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Sept. 15, 1999Over the years inventors had made several types of cameras to photograph aerial views. The need for such views became apparent in city planning, for news photography and many other fields.
In 1889, Arthur Batut built a kite modified to carry a camera. He “built a guillotine shutter, driven by a rubber band, to give an exposure speed he estimated to be from1/100 to 1/150 sec.” (Newhall, p.41) He built two ways to release the shutter, a slow fuse or by electric current.
George R. Lawrence took panoramas of San Francisco after the fire and earthquake of 1906. He used seventeen kites to carry the panorama camera. The largest of his negatives measured 48 by 18 ¾ inches.
Meanwhile in Germany the army was using cameras inside of their rockets. In 1891, Ludwig Rahrmann was issued a patent for a photographic system that was airborne by a large caliber gun or rocket. The projectile was fitted with a camera and parachute.
“The specification reads: ‘The projectile is fired high in the air in the direction of the object to be photographed, a charge of explosive being then ignited and the parachute apparatus being thereby set free from the projectile. The parachute opens automatically, falling by itself, the photographic apparatus hanging perpendicularly below it, and by a suitable arrangement taking one or more instantaneous photographs of the positions on the earth below, the parachute being then brought back to the point from which it was projected by a line, one end of which is attached to it, the other being retained at the starting point.’” (Newhall, p. 41)
A patent was issued in 1903, to Alfred Maul, another inventor for the Germany Army for his rocket camera.
“The camera, for 7 3/8 by 9 7/8 inch glass plates, was carried by a rocket 19 feet by 9 inches tall, powered by gunpowder. Eight seconds after launching, by which time the rocket reached an altitude of about 2,600 feet, the nose cone blew off and the camera, fastened to a parachute, was ejected. The exposure was made by a timing device.” (Newhall, p. 46)
His photographs were exhibited at the International Photographic Exhibition of 1909. The rocket camera was later used for military surveillance.
Another type of aerial photography was demonstrated at the International Photographic Exhibition utilizing pigeons. In 1903, Julius Neubronner also got a patent for his pigeon camera. His camera shot negatives in 1 ½ inch square exposures that were automatically taken at half minute intervals by a timing mechanism. Neubronner built a miniature panorama in 1912, for his pigeon photographers.
Photography from balloons, kites, and pigeons was taken over by airplanes. “Of the pioneer photography systems, only the rocket was to survive.” (Newhall, p. 48) The conflicting opinion however is that “this method (the rocket camera), while somewhat hopeful, was completely discontinued upon the advent of airplanes.” (Lethbride, p. 1)
Aerial photographs have been used in many different ways for many different things, such as cartography, geological sites, studies of soil samples, plant ecology, African game management, and for contemporary planning of towns and buildings. (St. Joseph, p. 7) It can be an invaluable tool for city planning on all sorts of terrain. Now, with modern cameras, traffic can be shown in real time by aerial photography.
Sept. 15, 1999