Aerial Kite Photography

Nailing Your Camera To The Sky

Ever flown a kite or taken a photograph? Well, that's most of us isn't it! No wonder aerial kite photography holds such a fascination for so many people.

More correctly, it's known as Kite Aerial Photography, or KAP, which is less of a mouthful.

The photo over there shows a typical camera rig, hanging from the flying line of a large kite. Used with permission from the webmaster of a nice German kite site. Be aware there is no English text on the site. However, there are some interesting photo sequences on his KAP pages.

I was browsing around a KAP enthusiast's website the other day and he made an interesting point about what draws people to the hobby.

He theorized that it's part of our human nature to want to see things from an aerial perspective. To support this idea, he mentioned the fact that aerial views of cities and landscapes were sketched or painted long before any flying machine was invented!

The hobby of aerial kite photography got started in earnest around the mid 1980s. However, the very first examples of such photos date back to not long after photography itself was invented. Before digital cameras became cheap, or even existed at all, keen KAPers would willingly hoist many hundreds of dollars worth of photographic gear up under their kites in order to take high-quality panoramic pictures.

Back to fairly recent KAP now. The subject matter varies, with some out to capture interesting or historic scenes from the air. Maybe an unusual landscape with features that can only be seen from the air. Perhaps a famous castle or an interesting modern building complex. A photograph that really caught my eye was an air-to-air shot of another big flow-form kite at a kite festival. The flying kite takes up most of the frame, with the beach and ant-like crowd far below. This is a reversal of the usual 'people on the sand with kites far away in the sky'!



Looking around at some KAP images on the web, I found that many hobbyists have a fascination with photographing themselves from the kite while it is still very low.

Another quite common class of shot is the architectural view. Nice buildings from unusual angles in other words! Or perhaps spectacular buildings, extremely old buildings, buildings in magnificent settings. And so on. It's all open to a lot of creativity.

Others are even more creative and try hard to make artistic statements with their best pictures. For example, a collection of brightly colored sailing boat sails on the beach, with the boats themselves largely hidden. Sometimes, fish-eye lenses are used to good effect, and filters can completely alter the tone of the scene. The artistry matters more than the subject matter.

In late 2007, when this page was written, digital cameras are widely used in aerial kite photography. In fact, their use in KAP has pretty much stayed in step with their popularity with the general public. Initially, the cheaper cameras just couldn't take a decent picture compared to a 35mm film camera. As we all know, that is not the case now! A large and growing number of people world-wide are enthusiastically snapping digital pictures.

At the cheapest end of the scale, disposable cameras combined with ice triggers and balsa wood cradles enable small, cheap kites to be used. On the other hand, this approach allows bigger kites to take pictures in very gentle breezes which wouldn't allow heavier gear to stay airborne.

Some enthusiasts are after quality at any cost. Hence, they spend many hundreds of dollars on high-end cameras, radio-control gear and special equipment to suspend it aloft with a minimum of movement. Why the R/C gear? Well, the camera can be panned around to get the best shots, and the shutter clicked on command. While these are the 2 main functions, there could be others like switching settings on the camera.

Aerial Kite Photography - Some Highlights

Here's just a few of the more notable activities of these photo-artistic kite fliers:

A quite famous aerial photograph was taken from a kite in 1906, documenting the San Francisco earthquake. A KAP enthusiast named Scott Haefner did a re-shoot of this striking picture, close to its 100th anniversary.

A small group of experts known as Team Drachen made good use of some grant money by using KAP to document whale behavior. This took place at San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja, in Mexico.

The appeal and intrigue of aerial kite photography was enough to entice Discovery Channel, Canada, to do a video clip on the hobby in January, 2004.

In November, 2002 a 360-degree panorama of the San Andreas Fault was created from KAP images. Several other striking subjects got the 360 degree treatment as well.

Aerial Kite Photography - The Equipment

You've probably gathered by now that this hobby requires a kite, a flying line, and a camera. It might come as a surprise to learn that the camera is usually suspended from the flying line, not the kite itself. The advantage of this is that camera movement is damped somewhat, enabling more opportunities to get decent pictures. In other words, the camera doesn't move around in the air as much as the kite does.

Let's have a brief look at the gear that KAPers use.

The Kites

In theory, any moderately sized kite that flies can be used to raise a small weight, such as a camera. However, some are better than others for the purpose of taking pictures. For many KAPers, photography is the main thing and they want an easy, no-fuss, stable kite that can lift the required weight over a wide wind range. Anything less would get in the way of taking good pictures.

These kites are convenient to transport as well, since they roll up into a small bag. Another advantage is that they are tolerant of quite strong winds.

I've seen examples of many other high-lift kites being used as well. Big Rokkaku kites, Delta Conynes and the commonly seen delta kite have all been used. All of these can fly at much better line angles than most flow-form kites, so that's one reason for using them in kite aerial photography.

I'm going to have a go at making one of these for the MBK Skewer kite series! There's no way it will lift a camera though, due to its small size. The fun will be in seeing it stay up when my other light-wind kites drift to the ground - I hope!

The Cameras

Aerial kite photography as a hobby has seen all sorts of cameras hoisted up there. In the early days, some big kites were used to lift rather heavy, high-quality film cameras. These days, in 2007, the explosion in cheap, light digital cameras has had an impact on the hobby. It's not just the weight. These modern cameras take great pictures too. Much smaller kites can be used, and just about anybody can get into the hobby if they want to.

The 3 kinds of cameras most often seen in KAP are

• 35mm P&S cameras (point and shoot)
• 35mm SLR cameras (single lens reflex)
• Digital cameras

Interestingly, zoom lenses are of little use in kite aerial photography. In fact, people often try to cram more scenery into the field of view by using wide-angle lenses, even fish-eye lenses. Another popular technique is photo-stitching, where a number of images are combined into one super-wide panorama.

An ideal KAP camera doesn't have a zoom lens for 3 good reasons:

• they are heavier
• the lowest aperture is larger than for an equivalent fixed lens
• for a given manufacturer, they produce slightly poorer quality pictures than a fixed lenses

I've mentioned digital cameras a few times. Here's an example of a modern digital camera that would be perfect for aerial kite photography...

It's the PENTAX Optio A10 compact digital camera with an 8.0 effective megapixel CCD. Like most such cameras these days, it's design is slim, lightweight and stylish. Also, the built-in Shake Reduction System will help keep images sharp when the camera is dangled from a kite line.

The Accessories

Up to now, I've not mentioned exactly how you go about suspending a camera from a kite.

A piece of gear commonly used by serious KAPers is the Picavet. Yes, it was invented by a Frenchman, in the early 20th century. However, it wasn't until the late 20th century that it was re-discovered and put to widespread use in KAP. It's purpose is to provide a stable and level platform for the camera, while suspended from the flying line.

As you can see in the photo at the top of this page, the Picavet is a cross suspended from the flying line. 4 lines are threaded through pulleys, one line passing through one pulley at each end of the cross. The camera cradle is suspended from the center of the cross, which stays level even while the flying line angle changes.

The biggest problem with taking only a limited number of photos per flight is wasting some of them due to camera movement. Unless the air is perfectly smooth, there is always some swinging and swaying from time to time. Hence, some aerial kite photography enthusiasts try to add other devices to reduce the movement and give more opportunity for getting good pictures.

One such device is the Jones Airfoils KAP Feather. 'Put a feather in your KAP!' they say har har hardy har. Jokes aside, this device uses materials that let a bit of air through, to reduce the effect of wind gusts. Also, it acts as a vane to keep the rig pointing into wind in a more steady fashion. The end result is what KAPers love - a camera 'nailed to the sky'. The kite might be constantly shifting here and there in response to gusts and turbulence, but the camera's view shifts slowly.

Finally, it's handy to know what the average wind strength is. The wind speed is always changing from moment to moment, and it's hard to estimate with any accuracy. With a little device called an anemometer or wind speed meter you can decide what kite and camera rig to put up. In stronger winds, it can help you decide whether to attempt flying at all. Kites and cameras can get lost when the flying line snaps!

Aerial Kite Photography - Some History

Here's just a few interesting snippets from the past giving you some idea of the origins and growth of the hobby.

Military Use

Just as the Cody kite and other early box kites were associated with military uses, so it was with aerial kite photography. In fact, advances in KAP techniques were a result of military use and experimentation for many years, starting in the late 1800s.

Arthur Batut

The first notable aerial kite photographer with no military connections was probably Arthur Batut, from France. He was passionate about photography and succeeded in developing a simple system to take photos from a large diamond kite, many hundreds of feet in the air. At this time, people had never seen images from an aerial viewpoint so the pictures caused a sensation!

Believe it or not, Batuts pictures were made possible by advances in photographic technology! Even back in the late 1800s, photography had been around for 60 years or so. Weights and sizes had come down. Exposure times had decreased also.

A slow burning fuse triggered the shutter release, after which a white flag dropped and the kite was reeled in. Simple but effective.

The KAPWA Foundation

Skipping forward to the 1980s now. This is when KAP as we know it started to become widespread. An organization called KAPWA, a worldwide association of KAP enthusiasts, came into being. This organization, now known as the KAPWA Foundation, has organized events and made resources available to interested hobbyists since the 1980s.

In September 1987, the 75th anniversary of the International Competition of Scientific and Military Kites was celebrated. The competition was held in Belgium in 1912.

Between 1989 and 1993, KAPWA actively shared information and organized events with the Japanese Kite Aerial Photography Association.

Over the years, KAPWA has also been involved in more than twenty exhibitions of the finest aerial kite photography that could be found amongst its members. These exhibitions took place on just about every continent except Europe. Interesting, since France is where it all started! International meetings specifically about aerial kite photography were also convened.

Last updated: 19 Jan 2008