Wireless remote controlled pan and tilt gimbal

I did not have much luck with the intended purpose for the RoboCam last year. The musk oxen did not like it. They seemed terrified, so I only tried it once. I am in Greenland to observe the natural behaviour of the musk oxen after all - and not to disturb them... Although the foxes did not seem to mind too much, I will not bring the robot for this upcoming season. Instead I have ordered a remote controlled pan and tilt gimbal head from ServoCity. I plan on using it at the fox dens for close up wide-angle shots with relatively shallow depth of field. I got inspired by some really nice leopard shots taken in Zimanga Private Reserve in South Africa. I also want to remotely control the zoom by using a lens gear belt and a gear on a servo. I do have a 8/9 channel radio remote control on order from Hobby King but it seems to take forever to get delivered... I have not given up on using the robot for wildlife shots but I have got some other plans for remote controlled photography. I have acquired a toy quadcopter and is learning the principles of flying it with intentions of one day getting a big model capable of carrying a good DSLR.

RoboCam repair

Today I got my RoboCam home from Greenland. Unfortunately one of these axle carriers had broken while we were testing the robot a bit rough (without camera) in the cold and snow. Perhaps it was too cold for the plastic. Luckily the robot is built on the basis of a serious 4WD radio controlled vehicle for which you can order spare parts. I had done that in advance so it was just a matter of swapping the bad for the good! :) I did not have much luck with the RoboCam and the musk oxen but that is another story...

RoboCam at the fox den

Last week I took the RoboCam to the nearest fox den for a test! I had had the TrapCam placed there a few days with fairly good results. As I got there, no fox pups were up and I was worried that they were not at the den at all. We have started to see the wander around quite a lot and also very far from the dens. On a few occasions they have been seen at different musk ox carcasses. As I was still assembling the robot a fox pup stuck its head out of one of holes. The robot is far from silent. The squeeky sounds of the dusty wheel bearings and perhaps the whirring of the servos seemed to be a problem. The fox did not like it and went down into the den again. I was probably not patient enough and made advances too fast. Then another fox appeared. I took it more steady and drove the robot slowly. This one did not seem to care much about this new visitor! At one stage it lay down to rest and I drove the robot really close. In other years I have sometimes approached the fox pups to about a meter after habituating them for a month or so. I realised how difficult it was now to get a nice composition with the robot without being able to tilt, swing or roll (the camera is not always level). So I thought perhaps I can just sneak up slowly and silently and do some shots handheld. I managed to get to within 70 cm. The fox was in a deep trance like sleep it seemed - but still looking at me with a half eye once in a while. Suddenly it woke up fully and seemed surprised that I was this close! It seemed to be thinking what to do before it slowly rose and walked away. A third fox came up and started to hunt for spiders and other small critters. I followed it a bit with the robot and it did not seem to bother it at all. I am surprised how little getting used to the robot some of them needed. Now I am on my way back to Denmark for a break. I look forward to use the RoboCam again when I get back to Greenland in August. Then I will also try my luck with the musk oxen.

RoboCam and TrapCam

The photo robot has been ready for action for long now, but I have not been able to use it. The big amount of snow are only now disappearing but it is still very wet in most placed. Besides it does leave some tracks and marks so I will probably only first use it in the autumn when the ground is frozen again. I am considering getting some special tires for loose snow - so-called sand paddles. I tested it in slush with no success! I was also tested on mid summers eve as part of the entertainment - with great success! I made a track and the camera was replaced with a shoe - to make people drive slower... I have had little luck with the photo trap until now. First I placed it at a raven carcass near a fox den, but I guess the pups were still too young and not exploring too much yet. I have had it placed at a few ponds and lastly where I photographed the musk oxen bull at last year - but this time in the middle of the green lush vegetation hoping for some close up chewing seen through the green stems. There has been a few musk oxen there but only few photos taken and in not so good light. The many fox pup photos we go through as part of the monitoring led me to try my luck with my own photo trap at a fox den. That should give some funny pictures as the pups are now growing fast and are very playful.

More RoboCam parts

I read about a risk for interference from the 900MHz video transmitter on the 2.4GHz RC system so I have ordered a low pass filter from RangeVideo. Also, I ordered a few small voltage regulators from Dimensions Engeneering to help power the video transmitter either from the robot's batteries or from a little 7.4V Lipo battery. It could be wise to isolate the video transmitter from the RC system as much as possible.

RoboCam videolink

The 900MHz system arrived yesterday from Kopterworx in Slovenia only 2 days after I ordered. Besides transmitter and receiver, the package includes a little video camera that I did not plan on using. I will take it along though as you never know if you come up with some good ideas. Now I only need to figure out a way to power the transmitter while it is carried on the RoboCam.

RoboCam tested and shipped

I got hold of a charging cable and have now tested the photo robot. The range of the robot is an impressing +250m but the video/camera control link had a disappointing 50m range only. It also seemed very picky on having line-of-sight all the time. This is not good for my purpose and the good folks at Benro Sweden said I could return it due to the limited range. I will now go for a powerful dedicated 900MHz wireless videolink system and then trip the camera shutter from the gear shifting channel and make do with only one gear. I had to ship the robot ahead to Greenland last week so there will be no more testing before in the field. Here I will also install the new heavier springs I got and the extra batteries I ordered to have more flexibility. I can either get more than double the capacity by coupling the extra set in parallel or use them as spares.

Photo robot - mobile platform

The guys at morfars.dk (from where I ordered the mobile platform for the photo robot) forgot to supply me with a little charging cable adapter. Therefore I have not yet been able to charge the batteries and have not done any serious testing yet. When I called them the other day they said they would slip one in the mail, but as it did not show up today I decided to stop by in person. So now I am back in business. Yesterday I fiddled a bit with the suspension and have now ordered some stiffer springs to allow for the added weight of the camera. I set the car to training mode. This limits the forward and backwards speed to 50% but to slow down even more I decided to order a replacement pinion gear with as little as 9 teeth compared to the standard 13. This will also give the car more torque. I will probably scavenge some sort of stiff plastic sheet from a storage box to seat the camera on the top. Cannot wait to test it out outside - hopefully tomorrow!

Photo robot

The partly DIY 5.8 GHz video transmitting gear I got from the USA broke before I could seriously test it. The transmitter antenne broke off taking along the soldering island. It would probably be possible to fix but the whole design was too fragile. I tried to find another more sturdy transmitter but all the ones I could find used different frequency bands! I have now got a live view wireless remote (LV-W2) made by Pixel Enterprises from Benro Sweden. This is a 2.4 GHz unit with a specified range of about 200m. This could be a little short but probably ok for the range of the RC car I intend to use as the mobile platform. The RC car is also using the 2.4 GHz band so I was a bit worried there would be interference problems. I brief indoor test yesterday was promising however. One advantage of the LV-W2 is that it takes care of both the triggering of the camera, transmits and receives the live view feed and even has an extra little onboard video camera to use when the live view is not feeding. Also, there is the option of saving and reviewing shots on the receiver screen, but I'm not sure how usefull this will be with the crude resolution of the analog video out signal of the Nikon DSLRs. Unfortunately, the HDMI output cannot be fed wirelessly by this little transmitter.

RoboCam

I am currently working on putting together equipment for remote controlled photography. Today I tested a video link that allows me to see the live view display of my Nikon D300 or D700 DSLRs. This is very useful for unmanned but non-autonomous photography. I hooked up the RC system of an old helicopter to be able to turn the video link on remotely and activate the trigger using two PicoSwitches from DimensionEngineering. I am still considering wether to go with a little LCD video screen or video goggles. The last will probably be nice when I attach the whole camera rig to a remote controlled car - in effect creating a RoboCam. The analog composite video output from the cameras have rather low resolution and the frame rate is relatively low so I am speculating wether a little external video camera with a suitable 12mm threaded lens would be a better option. Transmitting the camera display has the advantage that you get the preview the actual shots - but the disadvantage that the camera will use more power with the live view and screen display on!