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Monthly Archives: August 2010

Aerial Photography – Canon SD500 – Trainer

Friday, August 20, 2010


I recently have been playing around with doing some R/C plane aerial photography.    I have an old .40 size trainer that I electrified a couple years ago.  It is fairly light for a big (60″ wingspan) trainer.  I have a AXI 2826 with a 3S 4400 battery that will push 700 watts into a 12 x 7 prop.   It will float around nicely, but I have enough watts to go vertical if needed.

I built a simple plywood mount for the Canon SD500, and mounted a servo above it so that I could control the shutter from a switch on my radio.  I am still working on getting all the bugs out, and I have recently installed CHDK to try and get a faster shutter speed.  I will post more about those experiments later.

This first shot is a picture after the plane made an unexpected landing in a soy-bean field.  Also shows the camera mount with servo nicely.

.40 Trainer with a AXI 2826 and camera mount

This is a shot of my house, I am also in this picture, but very small!

Lisbon, MD from the Air

A view of Mt Airy, MD, the water tower in the middle is about four miles away from where this was taken.
Mt Airy, MD from the Air

A view looking South-West, in this picture you can see SugerLoaf Mountain, and to the right the mountains past Frederick, MD.
Suger Loaf Mountain and beyond

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Pictures from Above the Clouds

Friday, August 20, 2010

Last year I spent a lot of time flying between Baltimore and Tampa on Southwest Airlines. So much that I was an A-List member, which sadly I no longer am, although that is a different story…

I found myself often flying back from Tampa just as the sun was setting to the West, I saw some amazing sunsets, many through the broken clouds of a summer thunderstorm.  At some point, I started bringing my Canon SD870 IS along and snapping some pictures out the window.  Even with the Plexiglas, I was able to get some surprisingly good shots.  Here are a couple of my favorites.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds
Above the Clouds

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
Pictures from an Airplane

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Dramatic Sunset above the clouds

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Cold Fire on The Discovery Channel, Put a Hex on You!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Wow, the second season of Pitchmen aired last night on the Discovery Channel®, without Billy Mays (RIP).  This year the show will be hosted by Andrew “Sully” Sullivan, and the first two main products that got the spotlight were Cold Fire® and Hex Light®.

Cold Fire™ is an environmentally friendly fire extinguishing agent that puts out ANY fire faster, safer, with less water, less damage to property, and less risk to firefighters. Cold Fire cools 21 times faster than water, and works to remove heat and the fuel sources from the fire tetrahedron, preventing re-ignition.  The Cold Fire fire extinguisher was used on Sully, after he lit himself on fire, and as expected, Cold Fire worked to put the fire out on Sullivan.

During test marketing the product sold nearly 1 million units according to Pitchmen, so it certainly seems that people are excited about Cold Fire.  As the show explained, this is not really a new product, it is  just being pitched in a new way.

HexLight was the second product featured, it is a LED flashlight that is worn around the wrist or forearm, so that both of your hands can be free.  What you end up with is a battery operated hands free flashlight that ingeniously beams a surprising strong burst of light in the direction the wearers hand is pointing.

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Return of Blue Meanie – HD Video on SmugMug

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

I have been a long-time user of SmugMug Photo service, they were the best when I first started to look for an online photo gallery, and they still are. For $40 a year, you get unlimited storage AND they store all of you original photos (no reduced image quality and resolution like free sites). A great new feature is their ability to store and play-back HD quality video. My wife and I bought a Sony HD camcorder a couple years back, and it is great to now be able to load them on to the Interwebs and have them viewable from anywhere. Here is a video we made of old Blue Meanie several years ago as he went after his dinner.

To see the above content in pure HD glory, click on the full screen button on the bottom right, and then pick HD On.

Some more SmugMug highlights:

* – Integrated sharing on Facebook, Twitter, via email and a growing list of other services
* – Mobile Apps for iPad, iPhone and Android
* – No ads or promotions surrounding your photos
* – We keep original, full resolution photos, unlike other sites
* – Full-screen slideshows and HD Video playback
* – Real, knowledgeable & friendly humans to answer your emails quickly
* – Add photos from Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, Picasa, and other popular programs

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