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Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

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Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#21

Post by pepve »

trhway wrote: post #6

strange colors - bluish/greenish like toys - real or camera/filter quirks? One can wonder what images this camera would produce http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows-off-1-... "With an imaging unit that totals 1.8 billion pixels, ARGUS captures video (12 fps) that is detailed enough to pick out birds flying through the sky, or a lost toddler wandering around. "

"White" light sources are generally not really white. For example compared to sunlight ordinary light bulbs are a bit orange and fluorescent tubes have a green hue. Our brain mostly ignores these differences, but a camera sensor does not. The author might have turned up the saturation on these images though, I don't know how strong the difference is supposed to look.

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#22

Post by HCIdivision17 »

The images truly are breathtaking.

His note about the streets seeming like neurons is interesting, but I hope I'm not the only person who immediately thought the shots resembled an exaggerated extruded version of a chip's layered layout.

(Here's sort of a small version: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cell-Proc... )

It's a bit odd: the scale of the city is not quite large enough to look like a modern processor's layout, yet is tens/hundreds of thousands of times larger. The scale of complexity is boggling.

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#23

Post by moogleii »

pepve wrote: post #21
trhway wrote: post #6

strange colors - bluish/greenish like toys - real or camera/filter quirks? One can wonder what images this camera would produce http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows-off-1-... "With an imaging unit that totals 1.8 billion pixels, ARGUS captures video (12 fps) that is detailed enough to pick out birds flying through the sky, or a lost toddler wandering around. "

"White" light sources are generally not really white. For example compared to sunlight ordinary light bulbs are a bit orange and fluorescent tubes have a green hue. Our brain mostly ignores these differences, but a camera sensor does not. The author might have turned up the saturation on these images though, I don't know how strong the difference is supposed to look.

Somewhat related: http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/02/las_new_led_streetligh...

NYC is supposed to complete its switch to LEDs by 2017 (but no idea on the current progress)

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#26

Post by davidw »

uptown wrote: post #17
discardorama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without permits, I think it's limited to 500 ft. Not that high, I'm afraid.

The FAA says 400 ft. for UAV.

Idle curiosity: I wonder how high a hobbyist unit could fly straight up before running out of batteries.

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#28

Post by callmeed »

I've worked on some web things for Vincent in my days in the photo industry. He's always been a favorite photographer of mine. His technical ability and attention to detail in photography is mind-blowing.

What's even more impressive is he took to cinematography a few years back and seems to be just as skilled.

If you haven't seen them yet, check out his tilt-shift images: http://agonistica.com/tilt-shift-photography-by-vincent-lafo...

And here is a commercial he filmed: http://vimeo.com/17355509

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#30

Post by hughes »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #22

The images truly are breathtaking. His note about the streets seeming like neurons is interesting, but I hope I'm not the only person who immediately thought the shots resembled an exaggerated extruded version of a chip's layered layout. (Here's sort of a small version: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cell-Proc... ) It's a bit odd: the scale of the city is not quite large enough to look like a mode…

I was reminded of the quote from TRON Legacy:

> I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways?

These shots definitely capture the city-to-circuit transitions from the films.

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