Dear Shawn Kefauver,

Like you, I was looking for such a commercially available camera a couple of years ago, and just gave-up in despair. However, I quickly devised what I believe is a much better alternative (there still is not a truly suitable camera available on the commercial market that will fit your exact needs, but the new GoPro Heros can be adapted to the purpose best). I decided to adapt smartphones to the purpose. The drones that I used did not have the lifting capacity that yours have (at the time limited to a camera package weighing no more than about 0.35 kg), so it was the only solution. The line of smartphone models that I have had the best success with are the HTC brand, because of a number of factors: (1) Android OS and the huge number of independent developers working with it who are available to assist you (for FREE) in developing interface & control apps (2) ease of "hacking" to remove and replace the proprietary OS; (3) durability/reliability & resistance to vibration/shock of the electronics/hardware; (4) high-quality GPS and hi-speed WiFi already built-in; (5) very good quality camera/sensors ... any special needs can be addressed with lenses; (6) ultra-light; (7) extremely long battery life for low battery weight ratio ... the HTCs beat all others I tried, hands-down (and, no, I don't work for HTC, or own any of their stock *hee*hee* ... though I probably OUGHT to buy some of the stock base on what I have learned about the quality of their product from the inside-out). Anyway, if you can find a youngster adept at Android programming to help you design your system (it was a steep up-hill slog for an old-head like me, even with the tireless assistance and patience of a couple dozen youngsters), you can pick-up all the last-years' models of HTC smartphones on eBay with cracked screens ... that still work fine, usually, for her/him to experiment with for only around $20-30 each ... a great bargain!

Best regards,

Bob Skiles

Dear Shawn,

I suppose the reason you want a camera that has an integrated GPS is to obviate the need for writing/synchronizing an external GPS signal onto your video frames, and/or to obviate the seeming universal problem of loss of synchronization between the on-board GPS and the video stream (giving inaccurate coordinates on frames). This is almost always due to a temporary loss of lock on the GPS signal caused by RF interference (usually produced by your on-board control system electronics). This can usually be overcome with proper attention to additional RF shielding  and/or grounding (or "earthing" as the Brits are wont to say) returns. 

The biggest problem in adapting the GoPro cameras (and other cameras that are controlled via RF, wirelessly) to work with GPS systems is that the RF interference they emit tends to momentarily break the lock between your GPS receiver and the GPS satellites (thus, producing the erroneously written coordinates on your video frames). Consequently, it is very important to add RF shielding between (or completely surrounding the GoPro camera with shielding is best) the camera and your GPS receiver's antenna. Here are a couple of videos showing how the GoPro shielding is easily accomplished:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cMESqwBz9U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ1Tc_BYlmc

Best of luck in finding a suitable camera if you choose not to use the GoPros or to adapt a smartphone (I hope you don't have to settle for adapting something like one of those heavy/clunky commercial Nikons ... even Scotch-taping an iPhone to the belly of your drone and running it's camera via remote app would be better adaptation than that IMO *hee*hee*).

Regards,

Bob Skiles

Dear Shawn,

You can use AscTec Falcon 8 that 3 main components are a remote control, the flight control software and the octocopter itself . Camera Sony NEX-5N (16.1 megapixel) is used for remote imaging system actively with stabilized camera mount. The Falcon 8 major technical specifications include: Flight time: 20 – 30 minutes (limited by battery capacity); Image transfer frequency (5.8 GHz); Control signal frequency from ground station (2.4 GHz) and Live video feed to the Mobile Ground Station. We use this system to monitoring construction progress of Ho Chi Minh City urban railway project.

Perhaps you should also take in consideration the image resolution you expect, and which is the most relevant focal length, which is the compatibility with your processing software...

Dear Shawn,

A quick non-scientific Google survey of the opinion of professional/technical users of UAVs, flying them for overhead monitoring of pre-construction route and of progress during construction on engineering projects over the past two-or-three years (witness Belizario Zarate's preference stated just above, for example), indicates the preference for the GoPro camera. Several features seem to always be mentioned: (1) very high quality camera in the lightest, most-compact package; (2) low-weight, weather-proof, easily-mountable-in-any-position enclosures available; (3) reasonably priced. 

Best regards & luck with your projects,

Bob Skiles

Thanks for the fine discussion and answers! We are looking for a high resolution, but even more so, a larger sensor to capture better image quality. Right now we are flying a Panasonic Lumix GX7 and integrating a few hundred pictures at a time into 3D models. We had GPS on the ground, but if we had GPS with each camera, that would greatly improve the model accuracy and help the SIFT camera positioning. The drone itself has GPS, which can be downloaded, converted, exported, sorted, matched, etc.., which is exactly what we'd like to skip with an integrated high resolution GPS. We were looking into the Nikon 1 AW1, which is also waterproof, but it doesn't have a remote shutter connection, and as such cannot be controlled by the drone - a major integration negative. I guess since we already have one on the drone that is still the best bet. 

In a short follow-up to this question I would like to add that Garmin now has a Virb series of cameras that are quite interesting, as they have both integrated GPS at a fairly high quality, and also movement detection sensors for better image mosaicking. We purchased their last year's model and it seems to work quite well. Sony now also has an action cam with a large sensor, which may also be of interest, but we haven't tested that yet.

I have had good limited success with the VIRB cameras in FB-HTP. Please see an application presentation of the XE in Maricopa Phenotyping. Presentation Animated Presentation - 2017 Example of using VIRBXE for fie...

Thanks Matthew. We have tested the VIRB as well. Have you hand any issues with odd frames with a strange white balance? I've done a few test flights and had to delete maybe 10% of the images because of odd white balance changes. That and with clear sky conditions in a slow flight at 30 m steady elevation a.g.l.

Indeed it is unfortunate that the VIRB XE camera will not lock white balance when taking its very attractive 2Hz continuous full resolution imagery.

I was unable to collectively process or correct my jpgs. So I’m only using the video function currently because that will lock.

I did talk to Garmin regarding this issue and still want to ask nicely for a firmware with image settings lock, to support value added imagery applications.

The GoPro6 consumer grade action camera platform appears to have core imaging features to support a phenotyping researcher. Model #6 includes GPS (no IMU).

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Maricopa-Phenotyping/update/5b2d89a34cde265cb64a3783

Thank you for excellent work Shawn, you are an inspiration to me.

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