• Quite an operation: pumpkins, corn maze, petting zoo, mini-pumpkin slingshot, hay bale maze, hay rides, etc.
• I didn’t quite get the pictures I wanted – a view of the whole 35 acre party and a few pictures of just the corn maze.  I’m starting to think that real-time video of what the camera is seeing might be handy.
• I added a servo to the setup, which should have caused the rig to automatically pan left and right, for a total range of 180 degrees.  Not sure it worked though, mostly because I couldn’t get the screw connecting the servo to the rest of the rig tight enough – so the servo was rotating, but not really taking the rig with it.
• In spite of these difficulties, we got some pretty good pictures…

Linder Farms

Kite and Camera

Ben Flying the Kite

Ben Flying the Kite

Scarecrow 1

Scarecrow 2

Barn and Kite

Linder Farms

Linder Farms

Linder Farms

Linder Farms

Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkin Patch & Hay Rides

Corn Maze

Corn Maze

Kid's Train Ride

Linder Farms

Linder Farms - Mini Maze

Alonna (top left corner)

Tables and Shadows

Linder Farms

 

• Table Rock
  
• The new set up – a picavet suspension (Brooxes basic – $55 here).  It holds the camera steady and level.   As for the kite, now that the spreader spars are cut to the exact same length it flies high and steady.
  
• A view of Alonna and me hanging out
  
• Boise River and some rafters
  
• Canal split off point – the camera is looking straight down on those power lines…
  

However, a few points to consider:

• This kite is 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide.
• It’s called a Rokkaku.  Rok for short.
• It’s a Japanese fighter kite
• It can easily lift a camera for taking pictures
• It has an angry face on it.

A point of clarification: those are angry eyebrows not slanted eyes.  This is not a racist kite.

The whole thing started when I learned that the Rokkaku kite is more or less the ideal kite for kite aerial photography. They cost at least $100, but I found this site with plans for how to build your own. It sounded like a lot of fun.

Construction quickly fell prey to what I call “2x+1″ psychology, most commonly seen in building your own house or planning a wedding:

• 2x: Since we’re building a house anyway, let’s make it 2 stories.  Twice the square footage and it only costs a little bit more.
• +1: Since we’re building a house anyway, we might as well put in cherry cabinets and granite counter tops

In this case I decided that I might as well build an enormous kite if I was going to build a kite and I might as well put a design on it if I was going to go to all the trouble of making it.  Just like weddings and house construction it quickly got out of hand. I’m not sure how long it took to make it, but definitely longer than I expected.

Total cost was about $100, but only about $20 if I “prorate” it.  By that I mean that I have enough material and supplies left over to make another 3 rokkaku’s, a parachute, a tent, and several duffel bags.

Tuesday we finally had a chance to take it outside and fly it.  Initial flight attempts did not go well, the kite was totally unstable.  I believe the problem is that the top and bottom spreader spars are not precisely the same length.  Bowing them significantly mostly solved the problem for now.  Once that was taken care of, the kite took off into the air, pulling like a pack of horses.  We attached the camera and it didn’t even notice, just kept going up.  It’s a pretty cool feeling when you build something that actually works that well.

The camera setup:

I believe this type of photo is called an abstract.  Might make a nice wallpaper

Table Rock and the river.

My favorite kite photo so far, Boise River, downtown, and a bit of Table rock.  You can even see the little “waterfall” that’s so much fun when you float the river.  Very close to the Perfect Boise Picture I’ve been pursuing.

Not sure what the name of this canal is.  That’s us casting shadows

Oakmont subdivision

• If I’d angled the camera about 30 degrees to the left I would have gotten a great picture of table rock and the river – much closer to the “perfect picture” I was after. But I think this looks cool anyway.
  
• Apparently they’re growing something on the roof of this building.
  
• I really need to put together a suspension system so the pictures aren’t so blurry all the time.

We drove 7-hours Friday night and Saturday morning to get to Coeur d’Alene.  The drive was long, but really pretty – windy mountain roads, rivers and canyons, golden-colored wheat fields, and small towns.  After arriving, we had the afternoon in Coeur d’Alene, so we took out the kite to take some photos… you can see a few of those in Ben’s last post.  Here’s another good one, and also a photo of our reward after a long day of driving and kite-flying.

Later that evening we hiked around Tubbs Hill, a hill near downtown Coeur d’Alene which juts out into the lake

Sunday we had a full day in Coeur d’Alene and we wanted to see more of the lake.  So we rented Kayaks in the morning and paddled around.  We didn’t get very far – it was windy and the water was pretty choppy, plus it turns out that kayaking is tiring!  But we found a cute little beach to park at and eat lunch.  Here’s some photos from that adventure.

Later that evening we drove a scenic road around part of the lake, looking for something fun to do and photo opportunities.  At one pull-off, we found a beach full of perfect skipping rocks and we couldn’t resist…

At another pull-off we noticed a nice breeze… so we sent our kite up towing the camera.  If you haven’t flown a kite since you were a kid, I suggest trying it sometime.  It’s surprisingly fun!  The sun was low in the sky, so we got some pretty sky photos too.

We were also lucky to catch a beautiful sunset over the lake that night.

I’ll post about the rest of the trip soon – including photos from our bike ride!

-Alonna