5d on a RC helicopter

Last weekend mounted the 5D mkII to a RC helicopter build originally for still photography. We shot video.

Used Canon 17-35mm 2.8 lens and the video looks great. Copter still has some work to do on shake stabilizing, had to run the footage thru smooth cam -plugin in FCP. Will put some video here when finished editing.

Cool.

Looking forward to seeing the video. Do you think an IS lens such as the 24-105 would have helped? Too heavy?

How does one go about using one of these copters? Is it a straight rental, or do they usually require pro operators to come with them?

Up to now for aerial video I've always gone up in a Cessna or helicopter with a pilot, because the price isn't that bad for an hour or two. But it'd be great to have all day to experiment and do multiple takes.

IS lens could have helped, did not have one available. These things come with two pilots, other is controlling the copter and other pan and tilt of the camera. I've been flying smaller RC heli's as a hobby and they're very hard to control. Takes easily few years of training before willing to put thousands of bucks worth of camera gear on one.

Rent is about 1/2 of a cessna or small heli, but the main advantage being that you can fly very low and near the subject. We used this one as kind of a virtual crane, and made passes just 1,5 meters on top of the subject.

(pictured here - the mandatory heavy metal guitar solo shot)

And you say this RC heli rental is in Estonia? How much does it cost?
We have about five enthusiasts here who will buy one or rent one occasionally if the price isn´t that bad.
Did the footage held up in regards of jellovision/rolling shutter?

Cheers,
Tõnis

Yes it's in Estonia.
http://helicam.ee/
Rolling shutter was not an issue for us.

Only thing was that that their copter anti-vibration system is not yet good enough, and camera vibration combined with lots of light (snow and sunlight) and fast shutter time made the smooth cam -plugin stabilization look bit strange time to time and had to play with motion blur on FCP to make it look more natural. IS lens could have maybe helped. Definitely will have another go with this copter. Crew was very professional and friendly.

It seems I have to wait for the official release next week before I can post some video samples.

-ville

[ralph-FR]

Great ! keep us posted !

So here is the video - sorry to expose you to finnish pop music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpQbnmO4b3U

Helicam 5D shots are at:
2:05
2:44
3:06

There is quite a lot of small shake when seen as HD especially, so the system still lacks bit on the stabilization, maybe small gyro would do.

Otherwise shot with RED one + stedicam. Budget less than 5000 €. Out of curiosity I did some of the stedicam shots with 5D also, when have more time I try to edit them together so we can have a little comparison of the image quality.

I get this error message:

"This video is not available in your country. "

Im from denmark. :/

I get this error message:

"This video is not available in your country. "

Im from denmark. :/

Yes yes, the twits of Sony BMG Finland just put regional limit on the youtube videos from their artists. eh. but here is the Vimeo link:
http://vimeo.com/3916894

Sorry no no, nice twits, good good multicorporalnational Sony BMG, please please keep on paying my bills.

... and here is vimeo clip with just the aerial footage with less pop soundtrack

http://vimeo.com/4047141