Real Earth-Zoom!
March 17th, 2009

In our earth-zoom tutorial from 2007, I jokingly suggested one method of capturing aerial photography was to send a video camera into space with a weather baloon. Well, someone finally took one of my jokes too far and sent a real camera into space. Admittedly this project was just a coincidence but the fact that it is possible is quite cool and yet somehow frightening...

Hats off to those guys for the uplifting experiment.

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Now if only I could find a clip from the simpsons where Bart launches a weather baloon in the meteor episode... oh well.

Andrew Kramer
POSTED:
16 years ago
67 Comments
Robert maximus
14 years ago
James may off top gear did a better shot of the earth by balloon and string just saying.
14 years ago
how did you get the googel earth screnshots?
16 years ago
My brother launched a ballon as well, which captured both video and high resolution images: http://www.natrium42.com/halo/flight2/
Atahan Kiltan
16 years ago
Yeah that was funny
ae
16 years ago
there is also this attempt that uses a videocamera. it is also impressive.maybe even more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxX7YxslgSU&feature=related
Aitor CeReceto
16 years ago
heyy im cataloniann and this is Awesome!

huges from Barcelona!
16 years ago
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/sets/


Here are the rest of the pictures :
Muhammad Waseem Ata Attari
16 years ago
Hi to all,
i have no words to share for this IMAGE yar exactally very nice.
labas
16 years ago
Yes.... From catalu??±a...Spanish region.... and not catalunya as a country like somebody said before...
Artillusion
16 years ago
Amazing
16 years ago
They didn't forget to press the "REC" button!

Beautiful result!
DC
16 years ago
Please, don't make a Nuke joke.
William
16 years ago
Bueno pues un orgullo para los jovenes de hablas hispana.
Y recuerda Andr??©s Kramer, la coincidencia , simplemente no existe.

Saludos buddy.
John
16 years ago
Congrats Europe! The Americans got beaten another time xD
Vladimir
16 years ago
When I said I need this tutorial, I commented the wrong article It was a comment for previous one - lighting of 3D text.
storm
16 years ago
HAHA, this is amazing!!
omgvideo
16 years ago
Well done! Just goes to show what a little imagination and alot of spirit can do in this crazy world...
16 years ago
Are you serious?
I think that was the first tutorial I watched on this site (since then I've been hooked) and I actually believed you when you said how to get those pictures...

but still that experiment must've been awesome to execute!
16 years ago
Good to see students using their brain for something besides phone-texting and video-taping schoolyard fights. Big kudos to the students and teacher. If we had more students like these guys, I would have a lot more faith in the future of our youth.
TheOneProduction
16 years ago
lets just hope someone doesnt go into there back yard and pick up a pile of dirt and hold it in there hand with a small fire cracker so that when there hand blows off they can sue the fireworks company so they can then purchess particular like you said to do in Meteor Crash 3D p1 haha
miquelg
16 years ago
Catalonia to the world!!
Vladimir
16 years ago
I really need this tutorial. Thanks. Hope it will be available soon.
Tobias
16 years ago
Despite the fact that is great science, is no one wondering about the dangers attached to this whole event? Like the article said, they had to cross the commercial airline zone. The balloon could well end up in one of those aircraft engines. And second first thing I thought about was were is the equipment going to land? Maybe on someones car, house, chiwawa , or even your own head. Wind may have blown the whole piece many km's out of flight line, bizarre the equipment survived the fall at all!
16 years ago
And I thought our earth zoom looked good. Dang! way to go guys. next stop better shots of the moon. LOL
Arshad
16 years ago
Andrew U R RoOoCk man
phil
16 years ago
oh, so it was a joke!

anyone need a balloon maybe?
Sandy
16 years ago
hahahaha that joke came true....
Bethany
16 years ago
I can post that requested clip of the Simpsons if you'd like... Let me know.
Legen-D
16 years ago
NICE!!
Flim By Tim Productions
16 years ago
I can tell someone looks at digg, nice though.
16 years ago
Whoa....

Thats really really really cool.
Gustavoms
16 years ago
I heard they almost forgot to load the batteries in the camera...
16 years ago
Photos on flickr from the project:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/
16 years ago
oh.... I didnt know you were joking. Attached my sony V1u to a balloon... the cord snapped.
All well.
Watusee
16 years ago
Cool !! but what about air traffic ? I guess all was fixed before lunch the baloon.
dashzed
16 years ago
lol, and they are gonna need some after effects tutorials to get rid of that string in the picture! rofl
Thomas
16 years ago
Having a RED camera attached and when the Ballon explodes, the fall back to earth would have been A REAL 2K EARTH ZOMM EXPERIENCE!
But that'd be just Experiments for the big bugs
Lucas
16 years ago
why didnt they use a $100+ video camera...
anyway nice work!
blake
16 years ago
Hmm... blueprints of the dummy... notarized photos of you making the dummy... and an alternate wording for the banner, "Buttzilla".
16 years ago
Saw that on digg.
Frankie
16 years ago
"waiting for â?????Real Planet Explosionâ??? ^_^"

LMAO
16 years ago
wow..imma gonna get me one of those hehe
16 years ago
Balloons are fun! Like when you blow it up and then pull the lip apart and its makes that squealing sound.
highdefw
16 years ago
hehe
rmontes
16 years ago
It's great to see we share a love for DIGG....but then again what else is there to do when you work in an office like me...lol
Fernando
16 years ago
So the Demon face is a no-no!! damn, I have a bunch of candles at home I have not idea what to do with them
This is awesome man, thanks for sharing AK....
EnzO
16 years ago
waiting for "Real Planet Explosion" ^_^
BAss
16 years ago
Kramer is influencing the world... Render farm, now earth zoom

I hope none tries the demon thing in Face Warp tutorial...

Last thing i need is Lucifer washing my windows
Bestia
16 years ago
awesome!!
ftragg
16 years ago
haha that's awesome
gerardnll
16 years ago
uau!! they are from catalunya!! my country visca catalunya!!

wiii bye!
16 years ago
This is so cool
David W.
16 years ago
That's funny. Wow, two posts in one day!
Ante
16 years ago
Big LOL...are there more pictures or videoclip they have capure?
16 years ago
Awesome sauce.
16 years ago
lol, how did they get the camera back?
Bayden Docking
16 years ago
HAHA, I wonder if they could get it to work filming video. That would look cool.
S Gilbert
16 years ago
Wait your were joking? What am I supposed to do with all this string and Helium ballons I bought?
Rabbit
16 years ago
LOL
ben
16 years ago
haha stick it to the man!!
Philip
16 years ago
Haha, awesome. I wish i had one of those.
Daniel
16 years ago
well ar least it was a cheap camera and not a ??£300 one
of the cable snapped or the camera fell off i would be annoyed lol
Mike
16 years ago
Unfortunately shot with a small nikon digital camera.

But I'm sure it looks great! lol
16 years ago
crack up
16 years ago
Very cool
16 years ago
Now that's amazing. I'd like to see all pics it took.
16 years ago
NICE!!!