High resolution, fixed focal length camera for aerial photography

[Amp34]

A friend has asked me for some recommendations for a camera to put in a plane for aerial photography. It would be used for wildlife censuses so needs to be high resolution and able to cope with taking and saving a photo every second or two (several hundred+ so buffers will run out).

He's currently looking at the sigma DP range but are there any other options? From his calculations he wants something in the 40mp range and with a fairly wide angle lens (ff eq of around 20-30mm). I'm guessing battery life will be important as well, along with weight and cost (not overly expensive, plane crashes... Say up to £1k).

With a decent SD/CF card would 40mb a second real world write speeds be possible?

 

[Amp34]

Thanks for the comment on the actual resolution D.P.. I will relay that.

I think he knows a fair bit about what he wants, he knows what resolution he needs and the approximate range of focal length. That said I will see about contacting some authors to give him a hand.

m43 cameras is what I suggested to him, but at the moment I haven't looked into which would be best, and this is one of the reasons for this thread. Buffer is essentially irrelevant because the number of photos being taken will quickly overload it, hence the question about whether a fast memory card would help. I guess I could do the calculations myself with that one, looking at real world write times for fast cards, but was hoping people would have real world experience.

Basically if I can get a good list of cameras that could fit the needs in the OP then we could go through them and have a look and see if any of them are suitable.

 

[Amp34]

Sorry, yes, an RC plane! The camera will be static inside the plane, pointing downwards, as far as I'm aware there is no gimble needed.

Basically i'm just looking for a list of cameras that would fit the brief, fairly small, with a high resolution and either a fixed wideish angle lens or the option to fit one. Weight is a factor but not the biggest issue as we aren't talking about DSLR's.

Something like the Sigma DP series (although that appears to have sensor issues), or the Sony 7R II (but a little on the expensive side). Just wondering if there are similar cameras I don't know of?

 

[Amp34]

This afternoon I've been looking into some published papers on the subject and looking at the study results I don't see a particular specific need for any more than 20 something MP, at least for basic identification purposes. If that is actually the case it opens things up a lot. One of the cameras that could be of interest there is the new EOS M, that said the M43 cameras are probably going to be up there. I'm also wondering if the fixed focal length "compact" prosumer cameras may be a good option to.

Im pretty sure a drone won't work, I did have a fairly lengthy debate about that to him on the first conversation (fighting the case for drones), but the need for multiple hours of flight time pretty much negate anything but a fixed wing with current technology. The benefits of quads, such as maneuverability, is redundant when the plane will be going in straight lines for kilometers on an automated flight path*. The studies I've read so far are also all using fixed wings. Aircraft he's testing at the moment have 1.5-2 m wing spans but he's looking at getting one with upwards of 3m. The vibration isn't really an issue from testing because they are static images and shutter speeds are usually in the four figure range.

It's an interesting project but at the moment I don't know too much about the finer details, but was looking into cameras that may fit the bill he thinks he needs.

*That said if you do know of any quads/hex/octs that can carry several kg of payload (several devices) and stay in the air for a couple of hours, at fair speeds, then I'll definitely give him the info to chew over.

Edit: this is the kind of thing he's aiming for http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0054700 . That's with elephants but he's looking at much smaller animals like deer, which is why the 10MP camera won't cut if for this particular system.

Edit2: actually, one of the other factors to consider is ruggedness. The camera will have a hard life so decent build/weather sealing is very beneficial.

 

[Amp34]

Resolution not high enough and the lens distortion is too high apparently. That's something I suggested as well.