s800, wkm, still cameras

schwett

Member
i'm not sure if an s800 qualifies as a "build..." but here's mine.


this is my first MC. other than a little fun, my only purpose is to take high resolution still aerial photography. not too interested in video, fpv, all that, although you never know where these things will take you.


i'm a bit of a camera/lens nut and have a lot of hardware to choose from, but the setup i planned the build around is lifting the nikon d800e with the 28 f/1.8 lens. the lens is fairly light, is a good balance between wide and too wide, and the resolution of the camera and performance at high ISO allow for cropping and shooting at dawn/dusk (along with f/1.8.)


i picked up a closeout s800, a wkm, two 5000mah 6s 40c lipo batteries, and a futaba t8j. it's been years since i touched anything remote controlled and honestly i had not done all that much research.


it all went together fairly easily. some immediate changes i made -


1 added an extra s800 battery tray to balance them completely
2 replaced the standard led with the bluetooth led
3 added the vibration isolation kit from the evo - although i havent moved the IMU
4 connected a camranger wifi remote module i already had for camera control in some situations


then i made a couple variations on a custom camera mount, the only parameters being to allow adjustability on the ground and keep the CG dead center. no gimbals, no moving parts, just a tube and some 3d printed fittings.


the first version of the mount was much too far forward and too low (actually touching the ground on landing.) initial test flights were with a fuji x-e1 or x-a2 rather than the heavier, more expensive d800e.


20131209_mountA.jpg



here's the next to latest version with the fuij:


6631-s800mount-2048.jpg



and with the d800e:


4719-mount-2048.jpg



4743-cameraMount-2048.jpg



4735-clamp-2048.jpg



once it's painted black it will look much better......... although i have a completely different design in the works now which will add better adjustability and a one axis gimbal on needle bearings.


here's the camranger for now:


4723-camRanger-2048.jpg



once i get the next version of the camera mount made, it'll have a custom place under the camera with it's wifi antenna side pointing down, and i'll get a much shorter (black!) usb cable.


i attached a spare iphone case to a plastic bar which i then velcroed to the back of the t8j. i think i need to move it up a few inches since it sort of interferes with the stick where it is - but it's easy to take a peek, tap to focus, and tap to capture or start interval shooting.


i had more trouble than i expected installing the dampeners.


4729-dampener-2048.jpg



you have to put them all together untightened to get the alignment just right, but by the time i'd gotten all six of them in that state the loctite had dried for the earlier ones. the one pictures is nicely aligned but some of the others are crooked. i also stripped the receiver on one of the lower l-shaped pieces. grrr


current configuration, without batteries.


4753-s800-2048.jpg



with batteries, before i moved the LED, and with the X-E2.


6401-multiCopter-2048.jpg



i don't yet know how much of a problem vibration will be. shutter speeds are in the 1/4000 to 1/8000 second range, which i would have thought would essentially eliminate it, but the images are just slighlty soft still. might be a focus problem and might be motion.


this is an overall image from this morning - resized to 2048 pixels.


7118-juliusKahnTest-2048.jpg



and this is a crop of the far left, resized to 9MP (half the linear resolution).


7118-juliusKahnTest-c1-600.jpg



far right


7118-juliusKahnTest-c2-600.jpg
 

schwett

Member
and some shots i've taken on my test flights. these are all with the x-e1 or x-e2 and image quality isn't quite there.


4152-fortMasonAerial-2048.jpg



4222-oldenburg-2048.jpg



4213-bayBridgeAerial-1024.jpg



4298-mosconeAerial-2048.jpg



next step is the improved mount / partial gimbal.... and learning how to fly better. ;)
 

schwett

Member
and here's the mount which is printing now, assembled:

newMount.jpg


and showing the series of parts that contain the needle bearing. my hope is that with everything trimmed perfectly to get the camera COG on the axes of the bearing, the weight of the camera will keep it level by gimbal action. we'll see!

exploded showing the various parts that snap/weld together to contain the bearing

newMountExploded.jpg
 

Jaybeast

Member
Nice build and documentation! Looks like you're in the Bay Area.. I'm in north bay and would like to join any uav meet ups. Know of any?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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