Taking a stab at Kite Aerial Photography – or let’s just call it KAP – was quite fun. Especially after I added a pair of gloves to my KAP equipment. You know that kite line can be pretty rough with your hands when the wind’s picking up! ?
Many years ago I bought the pieces for a KAP-rig online, but I never got around to use it until earlier this year. I put it all together on the kitchen table, and soon I was ready to give it a go.
My first attempt wasn’t too much to brag about. Offshore and dying winds didn’t make for the best conditions, but I did get a handful of shots. The next go, however, the result turned out much better! This time the wind was a good 7m/sec and pretty stable to and the Rokkaku lifting the KAP-rig pretty steadily. I got quite a few reasonably stable video clips.
I’ve been using both my video camera and my mobile phone for filming and I am pretty satisfied with the result. But still, I was kind of struggling with video stability. Despite reasonably steady winds, a working picavet KAP-rig and a stable flying kite the video became really unstable at times, not looking good at all.
So…. What to do?
Off course, one option is to install some kind of a gimbal, but after some searching on the Internet, I couldn’t find a gimbal that would be a good choice for Kite Aerial Photography. Too big, too heavy, too bulky. I had to look elsewhere for other options.
While googling for alternatives I found this little video…
…and it really sparked my interest! I started to find out more about the GoPro Hero 7 Black and its Hypersmooth feature. Was it as good as the hype? Was it a gimbal-killer? Could it be the solution for my Kite Aerial Photography?
After reading a LOT about the action camera and the Hypersmooth feature and watching a TON of YouTube videos I was convinced, and when the new GoPro 9 was released recently, the prices on the Hero 7 Black dropped significantly overnight so I bought one!
I did also read a lot about what accessories would be useful for bot general use and taking photos or video from a kite and I landed on a few additions.
First of all, the camera needs power so I followed the advice from the reviews to get more batteries and a triple battery charger.
I also ordered a couple of GoPro tripod adapters som I can mount the GoPro camera to my KAP-rig.
Finally I also ordered a safety string, just in case something should go wrong leading to the camera to pop out of its mount.
So now I just have to wait for that little parcel being deliverd at my doorstep and hope for decent winds this weekend.
So stay tuned for more soon!