Photographer Rigs An iPhone 4 To Helium Balloons To Take HD Videos
Here is a nice concept to compete with Kite Arieal Photography, Helicopter rigged cameras and very long pole photography.
A bunch of curious DIYers at Los Angeles rigged an iPhone 4 to a set of helium balloons that helped it rise about 1000 feet and take 720p videos of Los Angeles.
The footage is displayed below, while it is not perfect, and kinda shaky, there is also a valuable BTS. Hit the Just for some behind the scenes and my notes of the video
here is the behind the scenes video that they took (probably to have some memory in case that iPhone would never be seen again). There are lots of good pointers in the BTS.
0:27 - here comes the motivation for using the iPhone - it is light and small. Same thing I was thinking when doing the skateboard dolly.
0:39 - god check out the wall behind, all the guitar goodies you'll ever want.
1:48 - the rig explained. Below the balloons there is a rig, it functions to add some stability and most importantly it keep the iPhone parallel to the ground at all times.
2:19 - iPhone is hooked to rig. One small piece of gaff tape. Brave!
2:42 - Tower is getting close to the balloons. So kicking off from a roof is a good idea since it lets you avoid all the lower clutter like telephone posts and electrical wires, but it also limits how far you can move your balloon.
2:49 - Drill used to roll the massive amounts of wire back. Nice.
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Comments
uh?
Great idea, Crap results. Nil points.
Of course, it has to be an iPhone4 ...
I guess there is no possible way you could do something like that with, say, a $100 compact camera. Way to sell 720p video as a high-end feature, Apple.
Why Iphone 4!
why mount a couple hundred dollars iphone4 (not sure the price in US, but price here in china is way more, we are talking about over 1.2k USD here... because it is not released yet. all grey market stuff)
could have done the same by mounting a 200 dollar Flip.
steadycam
do you reckon the images would be steadier if you somehow weighted and gimballed the iphone similar to a steadycam. you just have to have enough balloons to create lift to overcome the weight.
T1i on Balloons
I actually did this with my T1i--took seven three foot balloons to get it off the ground. Tethered it with fishing line, which in retrospect, I should have had a backup line. After a few launches filming at 720p, the wind picked up and dragged the balloons over the top of our apartment, getting the line caught on a vent or pipe on the roof as winds shook the camera all around pretty roughly. Thankfully my wife managed to get it down after about twenty minutes, and I have now been banned from buying large helium balloons for "projects". :-P
Originally I was going to run a 100ft shutter cable up with the camera (made out of a telephone line), but I had some issues with it shorting out, and daylight was wasting so I just shot video.
Here's the camera going up:
re: T1i
This is pretty amazing. you get point for courage regardless of results.
How much did the helium cost
How much did the helium cost for the three 3' balloons? Last I checked it was expensive. What were your costs?
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