Aerial Photography Systems

Aerial Photography from Airships or Blimps is a lucrative business opportunity. The blimps can take a camera to positions otherwise unobtainable, without considerable expense or effort. While cranes or poles can lift cameras up to 50 feet, helicopters and aircraft are generally limited to fly above 500 feet. The photography blimps fill the void over the cranes and below the aircraft; this is often the key altitude to get THE photograph.

Aerial Photography Solution (399KB)

Aerial Photography Service (443KB)

The operation of the tethered photography blimps is generally done on light wind days, wind up to 10 knots. Experienced operators can often operate the blimps in winds that exceed 20knts dependant on terain.

Once the blimps are removed from their trailer, or inflated onsite they are easy to walk around building sites, properties or other to obtain photographs from different angles and altitudes. The photographs obtained from the blimps are generally always superior to those taken from aircraft, because you can put the camera close to the subject, providing increased detail, with a wide angle view behind the subject.

Airship Solutions manufacture three complete aerial photography solutions these are Small, Standard and Large. The three solutions suit compact Camera's, light bodied Camera's and heavy bodied cameras. A compact camera is considered a Non-SLR camera generally weighin less than 1lbs, a light camera is one that's weighs less than 3 pounds (1.36kg), where a heavy camera system is one that weighs more the 3 pounds.

We classify all standard digital cameras as light bodied cameras, as well as the following Digital SLR systems Nikon D50,D60, D70,D80, D100, D200, D300 or Canon 400D(Rebel XT),450D, 10D, 20D, 30D, 40D, 5D and equivalent in other brands as light bodied cameras.

The following professional series Digital SLR cameras are considered heavy body cameras, Nikon D1, D2x, D2h, D3 or Canon 1D, 1Ds and equivalent in other brands. The bodies on these cameras with lenses generally weigh more the 3lbs. Each aerial photography solution has three parts: The blimp - used to lift the camera and gimbal The gimbal - A pan/tilt mechanism used to accurately maneuver the camera to take the photograph The ground station – Used to control camera's gimbal and view the image from the ground

The camera gimbals frame is made from Carbon Fiber and is gauranteed to last. We use custom microcontrollers to trigger the cameras that work either via the camera's external trigger port of via infrared. No modifications are required to any camera to operate within our housing.

The camera's pan action is smooth and fast, while the tilt action is incredibly acurate.

Aerial Photograph Example (5.2MB) Aerial Photography Example (22.53MB)

The complete aerial photography solution includes the “aerial photography solution” and a custom trailer.