Jason Hawkes has a very difficult, expensive, and spectacular kind of work: he takes pictures from the sky. And while it may not sound very difficult, obtaining these crystal-clear shots while hanging out of the door of a twin-engine helicopter, everything vibrating like in an earthquake because of the rotor blades, and shouting orders at your pilot over, it’s a very challenging job that requires the best technology you can get your hands on. We talked with Jason about how is it done in this new Gizmodo section that we like to call “How Is It Done.”

Jesús Diaz: Jason, I can imagine the difficulty of taking such amazing shots from a helicopter at night… What camera and lenses did you use to catch this?
Jason Hawkes: I use quite a few different cameras. I started out shooting night aerials using film about six years ago. For my day aerial shoots I often shoot using a Hasselblad, but at night it is just not suitable because of the noise over 200 ISO.

JD: So what about now?
JH: For night shoots I now shoot using Nikons and Canons. Obviously I only work digitally. I sometimes shoot tethered directly to a Mac to look through the images as I take them, and my cameras are also directly attached to a GPS, which adds latitude and longitude information directly into the Metatdata. So together with the mount, there is quite a lot of equipment around the camera.

JD: What mounts do you use?
JH: I use two separate gyro stabilising mounts, mounted together into one larger mount to get the stability you need for really crisp images.

JD: What are the typical settings you use (ISO, aperture, etc)?
JH: Previously with film I could only go to 400 sometimes 800 ISO but with the very latest crop of cameras you can easily shoot at 1600 with good results.

JD: What was the biggest technical challenge?
JH: I have specialised in aerial photography from helicopters for 19 years so am used to the other difficulties, i.e. cramped and very noisy condition. You fly with the door of the helicopter open wearing a headset to direct the pilot. In daylight without a mount you have to shoot at 1000 sec because of the vibration caused by the rotor blades, so having to shoot at very low shutter speeds at night it takes quite a while to change your habits in order to correctly use the gyro. Flying over cities you need a twin engined helicopter that costs £1100 ( GBP ) per hour, so its a very expensive technique to perfect.

JD: How many photos do you take to come to one of those amazing shots?
JH: At night I shoot around 500 images per hour and about 90% come out okay.

Visit Jason’s web site for more examples of his stunning work. His Britain from Above series is simply spectacular. [Jason Hawkes]

In its past life, the antenna launcher was instead used to project tennis balls at annoying children / fluffy pets tennis players, but it can now be used to project an aerial up and over a tree, or a similarly lofty position, by wrapping the wire around the tennis ball and taking aim. Finally, you can now tune into your favorite Martian radio station with no fuss, just as long as your aim is a bit better than that guy who follows you around in life, using the urinal before you. [Pneumatic Antenna Launching Systems viaMake]

The technology will rely on a cutting-edge propulsion system, which will be powered by plasma thrusters, eliminating any moving parts. Check out the above diagram for a basic schematic of what elements will be included in the micro-scaled aircraft.

The energy created will be enough to power micro and nano unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), measuring anywhere between 6-12-inches in length. It is hoped soldiers will be able to carry a pack of six such vehicles, which could then be thrown up in the air to carry out intelligence collection operations. We cannot build a coherent sentence to emphasise how amazingly cool this sounds, but a list of words comes to mind: voyeurism, unbelievable, crazy, lube, exceptional and sexy are words that feature in our immediate, mangled thoughts. [Cnet]

AU: I call dumb on this. Yeah, technically interesting, but c’mon! Do it with a cheapie toy camera, not an iPhone… -SB.

They used a Q-tip damp with salt water, which they attached to a remote controlled servo. But before you run to make your own ghetto iPhone stylus, there’s a last piece you will need: a battery and a cable to carry a low current to the Q-tip. This simulates the electricity that you have in your body – what the iPhone uses to recognize human touch. It worked perfectly, as you can see here:

Absolute genius. [Pict'Earth]