This is pretty awesome. I’m guessing they have some problems with vibrations though. I’ll wager that’s what the bungee cord is for. Note that the bungee cord changes at least 3 times (2 configurations + 1 w/o bungee).

RC helicopters are really fucking stupid. You need an absolute windless day to fly them as any little bit of wind will crash it unless you like spending many many thousands on one. Not only that but they are extremely hard to fly and one crash and the whole system is screwed. Have fun trying to perfectly balance the camera on it and dealing with extremely sensitive electronics where the smallest mistake and its all gone.

On the other you can buy any $150 brushless electric lipo airplane, slap on a camera and you have over 40 minutes of flight time which can go much higher and navigate in much harsher conditions than a helicopter. Not only that but they are extremely resistant and you have to really try to permanently break it. True you can’t hover like a helicopter, but they go so slow (~15mph) and are so maneuverable it doesn’t matter.

@kirov: Troll Harder!

Pretty cool! A Canon 7D is certainly not light and I imagine it takes a toll on the helicopter’s lifting ability. Also, the copter looks sturdy enough to withstand mild crashes…I’d really like to have/build one of these.

My on private UAV!

Here’s a video from another guy doing aerial video stuff…

http://vimeo.com/8322855

It has pink feet. I’m just sayin’

LOL You can now own Blue Thunder Jr. I wonder how long it will take The Man to realize what a threat things like this are.

I hope it’s easier to fly than a regular RC helicopter… Regular ones are too easy to crash catastrophically, and that’s not something I’d want to do with an expensive camera onboard.

Wow. Steve, you’re right. HaD has been had. ;p

Anyone else think this guy sounded like an incredibly annoying, pretentious jack*ss? I could totally see him leaning against a 1998 Camero he had supercharged himself saying something like “Yeah, I blow the 911s and bimmers off the line all the time.”

Samsung, yeah I thought so too. Obvious attitude and comes off as a douchebag. “Crashing is not an option” haha? ha???

if you want aerial photography it is easier, and cheaper with something like a goprohd and a brushless rc chopper.

a couple links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRH3G_B-V0o
http://vimeo.com/9504388

I recently got a goprohd and it is an amazing little HD camera that can take a pounding.

I would never ever ever ever ever put THAT camera on a FLYING contraption of any sort. Jesus. Just imagine a freak just of wind or a rogue kite taking down a camera worth 4 zeros. Gives me the chills gentlemen.

Why are so many people flaming helicopters, i bet none have you have flown a decent sized heli like a trex 600 or bigger, they are very stable and just take some hand eye coordination to fly! even on a gusty day i can still hover in one spot no problem and have no problems with swaying +the trex can lift up to 20lb’s

kirov, you can use a plane but you can’t hover in one place. plus you need a runway to take off and land. Unless you use some thing very small with a cheap lightweight camera, which will degrade your quality and be very unstable anyways. You also can fly a rc heli with winds and keep it stable. If you had watched the video and had any knowledge of rc helicopters he’s using a flybarless stabilization system. This keeps the rc heli locked in place barely any drift even in heavy winds. This RC heli in the video has 3 gyros to keep it stable. He still has a lot of work to do controlling it and can not do both aim the camera and control the heli, but with two people this is easily done. I have a few friends of mine that take aerial photography using a trex 700 and the shots are amazing. also full 360 shots can be taken, but you can’t do that from an rc plane.

@rilopez:

you obviously have no idea what RC planes are capable of, you can get ones taht are extremely stable and have extraordinary thrust to weight ratio, far greater than a helicopter of the same size could have. You don’t need a runway for many such setups – you can either hand launch them or get a simple portable catapult system, landing them will work in any field.

@Orv they’ll just call up the insurance company and say, “Uh, yeah, I dropped it.”

“From a 1000 feet.” lol

The product seems cool, but the guy is a giant douche, I feel like he is trying to rape me or something in that video. Stop raping me Eric!

Not very original hackaday. This has been done near infinite amount of times, on many better, more stable platforms.

My personal favorite project like this is the Mikrokopter Hexakopter, which is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvH2f-AewX8

Admittedly, he’s likely an expert pilot, but just wait for him to put it on autopilot. Their platform is astonishingly powerful, as well as altitude and positions holding auto.

Wouldn’t be a huge stretch to program in flight paths, and to scale the airframe up for larger payloads, I suspect.