Remote Photography from Mountainside

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Chris
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Just had a strange request at work.

A company has contacted us asking if we have the ability to take pictures on the side of a mountain (of climbers - mid climb) and relay them back down the mountain for viewing.

The location of the 'job' is in Borrowdale, Keswick.

Does anybody know of any companies that can perform this task?

If so, can you PM me and i'll pass the details over to the company concerned.

Ta!
 
Sounds interesting and I'd love to know how they achieve it, I don't know of any companies who could help you unfortunately but it should be possible, using either the mobile telephone network (depending on the location) or a custom wireless transmission line.

What quality do they want, i.e. Web Cam or DSLR?
How long do they need to do this for, all year weather proof or a weekend event?

I can't imagine that will be cheap though.
 
Surely you could just shoot the images yourself from wherever the vantage point is and then download the images to the laptop and send them via FTP or email from your machine to theirs at the bottom? ? ? If the location for the shooter is cliff side he can always shoot and send a card up or down on a rope to someone in a safe location who could do the file transfers on the laptop? Doesnt sound overly complicated to me but could be missing something
Cheers
Ricky
 
surely in this day an age you can probably get a usb plug-in wireless transmiter that will reach that far.
if there isnt, then there's always the new usb internet that phone companies seem to be doing
 
I put a suggestion through at my workplace to use remote cameras for a job. The total cost was arounf £3000 including training and setting up rigs etc....They went out and spent £25,000 on a remote camera system !!

I guess my set up was too cheap:lol:

Any way take a look at this site. I intended to use software from this company


http://www.breezesys.com/

Hope it helps.

Rory
 
We have wireless transmitters for our D3's they are claimed to have a range of about 100-200m, to be honest we haven't tried them more than about 50m, they work ok over that distance, but are a little slow sending, they wont keep up with the drive, but they store the images on the card and send as they can, if you go out of range I'm told they stop and then restart as soon as your back in range. They are not cheap though, we paid a couple of hundred quid each.
http://www.parkcameras.com/8102/Nikon-WT-4-(WT-4)-Wireless-Transmitter-for-the-D300,-D3,-D3x.html?referrer=Froogle
 
My first concern is that you claim there's mountains in Borrowdale! Sure, there's a couple of lovely hills, but...

It won't be cheap - you'd need a rope-access qualified photographer + a minimum of 2 other people (one on the rope, one on the laptop), with a wireless transmitter setup. To be fair, considering the short length of the climbs in the Lake District, it would be a lot cheaper and easier just to pass cards up and and down...

What about one of the companies using telescopic masts? They go up 15-20m, and would be portable into the base of the climb...
 
Hire a helicopter at £500/hour and you're sorted :D
 
Sorry guys,

Been really busy and forgot to check this thread earlier!

I will post the customers requirements up tomorrow as per the email i received from them but from what i read they want a permanent installation.
 
As per the customers email to me.....

Dear Chris

Following our conversation please could you let me have details of a company or companies that could help me with taking photos on the side of a mountain and relaying back to my office where customers can view.
Click to expand...
 
I'd say that's too vague to be useful. I'd suggest you need to establish:
- precisely what they mean by "the side of a mountain" - is it really a ropes/climbing situation?
- whether it's a one-off job or an ongoing requirement?
- is it covering a specific event (and therefore you need to be prepared for whatever weather there is), or does the photograpger have some say over the timing (and maybe even the location)?
- whether the images are expected to be seen in real time, or what would be an acceptable time lag?
- whether they're looking for wide-angle/close-ups, which constrain the job, or whether shooting from more of a distance with a telephoto (which might affoird easier access) would be acceptable?
- whether they have a budget in mind?
- and a load more details too.

I used to get things like this from clients all the time. (Not as a photographer though - I managed a team of transport consultants and software engineers.) The client has a problem which they need solved, and they've told you how they want it solved, but they have probably no understanding of what's easy and what's difficult, what's important and what isn't, what's cheap and what's expensive.

I suggest you go and sit down with them and discuss what they're really trying to achieve. Then you can help them determine the best way of achieving it within a reasonable budget.
 
" relaying back to my office where customers can view. "
That doesn't sound like transmitting the images a short distance back to a tent or van, that sounds like they want you to e.mail them back to their HQ, that could be tricker. Is there a moble phone signal in that area? you could e.mail them from a laptop if theres coverage. Wayne
 
I'd be trying something along the lines of:

- Nikon D3 with Wireless transmission

- A directional antenna to an access-point cabled into a small lan (can be run from one box and doesn't consume a lot of power)

- Laptop runs FTP server and receives images down

- Auto resize the images and transmit over 3G to office?
 
If you're thinking of doing clever stuff with 3G mobile comms in Borrowdale, forget it unless you can scout out the precise location first. You can get a good signal on the tops, but it's pretty unlikely down in the valley.
 
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