Up, Up, And Away: RC Video-Copter Is A Moviemaker’s Wet Dream

(For the record, this has ZILCH to do with iPhones, but we thought it was too cool to pass up…, well unless you strap iPhone 3GS to one of these things)

Two weeks ago, a couple of iSmashPhone'rs who are also camera buffs were in NYC for the annual PhotoPlus Expo.  The show itself was pretty "meh" — it seems to get smaller and smaller each year — but the above gizmo caught both our eyes: an oversized radio-controlled helicopter with a gimbel camera mount in front.

Say hello to SkyShutter's AeriCam, which promises to be a (reasonably) affordable way to get aerial photographs/video.  The brainchild of Jason Lam, it'll loft up to a 10 lb. film or video camera.  It's small profile and electric-powered rotor lets you, as per the sales pitch, "[g]o farther, higher, in tighter space, much faster setup time than crane and where Full Scale Helciopters are not permitted, or too dangerous to operate."  (We'd still recommend getting a filming permit before you zoom this baby down Lexington Avenue at high noon…)

That doesn't mean it's a plug-and-play solution; Lam (a seasoned RC-copter vet) recommends getting the hang of radio-controlled flight before you shoot a single frame of film.  (He also recommends a two-man crew: one to pilot the copter, and a camera operator to run the gimbel.)  And while the AeriCam is cheaper than a full-size whirlybird, it's not CHEAP cheap: the camera mount alone retails for US$3300.00 (with landing skids), and a fully-equipped copter is "roughly the price of a high end digital SLR" (an EOS-1Ds Mark III SLR Digital Camera tops six grand, so budget accordingly).  Here's some test footage from over Manhattan: