Notes on Kite Aerial Photography: Photo Gallery
A
near view of railroad tracks -- this view maps the barrel
distortion of the fisheye quite well (58K jpg, Canon 15-mm, May
1997).
In
recent years a rather vibrant shopping district has developed in
the west end of Berkeley along Fourth Street near University
Avenue. I have a friend with a shop on Fourth Street and have
been thinking about working on a low-cost KAP kit for the Nature
Company (also on Fourth Street.) So on one harried Saturday
afternoon of errand running I pulled over and shot a quick roll
of the area.
This is one of my rare midday
rolls -- I usually prefer the colors and shadows of late
afternoon. Fourth Street is a fairly dense urban setting and the
only open area available for launching the kite was a railroad
right-of-way that runs parallel to Fourth Street. There was a
nice breeze so it did not take long to get the kite up. That was
a good thing because trains appeared more frequently than I would
have guessed. Happily, I could see a half-mile up the tracks in
either direction and there was an automatic traffic gate. When a
train came along I just backed down the street a few dozen yards.
Rail traffic coming through (34K jpg, Canon 15-mm left and 37K
jpg, Canon 24-mm right, May 1997).
As a case in point here
is an Amtrak express rolling through at 50 mph. The righthand
image shows my normal flying position on the tracks. I can just
imagine my mother's reaction "Now Cris ....".
Fisheye views of the Fourth Street shopping area looking
northeast (left, 49K jpg) and southeast (right, 51K jpg, Canon
15-mm left, May 1997).
About half of my shots were with
the Canon 15-mm lens. These prints have a great deal of detail
and certainly take in a lot of territory given the 150 foot or so
altitude of the camera rig.
Oblique
views of the rail corridor (41K jpg left and 38K jpg right, Canon
15-mm, May 1997
In the lefthand view you can see
Berkeley's Aquatic Park in the upper left and the Truitt &
White lumberyard just below it. The righthand view shows the
straight rail line running just to the left of the Albany Knoll
on the horizon.
Fisheye
view of the rail corridor looking west (48K jpg, Canon 15-mm, May
1997).
In this wide view you
can see the relationship between the rail corridor and San
Francisco Bay on the horizon.
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