Top Gear pigeon cam?

Baluardo

Baluardo

Well-known member
Hi all,
the other night i was watching 'Top Gear' , uk car show. They organized a race of a car (Ka i guess) against a bunch (hundreds) of racing pigeons.

Besides the oddity of the event itself, they were making use of a number of amazing 'pigeon cams': the pigeons had onboard cameras capturing incredible images of their flight. belly mounted, back mounted (you saw the head of the pigeon), and even wing mounted.

I didn't see all the show, but i dont think they showed the tech details of these cam.
I am guessing it was not a wireless connection, but a cam able to capture and store images locally (maybe at a very low frame rate, since the video they showed wasn't smooth, but looked like accelerated). and i think it had to be tiny enough to be mounted on a bird and not cause flight failures :)
It would have been very hard to do that wireless, but i can't exclude it for sure.

image quality was hard to judge since it was not smooth video. it looked like a bunch of images taken 10 secs or so each from the other and put together in a video.

i wondered if any of you guys know of such devices (indipendent devices able to store images locally i mean) and give me/us the link to tech details and /or resellers.. that would be great!

thanks all,
Andrea
 
I think I remember the show you meant, it was on it the UK a while back.

I know the BBC designed a tiny super 8 camera that could be carried by a bird of prey! They used it for wildlife docs with some amazing results. They caught footage of a bird diving down and catching its prey from the bird's POV. Nowadays it is probably easier to use a little CCD or CMOS camera and short range transmitter. A digital setup like that could weigh just 100g or so I should think.

The Top Gear films like that are heavily staged BTW, so those shots were probably filmed on a completely different day to the race.
 
"it had to be tiny enough to be mounted on a bird and not cause flight failures " LOL!

Those folks over at TopGear are nuts!
A few stories for those that haven't seen the show:
*They got tired of borrowing runways for car tests, so they got themselves their own airport to shoot the show! They now have a leaderboard of the fastest cars and drivers to complete their test course out on the runways.
*They heard a rumor that if you drove fast enough you could avoid a speed camera beacuse you'd only be there for one of the 2 radar pulses and it wouldn't know your speed. So they tried it, and managed at about 190mph, to zip theough the camera without it going off!
*They figured the stunt of jumping over busses with motorbikes was dull, so they took a red London double-decker bus and tried to see how many motorbikes they could jump over with it! (4.5 by the way)

- Mikko
 
mikkowilson said:
"it had to be tiny enough to be mounted on a bird and not cause flight failures " LOL!

Those folks over at TopGear are nuts!
A few stories for those that haven't seen the show:
*They got tired of borrowing runways for car tests, so they got themselves their own airport to shoot the show! They now have a leaderboard of the fastest cars and drivers to complete their test course out on the runways.
*They heard a rumor that if you drove fast enough you could avoid a speed camera beacuse you'd only be there for one of the 2 radar pulses and it wouldn't know your speed. So they tried it, and managed at about 190mph, to zip theough the camera without it going off!
*They figured the stunt of jumping over busses with motorbikes was dull, so they took a red London double-decker bus and tried to see how many motorbikes they could jump over with it! (4.5 by the way)

- Mikko
Click to expand...

I don't know if it has aired in the states yet, but there is an ongoing report where they try to see how reliable a Toyota Hi-Lux is. They crash it, dump it at sea, drop a caravan on it and set it on fire! It still runs... ::SPOILER:: They finally chain it to the roof of a high rise flat building, 200-300 ft high, that is due to be blown up. The building is blown and they go in and find the car in the rubble .... and it still drives without replacing a single part!!!! It's bloody hilarious!
 
Baluardo said:
Hi all,
the other night i was watching 'Top Gear' , uk car show. They organized a race of a car (Ka i guess) against a bunch (hundreds) of racing pigeons.

Besides the oddity of the event itself, they were making use of a number of amazing 'pigeon cams': the pigeons had onboard cameras capturing incredible images of their flight. belly mounted, back mounted (you saw the head of the pigeon), and even wing mounted.

I didn't see all the show, but i dont think they showed the tech details of these cam.
I am guessing it was not a wireless connection, but a cam able to capture and store images locally (maybe at a very low frame rate, since the video they showed wasn't smooth, but looked like accelerated). and i think it had to be tiny enough to be mounted on a bird and not cause flight failures :)
It would have been very hard to do that wireless, but i can't exclude it for sure.

image quality was hard to judge since it was not smooth video. it looked like a bunch of images taken 10 secs or so each from the other and put together in a video.

i wondered if any of you guys know of such devices (indipendent devices able to store images locally i mean) and give me/us the link to tech details and /or resellers.. that would be great!

thanks all,
Andrea
Click to expand...

I saw that top gear. It actually looked like the little cameras used in WWII for spying purposes. I visited the Spy museum in DC This summer and was amazed to see that homing pigeons were used to take overhead photos of "Top Secret" enemy bases. I suspect they just mounted a small time lapse camera to the bird and let it go. Pretty cool if you ask me.
 
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