Oh boy…
I got home at 4pm today. School ended at 12. I am dead.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I can gladly (sort of) say that I was unhindered in terms of research. I looked up everything from cameras, to trackers, to past projects, to crowd funding, [funny cat videos], etc. So, the cameras:
Basically, I have decided, based on previous successful projects that I would like 3 or 4 different cameras, each with a different purpose. I need (want) a small, good quality camera that will work as the “selfie cam”. This will have the balloon and the rig in frame the whole way up. For this I have been looking at the GoPro Hero Session 5. It is small, compact and packs a whopping 4k video! (Although it costs $200 (R2700)… but will sort that out).
Next, I want a high quality camera for video purposes. This will be pointed at the ground and we will be able to see the earth from the balloon. For this I chose the GoPro Hero 6 Black. It has the best video stabilization (which is very important), colour tones and video quality (4k). That cost is $300 (R4100)…
The next is a 360° camera. This is what I first envisioned. The best spherical camera that can sustain high altitude conditions is the GoPro Fusion. It is 5.2k, which is not bad for a compact spherical. This one is slightly pricier, at $700 (R9600).
I still need to look for the final camera: a DSLR or a good compact. This will be the hardest, since it has lenses and is very fragile, but it will produce the best stills by far. I still need to do more research on that, but it will most probably be a Canon of some kind, as I am able to hack their firmware to get better results out of the camera.
