Octocopter Footage

[gregtee]

There's a couple of guys I work with who've assembled an eight rotor remote helicopter.  They've taken it to various locations around the country and flown it around filming things.  Mounted to it are two cameras, one small one for the operator of the copter to see where he's going and other is a Canon 5D mkIII, which also has a live feed which is operated by the other guy. 

Check out the footage if you get a chance.  There's some great landscape photography in it.

http://vimeo.com/83892257

Here's some stuff they shot at El Porto Beach of a bunch of guys surfing as well:

http://vimeo.com/85087747

-greg

[Matt]

Cool. What sort of altitude do you think this could fly to, if it weren't limited by radio range, i.e. it could fly autonomously up to X thousand feet and return the point it started from?

Matt

[yossam]

First one is great............and the music was perfect for the footage. 

[gregtee]

If it could be programmed to run on it's own and the FAA didn't place limitations on it it could probably as high as it's battery pack allowed it to.  The guy who flies it says it could go as high as air density would allow, assuming you had battery life to do it.

[Dune]

People are using these things more and more (even got a company in my 3000 inhabitants village) and if I weren't hooked to TG, I would buy one. It's terrific work. They use them here to monitor populations of animals, e.g.

[otakar]

Fantastic footage. They must have absolute confidence in the sturdiness of this rig. Would not want to lose this camera (and the copter).

This allows for impossible shots that you would otherwise need to hire an expensive heli or small plane for. Opens up all new possibilities for amateur movies. The kind of stuff I'd like to dabble in post-retirement.

Thanks for the links. I wonder if they have posted some more info on the craft.

[gregtee]

Go to Vimeo, type El Porto Surfing in the search bar and then look for videos from Steve Galle.  He's got some stuff up of early development and how they made the rig.

-greg