How its made

From  ancient times, man watched the birds and wanted to fly.  People had always looked enviously at the birds,  soaring freely through space on the infinite highway of the air.

Modern technology provides us with an opportunity to observe the earth from the bird`s eye view.

The website Lithuania-photo.com -  is the only website in the world, representing all Lithuanian cities from the bird`s eye view!  Over 2,000 photographs of cities, golf courses, road plans, status of constructions, also art photographs are already placed on the website.

The website aims to provide both-documentary and art photographs of Lithuanian cities from a bird’s eye view.

The website was founded on 2 November  2009.

The creator of the website and  the photographer is Kestutis Fedirka.  The website is not being supported by any government institution.  Not a single cent of the tax payers money has been used for creating and developing the website, that is promoting  Lithuania.  The website has been visited not only by hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians, but also tens of thousands of foreigners from all over the world. According to the website statistics, viewers are spending more and more time in the website, admiring  pictures of Lithuania. The plan is to complete the project  in the end of 2010.

The majority of you probably thought that the pictures are made from air balloons,  gliders or other flying objects, but only few have guessed that actually the photos are made using much more sophisticated equipment .  Radio-controlled aircraft “Šarka “(Magpie) is the main  contributor to this work. Mantas Butkus has constructed this model, which was  improved and lifted skywards by Kestutis Fedirka,  the photographer himself.  The plane flies very quietly, it  is small and hardly noticeable. Each photo session lasts about 30 minutes, during which  an average of 150 photographs of objects from different perspectives are being taken, and only 4-5 of them are selected.

The radio controlled air-planes allow to take pictures even when there is 20 degrees below zero.  It is much more advanced way of taking pictures then using any other aircraft, because radio controlled air-planes can fly at any conditions, at any angle, there is no restrictions regarding the height, trajectory or territory.

Almost all the photographs are made with RC model “Magpie”, using different cameras: Fuji F100fd and the Casio EX-Z300a.

A little bit about the air-plane model itself

It is electric-powered airplane, that can fly relatively high. Height of one kilometre it’s not a problem. Model can fly up to 30 kilometres, operated from the remote control up to 5 kilometres. It’s weight – just one and a half kilograms. It easily fits into a car trunk.

Flight stabilization system is installed into the airplane, which keeps the model stable even under conditions of high wind.

Video transmission system that sends live video to a pilot, transmits not only images, but also the entire aircraft telemetry. Airplane is equipped with GPS system, that shows the exact position of the model,  home direction, so it is difficult to get lost in the area. The view is  observed through special 3D glasses, that creates a sensation of a real flight. All these features put the model ahead of a number of paragliders, because they can fly where the real planes would not be able to with regards to the speed and height.

Another advantage of RC models – they perfectly  fly at night.

More over, what other aircraft would be able to fly so low?

Besides the pictures of Lithuania, in the website there are presentent important moments of events, art photographs, constructions’ status of important objects, road plans and other views.