Equipment

Geoscience and Environment

Equipment

To see larger images please click on the photos

The Kite

The Kite I use is a Sutton Flowform 16. This is a soft kite that flies well in moderate winds. I use a 5-meter tail for stability. The kite line is 225-pound (100 kg) braided Dacron. This line strength is far greater than the pull of the kite, but it allows a safety factor for wear and tear and also for reduced strength caused by knotting. Kite-flying in Malaysia is a national sport, so the fact that the locals are impressed by the Sutton attests to the high quality of its materials and construction. This kite rates a BEST-BUY.

The Rig

I bought a basic kit from Brooks Lefler. (See Acknowledgments.) The kit is well made and the instructions are easy to follow. I made a few modifications as described in the linked page.

The Suspension

The camera rig is suspended from the kite line using a Picavet, named after its inventor. Most Picavet systems now are modified versions of the original. The version I used is very close to that described by Brooks Leffler in The Aerial Eye 1:4. Essentially, the movement of the lines through the pulleys is restricted by a cord-lock (brooxes horizon helper™). The vibration damper was described by Craig wilson in The Aerial Eye 1:4.

Miscellaneous Gear

Some additional gear is needed for safe-handling the equipment. The first photo (below) shows a spar with a ring, a cleat and eyebolt with thick nylon line. (Click the image for details.)

The second image (below) is from a work-in-progress, construction of a winder inspired by a reel called Strato-Spool, which used to be sold by Into The Wind, a supplier of kites and equipment (http://www.intothewind.com/).(Click the image for details.)

See the images of equipment provided by James and Susam Aber. Image of the Strato-Spool. (Great Plains Aerial Photography (equipment page). Thumbnail is about 3/4 down the page.).

The third image (below) gives some construction details.

Discussion
This was the author's second attempt at kite flying. (The first was a few days earlier.) Most of the photos were spoiled by improper aiming of the camera caused by inept use of the radio controls or by camera movement. Practice is needed to improve kite and camera handling skills. Unfortunately, in northwest Peninsular Malaysia there are not many windy days at this time of the year.
All photos shown are from third roll of 36-exposure film, since the first 72 exposures contained nothing of interest. Three factors seem to affect the quality of the photos. First, the film and shutter speed must be fast enough to cope with light conditions. The Olympus MJU-I that I am using has a range up to 1/500 second and /16. The first roll I shot was on ISO 200 film. This means that with a cloudless sky the shutter speed would be 1/250. The blurring visible in the photos caused me to switch to ISO 400 film, which would give 1/500 with a cloudless sky, probably sufficient to give sharp photos. However, I thought the blurring might have been increased by vibration of the line. So I used rubber rings to cut down vibration, as proposed by Craig Wilson (The Aerial Eye 1:4). My next experiment will be to use Fuji's Superia X-TRA ISO 800 film when the sky is a little cloudy. A better solution would be to switch to the MJU-II and ISO 800 film, to get 1/1000 second on a bright cloudless day.

Films
Modern film technology has reduced the visibility of grain. As a result, a modern film with ISO 800 may be no more grainy than a typical ISO 100 film of 1975.
While tests showed that Kodak's consumer film was grainer than its competitors' consumer films, Kodak's professional film, Portra 800 was comparable. "... Fujifilm's Superia X-TRA. It resolved 51 lp/mm compared to the next closest film's 45 lp/mm. This difference is clearly visible in magnifications of the negatives with a 4X loupe. The shocker? Fuji Superia 1600 stomped all the 800-speed films with the exception of Superia X-TRA.". (Peter Kolonia, Popular Photography, February 2000.)
The resolutions cited by Kolonia's review indicate that the days of fast 35mm film may be numbered, because the gap in resolution, compared to digital cameras is closing. The decline in the demand for film is indicated by the fact that the fastest slide film I can find in Penang is ISO 100. Slide film faster than ISO 100 has to be specially ordered in bulk from Singapore. One dealer told me that sales of slide film have dropped by 90% since only a few years ago.

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