If you read our kap changelog, you'll see the refinements are to provide video aiming system for our yashica t-5 point-and-shoot camera.
I'm sometimes disappointed with the camera because it suffers from vignetting. (not a specific fault of the t5 model in particular, it's a very good camera, but just a fundamental problem of most point-and-shoots that have a radial iris) My other complaint is that it's a fixed 50mm lens. 50mm is the same angle-of-view as a human. When the camera is two hundred feet up, 50mm field of vision is enormous and subjects on the ground are tiny. You don't use a 50mm camera to take landscapes (well... you might, but they suck). It might be nice to get different perspectives by using long lenses, more like a hawk's view, or even very wide lenses, like an airborne fish. None of that is possible with the t5.
We need the aiming to try to ensure that we don't fire off a roll of 36 shots, and have none of them be worth a damn. We mis-aim, there is too much motion, it's too dark, we're too high, too low, and on and on and on. There are endless reasons why kap photos often suck, and must have among the worst ratios of good photos:crap photos per roll. Additionally aggravating is that you don't get to see your results until well after your trip is over. I'd say so far our kite photos have only been perhaps 10-20% as pleasing as we'd have liked them to be.
Our video aiming system is rudimentary, insofar that the video requires an video camera, transmitter, power in addition to everything the camera/rc rig needs. The 2.4ghz transmitter is only marginally good enough -- often swinging or swaying out of range or out of the aim of the sensitive little antenna. It certainly helps our pictures, but it introduces its own problems, and isn't very refined. It takes the entire concentration of two people to run this setup.
So I was browsing some kap sites last night, and saw that the infamous Charles Benton is now using a digital camera. Now this guy truly does have a staggering library of excellent kap photos. No question about it. I always thought he was the purist -- sticking it out with 100ASA 35mm slide film and so on. That he was using, and raving about, a digital camera got me considering if this might be an angle for us to consider.
"Should we switch to using a digital camera instead of the 35mm yashica, perhaps even dumping the video aiming system, too?"
Well, only if two things are true:
1) that a digital kap rig can improve our chances of "getting the shot"
2) that the one-in-a-thousandth shot that is truly superior can be rendered as an art-quality image
What technical requirements would the rig and camera need in order to say "yes" to those questions?
a) We need some metric for the measure of image quality we need.
...How about, the image comes out w/ enough color and detail that it could be blown up to an 8x12" photo? {bigger?}
b) Dimensions and weight
...would be nice if various lenses were available?
...would be nice if it were <= weight of current system
c) Storage capacity
...if you could fire off enough photos, you could eliminate the need for a video aiming system entirely?
...IE: tradoff accuracy of a single photo for the chance to fire 100 unaimed photos instead?
...IE: tradeoff video-aiming-system weight for increased weight of better or varied lenses?
d) Kap-specific functionality the camera would need
...electronic firing, instead of a crude mechanical shutter finger
...do any cameras output an image signal that could be transmitted directly back to ground station ?
...IE: use the camera as an integrated system for both aiming and taking photos.