The Stratos-Sphere Project : making-of from Edouard Janssens on Vimeo.
We already knew the NEX-5n is a great camera but it’s good and very useful 🙂 to know that it works perfectly also under very extreme conditions! A Belgian photographer sent a helium balloons up 33km into space to take photos of the curvature of the earth. At 6:05 you clearly see the NEX camera 🙂 Their website is stratos-sphere.com. Thanks Justin for sending me this 😉
And here are the search links to that great stratosphere camera: [shopcountry 8452] 🙂
To remain in the reign of the weird findings someone also sent me the links to “Ducati NEX adpated lenses”. There is a DUCATI Luxtor 40mm f/1.5 you can find on [shoplink 12171 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. And a DUCATI Lator 60mm f/2.8 again on [shoplink 12172 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
More Sony TidBits:
Kirk Tuck (Click here) fells in love with Sony 🙂
A special edition of the NEX-7 at DC.watch (Click here).
A Sony A77 biorthday cake on Flickr (Click here).
List of camera defects from Sony and other manufacturers at Moonlightknighthk (Click here).
37 Responses
Very nice video (no more april fool’s? :P)
Although a little gamble I guess as some people have trouble with their 5n overheating and/or clicking.
But guess overheating will actually mean the camera will stay nice and warm at that altitude and the clicking can be fixed.
Not a negative comment on the 5n though, have one myself and couldn’t be happier with it 😉
The video is made by GoPro Hero not NEX, so I think they should worry about the poor battery life of NEX rather than overheating 🙂
Anyway. he stated in his website that the main purpose of this project is to make best possible photographs, the video is for debriefing and for attracting people like us 🙂
yea
killlerr
one of d best momment was wen the airliner passed by 🙂
You bought a weather balloon with points!?
Looks like a fun family project!
It’s very interesting 😀
Good god, that Ducati has catadioptric level bokeh!
From the site:
“Capturing very good photos into the stratosphere is not an easy task.
You need a very good camera and very good camera are generally very heavy.
And in this kind of missions, weight is your enemy.
So after a lot of comparison, we decided to choose the Sony NEX-5 with the 16mm pancake.
It has a big sensor (APS-C) delivering 14 MegaPixels.
All launches have 2 NEX-5 on board at opposite side of the capsule.
As there is no time-lapse function (intervalometer) into the NEX-5 firmware, we added two infra-red remote control built by the gentlemen at Gentles Limited to trigger the two NEX and take a photo every 7 seconds.
This means around 1.500 photos per flight, per NEX-5.
“
Not to be THAT guy…but a bit reckless doing that near what looks like common flight airspace…that box could easily take a plane down if hitting the right area.
The plane in the picture is quite far away.
Yes, it could have taken a plane down if it had hit at the right area. What can you expect (space wise) when living in a small country?
I would expect them to look before leaping?
Apparentley they flew it legal airspace though!
Yes, it should have been cleared with the FAA or equiv. They could be fined for this if I’m not mistaken. If it was cleared well someone messed up pretty bad, since there were planes flying by.
To be honest it was careless of them not to take into account other peoples lives.
Still awesome video 😛
“We launch big meteorological balloons filled with helium (with all legal and official authorizations and an insurance policy)”
Please put some effort into getting your facts straight before posting.
Sorry, posted this as a reply under the wrong post, should be a reply to “andy”.
Xmi, read my post again. It was just speculation on my part and I made it clear.
You could have just clarified this but instead you couldn’t resist being an ass about it.
Sorry, your second post didn’t show up before.
Please do not put your prejudice here only after watching the video. Read his website please. Apparently he has consulted some experts in this area (Institut Royal Météorologique, AIR LIQUIDE, etc) for his project.
Mike its not prejudice. Ive read his website and it dont mean jack.
Its clear from the video it goes up near flight path
Maybe they might of thought it would be “cool” to get a snapshot of a plane as it flys by? Irresponsible behaviour.
Please read more carefully before you posting.
http://www.stratos-sphere.com/ship/radar-reflector/
We had transponders and we still had to have an certified pilot with radio qualifications on the ground with us.
Woooooow! This is great!
It’s a Nex 5 since the on/off switch is fully black.
Love the video!
Although the headline would’ve been great!
“Sony Nex-5, powerful enough to take down an airliner!” ;D
La France!
Quite dangerous for the air traffic however. A NEX strike can cause more damages than a bird : )
About the special edition of the Nex-7 (DC Watch) : Hey you guys who just complain the Fuji X-Pro 1 is too big, why do you try to make your Nex-7 bigger ? That’s just the 4th or 5th site where we can see wood/leather/steel add-grip for Nex-7… Someone told me I was ridiculous considering the smallness of the Nex comparing to my big paws… hum…
Would you post a link to what you are referring to? FWIW, I bulked up mine with a Gariz case plus some. 85mm in height and perfect for my hand. I protected the pesky video button as well from accidental videos. 🙂
Just Awesome
with 3% of battery to spare
Want to see A99 in stratosphere..! 🙂
big deal we did this for the band TAME IMPALA 2 years ago. Its just not really that hard.
How did he setup up the itinerary lapse on the camera? As far as I know the nex does not have this feature built in.
you run video. Its all video. Well ours was. No time lapse at all. (well we sent one I think with the hero set to every .5sec as a just why not moment.
The thing is as many have said YOU DON”T JUST SHOOT A Ballon 30KM into the atmosphere with out checking with the people that can take away your house. Its a big deal if your containers gets sucked into engine and where its lands is an issue. Unless you don’t mind paying someones medical bills. Assault with a Space vehicle has to be a serious crime in most places.
Not true. They had a contour or go pro cam to do the video but used the nex for pictures. The nex would only take 29 mins of video since its artificially limited. I think the whole thing took a couple of hrs.
here is out making of video. but its more a doco type thing but you will get the idea and you can always just go find the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6SXL2d3IlY
The reason to use hero’s was that they can charge while running via usb and we sent up 8. 2 of them in stereoscopic setups.
Oh and the amount of red tape to do this literally is NUTS. We had to have a certified Pilot on a radio broadcasting every minute the approximate altitude. you can get this from know your balloons lift rate vs cargo weight and then some crazy math formulas that the had to get. We could have just launched but we would all be in jail. Even in Australia where i was working at the time.