In a recent episode of the CBS television show,
60 Minutes, Sony camera technology was put to the test as and experiment was launched to see if the latest high speed military drones could be captured on film. The new Perdix military drones, created by the Department of Defense, are autonomous and can fly at speeds upwards of 50 MPH.
An amazing sight of 100 of these drones was captured on film by an experienced camera man using Sony's HDC-4300 4K high frame rate camera system attached to a nearby PWS-4500 4K server. The new military drones now have the capability of carrying out specific military missions and they are now capable of carrying them out en mass, in giant overwhelming swarms. The January 8
60 Minutes story wanted to bring viewers the frightening capabilities of these new military weapons.
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The Perlix military drone[/caption]
The challenge was, though, how to film such high speed subjects? The
60 Minutes team decided to hire experienced sports cameraman Rudy Niedermeyer after several attempts to film these drones failed to produce any usable footage. The
60 Minutes team was ready to cancel the story but Niedermeyer has covered many a golf tournament and the staff figured that if he was so expert a following the little white ball in flight, could he, perhaps, be the man to film the drones?
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Rudy Niedermeyer at work.[/caption]
Niedermeyer agreed and he got hold of the Sony HDC-4300, which also shoots 480 frames per second, and is widely used for such sports telecasts as the Super Bowl, The World Series, The Masters golf tournament and the NBA Finals. Niedermeyer wanted the Sony camera because the drones were so fast and erratic in flight. The drones can direct their own flight patterns which made it far more of a challenge than just following the trajectory of a golf ball in flight.
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The results of Niedermeyer's experienced hands and the Sony HDC-4300[/caption]
Prior to getting the Sony camera, Niedermeyer had used other camera technology and just couldn't capture the speedy drones in flight. After he started using the Sony HDC-4300, he got, what
60 Minutes declares, to be the only ever shot of a swarm of these new military drones. Niedermeyer started shooting wide and then, inch by inch, he began to zoom. It took two full days of production just to decide the strategy for attempting the filming.
In the end, though, they got some breath taking footage of the 100 Perlix drones in flight maneuvers after they had been launched from a trio of F-18 fighter jets.
PHOTO CREDITS: CBS News
