Today one of our team (seribubintang) helping Center for Research and Technology Volcanoes Development (BPPTK) to monitor Volcano activity in Sinabung mountain North Sumatera. No aircraft can fly in this area since the dust from the eruption all over the air.

Just saw the new phantom RTF quad from DJI, cool design and incredible price (around $700 pre order). I think this can change the quad market ...........

http://www.dji-innovations.com/products/phantom/features/

We are doing Aerial Shot across the bali Beach few days a go. Suddenly an Eagle came and chase our Bixler... After dancing and manuvering around we manage to go on top, and point the camera to the eagle... Yes we are lucky to get the perfect shot...


Recorded from the ground, i think the eagle mean no harm to our plane... may be he just exited to see new friend on the sky.... Who said eagle flies alone ? :D

Go pro is very popular among the FPV pilot or UAVS builder, but not everyone like the fish eye extreme wide lense. Some people choose to buy an extra housing while other replace the standard lense with gopro flat lense. Based on our experince If you want a flat lense on Go Pro, no need to buy extra housing or a new lense... just crush your go Pro in to wall... !!!. 

Few days a go our plane crash while testing auto pilot, the plane hit a stadium wall quite hard.. and unfortunately we put our GoPro on the front of the plane. The camera (without) housing hit the wall directly and the lens crack. This is what the lens look like after...

What suprise us.... the Gopro lense consist of few layer. It seems that each layer magnify the image and made it wider. In our case the lense is broken except the last layer... and after removing the broken layer we found that the last layer is a flat lense... and its working. 

Here the image of the lens.... (the monitor is white and black), yes its flat... and more narrow angle.. 

 Corius... we do some experiment, we replace the lens with used pocket camera lens.. and it works... !!

the image is good, but since the material is plastic its not sharp... i think if we use high quality glass lens the result will be great.... I'm curious if go pro also work with SLR lenses :D

Conclusion  

* Dont throw away your old broken camera... the lens might be useful

* If you broke your gopro lens check again... does it broken to the bottom or just the first layer

* if you want flat and narrow image... no need to buy a new lens.. just hit your plane to the wall like we did :D

UPDATE

 the modified lens work great underwater, just turn to get fix focus (the focus is diffrent betwen up and underwater) *thx to mas thoha

writer : oejang, amateur pilot
the tech guy : masthoha

the camera and lense are property of capung.  www.capung.web.id