Aerial filming using a video camera and helium balloons

An experiment. A video camera was attached to some large helium balloons and sent off into the sky to film the neighbourhood. It's a bit jerky but some of the footage is pretty good.

It was all attached to a ball of string to allow control of ascent and descent. If I did it again, I'd use a fishing rod reel so I could get a much smoother ascent - the ball of string method was too jerky.

If there was a better way to control direction, it would be an excellent way to achieve amateur aerial video. It was a good experiment anyway.

For anyone interested, the song used is 'Up, up and away (in my beautiful balloon)' by Fifth Dimension. No Copyright Infringement Intended.

Votes and comments welcome. Thanks.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• helium
• balloon
• cam
• aerial
• photography
• video
• sky
• air
• fly
• flying
• camcorder
• flight
• budget

[heyifixit]

Neat = if you ever do it again use two fishing real out in a ball field =move apart and you could direct the view..+ if one brakes you have a back - up..

cu

[rspratt]

@heyifixit Neat idea!

[ivandjones]

Thanks for posting... just bought a tank of helium to have a play... looks pretty high up - how much string did you let out?

[rspratt]

@ivandjones I'm glad to hear you are having a go. I would guess that we probably got it to about 700 or 800 feet. We did have plenty more string to let out but we started worrying that to were getting 'too high' so we pulled it in again. With hindsight, I wish we'd carried on. It was a fairly still day so I think it would have been fine to continue. As I've said in the description for the video, I would definitely use a fishing reel next time, for a much smoother ascent.

[locolopelocolope]

Great idea !

And some of the images are really good. I think that keeping it stable must be the most complicated part of the job.

[rspratt]

@locolopelocolope You're right - keeping it stable was the hardest (impossible?) part. How DO you stop it swaying about? Any ideas, anyone? Some complex gyro system? I think perhaps you'd need to consider using remote control helicopter instead for that, assuming they can go up that high.

[YKPAIHA82]

The song is gay! lol

[militaryminded85]

can someone try this on fireworks night?...i think you'd get some pretty amazing footage of fireworks that high up...commence thumbing me up now lol

[mick55]

@YKPAIHA82 Your Gay... The Song Is A Classic! *sLaP! PUNK!

[V3Parkour]

Just imagining how funny it would be if a bird flew into the camera.

[neutrinonerd3333]

@rspratt umm what rope/string/line did u use? and btw simply use three lines, attach them to a styrofoam block, make it hollow and cut a hole on the bottom so the camera can see through. seal the box and attach the balloons on top (one rope = all directions sway, two rope= forward backward sway, three rope = no sway, assuming u keep the line taut)

[TheWwweee]

bad song

[satweavers]

I'm about to try this. I'm putting my camera on something like a weather vane and hope this prevents the camera from twirling around too much.

[heyifixit]

@rspratt Neat = if you ever do it again use two fishing real out in a ball field =move apart and you could direct the view..+ if one brakes you have a back - up..

cu

[sealsearcher]

that was brilliant - thx for the ride :)

[imback218]

shit if it touched that power line you would've been dead