Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Broke my camera but not during KAP

After three years of participating in kite aerial photography and taking thousands and thousands of photos, my camera took a plummet and broke. But it wasn't while flying from my kite.

Actually my wife and I were on a river cruise boat. The camera, with strap around my wrist, slipped from my hand, smacked against the boat railing and broke. So now I have to get a replacement in order to get my KAP off the ground again. Looking forward to it.

For those who may be worried about damaging your camera while flying it from a kite, don't. First of all, I have a 9 foot delta kite. When there's not enough wind to fly I can feel the slack in the line and know it won't lift the camera. When the wind is to strong, I know it also by feel. The range of wind speeds good for flying is fairly wide so it's rare to not be able to.

Once I get the kite above the tops of the trees it will fly steady. Then I attach my camera and rig and release more line. I never have any problems or worries about keeping it up in the air. Only once in a while will I see the camera slowly start descending. When this happens I just pull in the slack and the kite grabs the breeze again, pulling the camera back up.

Have a nice flight.