Bristol past its peak

The beautiful $2.00 squid kite was a little overwhelmed by the gusty wind.

We flew three different kites over the New Haven River on October 18, but it was too gusty to put a camera on the line. When I returned on the 21st it was still a little gusty, but the top wind speed was about half of what it was, so I lofted the Saturn V Rig under the Fled kite. Twenty minutes into the flight, the kite settled for a few minutes and I was able to get one complete cycle of 25 photos that stitched into a spherical panorama. The peak color of the sugar maples was past, but there are a lot of sugar maples around Bristol, and the scene was still spectacular. When I got home from this KAP session it was raining, and the rain barely stopped for 48 hours, so I was lucky to capture this moment before lots of leaves faded and dropped.

Assembling the nine foot Levitation delta. We also tried the seven foot PFK Nighthawk which handled the wind fine but the wind was too unpredictable to trust with a camera. Photo by Ellie.

The PowerShot S100 on a Saturn V Rig snapped this shot during the launch for a 40 minute flight when I returned on October 21.

Stereographic projection of a spherical panorama stitched from 21 photos captured by a PowerShot S100 on a Saturn V Rig over the New Haven River in Vermont.

Above is the same 360° panorama with a spherical projection in an interactive viewer. Mouse around or zoom in. to view it full screen, click the icon at lower right.

Flight notes: 

Camera:

• Model: PowerShot S100
• ISO: 80
• Shutter speed: 1/800 second (Tv)
• Focus: manual on infinity
• Focal length: 24mm (eq.)
• White balance: Sunny
• GPS: on

Rig:

• Saturn V Rig (pan/tilt servos)

CHDK:

• Remote enabled: one push, quick
• The S100 has a shutter priority mode so CHDK is not needed for that

SkyShield:

• Version: 2.4 (3-switch DIP)
• Sketch: version 2.08sfm (beta)
• Mode: Mode 0 (for 24 mm lens, 4 tilt angles, 25 photos/cycle)
• Power: 6 eneloop AAA
• Customization: The nadir tilt angle was changed from 20 to 11 so the camera was pointed straight down.

Flight:

• Kite: FLED
• Wind: From S, 9 to 13 mph
• Duration: 40 minutes
• Photos taken: 829

Panorama stitching:

• Software: Microsoft ICE
• Post processing: Some stitching errors in the little planet panorama were hidden in Photoshop, and some areas of overexposure were darkened. Panoramas at Photosynth cannot be passed through Photoshop so what you see there is what Microsoft ICE produced.