RC Chopper Shoots Gulf Oil Disaster

The only thing this BTS video is missing is the actually images! But it is still really cool so I will give it a pass. They wrote: "Hand launching a custom built Canon 5D Mark II aerial drone from a boat in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico to capture oil spill imagery: Although we are able to hand launch our drones in very confined space, we've never done this from the back of a very unstable pitching and rolling boat...in rain and drizzle. Over $10,000 in equipment can be lost in an instant! Between boat movement and gulf winds this was an extreme challenge! What a great show of talent"

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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8 Comments

That takes serious nerve. Well done

That takes serious nerve, well done

I'd also like to have seen the shoots! Shooting from this aerial drone must result in awesome photos! I'm just sorry I don't have the budget for this. I can't even imagine how much it costs.

Any news on images ?

Holy jesus. Did you see how fast he reached out and grabbed that thing? hah

Very cool, I worked as a news photographer/videographer for local affiliates and at CNN for 7 years. The applications for a "news drone" is endless. We (at CNN and at the AP) talked about developing one for places like Baghdad where we couldnt always gather video safetly. Imagine how cool it would have been to gather images during the Haiti ewarthquake.
Even at the affiliate level there would be a huge need! Choppers cost over a grand an hour to operate, something like this could be adapted to cover things such as traffic and fly over crime scenes where crews have been pushed back at a fraction of the cost. I sent this link to folks I still stay close with at the networks, I wish you the best and think you have a leg up on this idea.