KAPINED 10 - International Conference on Kite Aerial Photography

Bill Blake Survey is a key aspect of heritage documentation as recognised by the ICOMOS general assembly at Sophia in 1996 : Recording is the capture of information which describes the physical configuration, condition and use of monuments, groups of buildings and sites, at points in time and it is an essential part of the conservation process.

	(ICOMOS is an international non-governmental organization of professionals, dedicated to the conservation of the world's historic monuments and sites.) Kite Aerial Photography offers justly surprising and unexpected viewpoints for the recording of buildings, monuments and sites. Bill Blake has created BBDH (Bill Blake Heritage Documentation) to answer at the needs of practitioners in archaeology and conservation by providing original documentation on the heritage. In many cases this means metric mapping must be possible from the images. He covers the area or monument with a number of overlapping photos and is able, by using surveyed control points, to orientate them in 3D. Bill uses the newly developed software for this called PhoToPlan 3D by kubit to plot 3D data into AutoCAD. Apart from the technical aspect, there recoding process generates many nice pictures, like those that Bill has taken to help conserve the Archer Pavilion (right).
Bill Blake

The pavilion was built between 1709 and 1711 by Thomas Archer at the request of Henry Grey, Duke of Kent. The KAP work was carried out to enable inspection of the roof which protects the interior decoration comprising elaborate trompe l’oeil wall paintings by Louis Hauduroy in 1712. Olympus EP1 KAP shot taken for condition recording of hidden roof surfaces. The Website BBDH

Jan Westerink

Via Skype, Jan Westerink share with us his project to build a triplane kite identical to the one built in the Thirties by Valentine Oesterle and his original way of shooting.

After buying a camera Voigtländer 1936, he sought to reproduce the same trigger for shooting, with a wick-type system which releases small white paper stuck in a clothes pin when the picture is Ok . It is still found the film in black and white.

He explains: "After eleven months and despite a very gusty wind over the Zutphen Massif, we do not want to wait. Two assistants lit the wick and the Triplane off. It turns right then left but gets enough to lift the heavy camera.

François Périault, président of CVCF

I see the smoke at the wick and then fly the small papers. The photo is taken. But, the triplane plunges to the ground and breaks. "
The organizers brought us a surprise. The triplane was in Dordrecht, downstairs in the hall.. All about "first kites"

Bernard-Noël Chagny

In a very different style, Bernard-Noël Chagny talks about his work in archeology. Bilingual presentation provided live by Christian Becot, with lots of humor (because it is difficult to know who speaks English and who speaks French), for a job yet very serious.

Bernard-Noël made two speeches. One devoted to the choice of his kites, the Rokkakus (5 m², 3 m², 2 m² and 1 m² according to the wind), with an elastic bridle system that allows him to use each kite in a greater wind range.

The other is dedicated to his work method, illustrated by beautiful aerial photos. An onboard GPS allows a geo-location of the rig at the time of the shooting.

Third cataract of the Nile in Sudan - 2006 - BN Chagny

A number of data are automatically stored for each photo: altitude, cape, wind speed, timing ... Then he transfers all this data in his notebooks with sketches of the site. A second video monitor allows the archaeologist to monitor real-time shooting. I am very impressed by all this rigour and by the modesty of Bernard-Noël with one of his KAP is currently at the Louvre. Simon Harbor Simon Harbor, for his part, tackles the risks and safety issues related to KAP. He works in a society which is used to dealing with probability, consequence and risk.		According to Simon, risk falls into 3 categories: * Risk to your own KAP equipment * Risk to property (buildings, monuments…) * And the most important risk to people At no time is it right, fair, or justified for us to make a decision that puts others in peril just so that we can snap a photo. Simon gave us a very original demonstration about the damage that can cause a taut kite line and that would hurt someone. Just the friction of the line is able to cut this poor sausage! (photo in middle) Of course, we would never want to damage our equipment or the property of others, but it could happen.

If damage does occur we are likely to be able to repair or replace. But, the risk to people, must be an absolute concern.
That is why Simon KAP with a small delta when the wind is high and uses a greater delta for moderate winds, with a very simple and light rig, because his pleasure is to fly when he wants with his friends and safely.

Christian Bécot

In the field of simplicity there is Christian Becot. He invented the "Filalu" rig, simple and lightweight (25 grams). Moreover, it is auto-rotating.

Nowadays, two kinds of suspending devices are used: the pendulum-rod and the Picavet suspension.

Each kaper has his preference. Christian use a pendulum-rod, equipped with the stabilizer bow and with the Michaël Haugrund's damping device. He also adjusted a Picavet suspension with 3 hanging points and a stabilizer bow.

Christian reveals his new system: P&P: Picavet and Pendulum, whose principle is to dissipate energy.

The strands of Picavet act as speed brakes, the arc stabilizer is effective against the swinging cross and the Cross Picavet by James Gentles act against pivoting: Each solution is a compromise. Christian Bécot Website

	Peter Bults One of the organizers, Peter Bults, covers the latest Kapshop: a new compact rig driven by remote control through a small radio control the size as an Iphone. This radio remote control servos and a return trip with video. Kapshop Equipment Tony Cunningham A versatile Ple system, with detailed photos, is narrated by Tony Cunningham. As we are going to buy a fishing rod to initiate us to the PAP (pole aerial photography), I made drawings of assembly the camera on the pole, with either a U or by ring.	Peter Bults
Peter Bults
Linnar Edesi Linnar Edesi, VP-Systems, has developed portable control devices for remote controlled video and photography. He shows the CAMremote, integrated miniature remote control devices for cameras and camcorders. Several digital cameras / camcorders from Canon, Nikon, Ricoh, Pentax, Sony, Panasonic and Olympus have a remote control feature which utilizes the USB port, an infrared signal or Remote Control Port. The CAMremote is a USB device that can control the camera's remote features like shutter, zoom, aperture/shutter speed, etc. Website of Linnar.

Peter van Erkel

Peter van Erkel is a passionate batteries, circuit, transmitter ... well, that's the impression he left me. Already in 1997, he wrote an article in The Aerial Eye on battery systems used for KAP and their possible failure. Peter design lightweight circuit and easy to build can be used to power the receiver and servos.

Ralf Beutnagel

Less technical, presentation of kites used for KAP. Those Ralf Beutnagel. Before, Ralf used the box kites type Domina Jalabert. Now he flies kites with no frame (called "boneless" by google) like parafoil or Flowform.

Peter van Erkel

Ralf Beutnagel

We have a beautiful flight demonstration at Kinderdijk : a 8m2 kite (86 sq ft), 4 keels, 6 cells. More about Ralf.

Théo van Houwelingen

Still in the field of the kite, Theo shows his kite equipment and take off solo with a little movie. Thank you for this approach very playful and understandable by all.
Gallery photo of Théo

	Aldo Hoeben
	Aldo Hoeben has been involved in panoramic photography since 1996. Over the years, he deployed several different viewing technologies, discovering the merits and limitations of each technology. He has initiated new innovations in the field of panoramic imaging. Then started to develop the SPi-V engine; a hardware accelerated panorama, based on Macromedia's acclaimed Shockwave technology. SPi-V is short for Shockwave Panorama Viewer. During his presentation, he made a demo of shooting from a simple joysick. Simple? Anyway, a joystick made in Aldo! He shows us some of his achievement, panoramic photo very surprising in 360 ° and mount fisheye

Kite Festival - Oostende 2008 by Aldo Hoeben		"Trying to perfect my KAP technique, I shaved off ~300 grams off my kite rig. The rig is now using the camera battery to power a receiver, gentled and servo, in addition to the camera itself."

Scott Armitage

Dunehaven Systems is Scott Armitage, specialist in the design of embedded systems and medical products. He has been granted five patents.

But here, Scott spoke on the stability of the rig, with a movie, a slideshow and 3D drawings. We often use the line of the kite as a baseline to stabilize the camera. Thus the stability of the camera depends on the stability of the line.

There is a camera stabilizer: the Steadicam Merlin, ultra-light and ultra-compact. Scott was inspired to stabilize his rig, with an independent suspension system between the camera and the line. There is also the UFO rig, with a single attachment point on the line and 3 points of attachment to the rig.

Scott Armitage



And to make it easier with the S4 Rig: Super Simple Stabilize System, without electronics. We take a break to approach all these rigs. Sue Storey

Sue Storey make a knots workshop. We are so involved that we forgot to take pictures! Sorry, Sue. But it also proves that your workshop was very interesting and we learned a lot.