of the new rig, so here it is nestling in its carry case. Top left is a handheld viewer for the wireless video camera. Just next to that is a small 35MHz frequency scanner, to check that no-one is on the channel that I plan to use. At the bottom, between the rig and the receiver is the Swan nighthaw wireless video camera.

Successful first flight

Its been a long time coming and weather conditions have not been favourable. However today I was determined to get a successful launch no matter what the conditions. This was largely because of the upcoming Worldwide KAP Week (WWKW). The rig, camera transmitter, etc are all new so were badly in need of a test flight.

As usual for Capstone Park, the wind was tricky, swirling on the ground, turbulent at low level and pulling like a train once you get above tree level. Not to be put off, I decided to go with my favourite KAP kite, a Premier Rok. After a bit of a struggle launching we eventually got the kite into the steady wind.

So the rig was attached, powered up and tested - PAN fine, TILT fine, Shutter fine, vide downlink fine. Time to get some height. Another problem with Capstone is its proximity to Rochester Airport, so we are limited to 100 feet, just enough to get out of the worst turbulence. The final problem is that it is just fields, there is nothing there to photograph - or so I thought.

Up above the hedgerow that separates the event field from the barbecue field and with the camera pointing towards the barbecue field there were a group of cars in the far corner.



You can see the full size picture by clicking on it. So after a successful first flight, time to pack everything away and prepare for the trip to Berck festival and the WWKW.