I just got this mail from Bryan:
My name is Bryan Chan, representing a group of aerospace researchers and engineers called Night Crew Labs. I’m writing to share a story and video about sending a Sony a7S to near-space to film the aurora borealis (northern lights) from the stratosphere, for the first time ever! The camera payload reached a max altitude of 78,254 feet.
My team traveled to Alaska and launched a weather balloon along with a Sony a7S with a fast f/1.4 lens at ISO 51,000, and Atomos Ninja Flame external recorder to capture video with sweeping views of the aurora. The recovery of the camera was another adventure in itself, as we had to hire a plane to find it and snowshoe out several miles in freezing temperatures.
The aurora stratosphere video we put together can be found here: https://youtu.be/vlyavVJ-ZXE (SAR note: I embeded the video at bottom of this message)
Recovery video here: https://youtu.be/BsIEGbRTOQ4
More information behind the project is here: http://nightcrewlabs.com/projects/alaska/aurora/Thanks,
Bryan
Great work folks!