Wilfred Taylor Reserve

KAP Report

The breeze was almost too light for the big Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite, but plenty of kite aerial photography (KAP) images were taken from high above the grass.

The perspective was so high in fact, that the horizon was well above the top of an enormous tree just across the road from the reserve.

Weather

The panoramic photo below shows the almost cloudless sky and Wilfred Taylor Reserve in Morphett Vale, from the kite flyer's perspective.

On arrival, the wind was quite light from the south but seemed enough to get the kite up at least. The temperature was still fairly warm in the late afternoon. Only weak thermal lift was about, which suited aerial photography just fine!

The wind meter recorded a 2.5 kph average (with a gust to 11.3 kph) near the ground—and somewhat sheltered from the prevailing breeze.

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Equipment

Lifter: The ever-reliable Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite, over there in the ...  photo. Oops, I forgot to take the inflight photos this time!

Try my e-book, Making Dowel Kites, for instructions on how to make your own cheap but large kites for KAP.

KAP Rig: Bamboo-skewer tetrahedron with plastic camera-sleeve, suspended from a half-Picavet line. The camera was pointed upwind.

Camera: Pentax Optio WG-2 with built-in intervalometer. Some settings were optimized for KAP, while others are yet to be tweaked.

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Images

Click on the thumbnail images below to see them much larger:

 

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Flight Report

Down at the reserve, I swung into action with my standard routine—panoramic shots of the reserve, laying out line, and attaching the rig to the flying line. Then it was time to rig the kite and launch. This all went to plan, and soon the camera was into its pocket, up in the air, and counting down to take its first shot. Oh yes, and infinity focus was set.

Was everything perfect? Well, not quite—I had forgotten to take any inflight shots of the kite before lifting off the camera in the rig.

Also, the kite had run out of puff just as I had finished securing the camera into the cradle. So, some minutes were spent relaunching the kite. Despite the camera taking its first 10 shots of the nearest tree at a crazy angle from ground level, the remaining shots showed the viewpoint climbing away to about 250 feet.

With less than optimal wind-speeds, the big Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite struggled to maintain a 45-degree line angle. But the occasional mild gust did get the camera nice and high with the kite on 120 meters (400 feet) of line.

Next up was supposed to be the video run. Unfortunately, the camera ended up taking an 8-minute clip of the sky and the occasional bird flying past while I tried to relaunch the kite. The breeze had died further and KAP requires you to fly on a relatively short line for at least a few moments while the rig is prepared. Hence you can't resort to pulling the kite up on a long line!

 

 

 

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