The shot you want tracks alongside a speeding car for miles. Or the camera lifts off and rises higher than any crane could possibly go. Or flies right up to a window on the 30th floor and looks in. You know how Hollywood does this: Full-size helicopters equipped with really expensive stabilized mounts from companies like Wescam. You also know that renting a camera and mount like that could wipe out your budget in a couple of hours. Short of trashing your vision, what can you do?

Most aerial mounts are expensive, for several reasons. First, in the United States, anything installed with tools on an airplane or helicopter must first be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA issues approvals for mounting specific products on specific makes and models of aircraft, so manufacturers design their products to work with a limited number of aircraft. Aerial mounts are not mass manufactured; they're almost always custom-made.

You can always shoot handheld video from a small helicopter, but now you can shoot fully stabilized video at a price far below that required to use traditional helicopter camera pods.

Second, aerial mounts must overcome enormous vibration and motion challenges. The engines, props, and rotors on helicopters and airplanes generate strong low-frequency vibration. Aircraft move through three axes of motion: pitch (tilting up and down), yaw (rotating side to side through the vertical axis), and roll (tilting side to side). A stabilized mount must eliminate low-frequency vibration and dampen pitch, yaw, and roll so the recorded image remains steady and smooth in relation to the horizon and relative to the aircraft.

Companies such as Gyron FS, Gyrosphere, Spacecam, Tyler, and Wescam make exterior aircraft camera mounts designed for film and video use. Most use several gyroscopes (gyros) to offset unwanted pitch, yaw, and roll motions. The higher-end mounts offer motorized controls that let a camera operator sit in an aircraft and remotely aim and focus the mounted camera. Most work only with specific camera models. Unless shooting aerials is your business, you'll probably rent aerial mounts.

Rental rates, which don't include the cost of the camera or the helicopter, range from around $600 a day for a Tyler middle mount to around $1500 a day for Spacecam or Wescam units. The helicopters approved for these mounts (usually Jet Ranger, Bell 206, Longranger, or Twinstar) rent for about $600 to $1200 per hour with a three-hour minimum. And you may need to use DPs approved by the rental/aircraft company. Getting the shot you want can be expensive. But there is now a less-expensive alternative.

The Aerial Exposures Gyro Stabilized Platform is a compact aerial mount with a breakthrough price. A complete package capable of stabilizing cameras weighing up to 25 pounds costs $12,945. That package includes three Kenyon Labs KS-8 tungsten gyros, the platform on which the gyros and camera mount, a stand to hold the platform, and a four-output inverter to power the gyros using the electrical systems in the aircraft. The 30-inch stand has a 12 x 15-inch base.

The platform and stand total only 65 pounds-light enough to let you place it nearly anywhere it will fit, whether an aircraft, automobile, or boat.

The Gyro Stabilized Platform employs three Kenyon Laboratories KS-8 gyros to stabilize the camera in three axes. Kenyon Labs gyros are used with aerial mounts manufactured by Tyler and others. Kenyon Labs originally developed these gyros to stabilize shipboard binoculars, and they have a panning rate of 30 degrees per second. Inside each of these metal blimp-like pods (5.8 inches long and 3.4 inches in diameter ) are heavy tungsten wheels spinning at 22,000 revolutions per minute. Each KS-8 gyro weighs 5 pounds and has a rated life of 20,000 hours. The cost to refurbish one after reaching that point is only $100, so maintenance cost is minimal.

(above) Because the Aerial Exposures Gyro Stabilized Platform isn't bolted to the helicopter, it doesn't require special FAA approval. However, you are limited to shooting out the door or through the bubble, which are addressable limitations.

The Kenyon Labs gyros stabilize the camera, and heavy-duty bungee cords connect the camera and gyros to the platform and isolate them from vibration. The platform itself is made out of aviation-quality black anodized aluminum. Everything assembles and comes apart easily for travel.

Attaching the gyros to the platform, assembling the stand, and mounting the camera takes about 15 minutes. There is a tilt drag and locking mechanism, but no pan drag. A pan handle mounted on the camera lets the operator reposition the camera. The gyros dampen the motion of the aircraft and fix the camera into position. That position doesn't change unless the camera is touched.

I had the opportunity to test the Gyro Stabilized Platform on several occasions: twice in a helicopter and once in an automobile.

I used a Panasonic SDX900 camera with a Canon ENG/EFP servo zoom lens and battery, so the whole package weighed about 20 pounds. Aerial Exposures makes a smaller version of the platform for cameras that weigh under 8 pounds.

The first time I used the platform, I positioned the camera to shoot through the front bubble of a Schweizer 300C helicopter, a small three seater that can be rented for about $350 per hour-which is much less than bigger choppers required for most other mounts. The day was very windy and the pilot, Dennis Leaver, had to work hard to keep the helicopter steady. An experienced pilot is essential and worth a premium.

The prototype mount I used on the first day had an ineffective tilt drag mechanism, so the pitch of the camera drifted and floated too much. Some of the problems were operator error; I had to learn how to control the camera without creating undue motion. Soon thereafter, Aerial Exposures redesigned the tilt control.

The Aerial Exposures mount is available in a model that supports cameras and lenses totaling near 20 pounds, and another that supports cameras weighing under 8 pounds.

It's interesting that the slow pitch and yaw floating that I found annoying when shooting from the helicopter added a dreamy quality to footage I shot using the Gyro Stabilized Platform in a car. It looked very different than what you get mounting a camera on a car using a Matthews Hostess Tray or a Super Grip mount.

I didn't have a chance to test the platform on a boat, but I think that it could help you avoid using a stabilized rig such as a Steadicam. A fully stabilized camera moves separately from the boat, the people on that boat, and the background. The camera's horizon is different than what you would experience if you were standing on the boat.

If you are shooting from a boat to photograph other boats, as for a maritime battle scene, stabilization is a big help. However, if you are shooting a scene on a boat from that same boat, seeing people remain perfectly still in a frame while the horizon heaves may not be a great experience for the audience. It's a calculated guess that by releasing the tilt lock on the platform, the camera would float enough to reduce the horizon heave to acceptable levels so you could avoid what is the only other way of shooting effectively on a boat: hand-holding the camera and using your body to absorb the vibration.

Stabalized mounts aren't just for helicopters. The Aerial Exposures mount can be placed into the back of a vehicle, such as a Chevy Suburban.

For my second helicopter test, we removed the passenger door and shot through the opening. It was a tight squeeze to fit me (6 feet, 2 inches), the pilot, and the platform into the Schweizer 300C. We shot the New York skyline at dusk on the second coldest day in a decade. The platform performed well even in extreme temperatures. It was far below zero with the wind chill. The new tilt drag mechanism was effective at maintaining the pitch of the camera. As a result, there was little I had to do as the camera operator, other than occasionally pan the camera.

The Canon J17x7.7 WRSD lens was usable out to about 50 mm with a high degree of stability. I say "about 50 mm" because the restricted space left me unable to twist my body to determine the exact focal length.

After a little bit of practice with the Gyro Stabilized Platform, I was able to shoot images with that wonderful, stable floating quality that distinguishes footage shot with a high-end aerial mount.

The key thing missing from the Gyro Stabilized Platform mount are remote controls for tilt and pan. However, this platform has a price that is less than 10 percent of the other platforms. You can buy the Aerial Exposures Gyro Stabilized Platform mount for what it costs to rent most of the others for a week.

The Gyro Stabilized Platform isn't the only game in town, and for Hollywood budgets, the extra costs of shooting with a Wescam-, Tyler-, or Spacecam-class system are trivial. But for the rest of us, the Aerial Exposures Gyro Stabilized Platform represents an extraordinary value that gives you flexibility in choice of camera and aircraft, turns out great results, and alters the economics of shooting aerials.

One of my hobbies is flying radio-control aircraft. I got into radio control to service my day job: I wanted to build and fly a radio-controlled helicopter with a DV camera on it to get aerial shots at a reasonable price. I started with radio-controlled planes, and although I have become reasonably proficient at flying fixed-wing, I have yet to make the leap to helicopters.

There is an old saying among pilots: You can trim an airplane to fly itself, but a helicopter is always trying to kill you. This is as true in radio-controlled 'copters as it is in full-size ones. If you can't master the rub-your-belly-and-pat-your-head coordination necessary to fly a 'copter, you are better off leaving the task to the pros.

One of the most widely known radio-controlled camera 'copter businesses is CopterVision (www.coptervision.com), based in Van Nuys, CA. CopterVision's custom-built aircraft are 5.5 feet long with a 6-foot bladespan, which is large in the the radio-controlled 'copter world. These rigs aren't for sale, but they can be rented with a crew.

For a shoot, the three-person CopterVision crew (pilot, camera operator, and communications technician) arrives with two complete 'copter rigs, just in case. CopterVision aircraft carry their own supplied cameras, including 35 mm, 16 mm, and a DV video rig (a Panasonic block camera recording to a DVCAM deck). According to CopterVision spokesperson Daniela Meltzer, CopterVision doesn't yet record in HD because current cameras and decks aren't small enough.

However, the system uses Global Positioning System data to let the crew program in repeatable, predictable moves. The camera can pan, tilt, and roll under control of the camera operator, who has downlinked video assist at all times.

Of course, one of the great selling points of CopterVision is the relatively compact size of the 'copter. It can get into spaces full-size helicopters couldn't dream of flying in, such as buildings and tunnels.

CopterVision's credit list is extensive, including shots for feature films, ESPN, Animal Planet, and NASA. You've probably seen its work on any number of car ads. Hiring CopterVision and crew costs $8000 per day ($9000 for film), less than some other full-size 'copter systems, but still a big bite for a small budget. But sometimes good things come in small packages.

'The Radio-Control Option' By Bruce Johnson

To learn more about the stabilization systems and technologies mentioned in this article, check out these Web sites.

Aerial Exposures
www.aerialexposures.com

CopterVision
www.coptervision.com

Gyron Systems
www.gyron.com

Gyrosphere
www.gyrosphere.com

Kenyon Laboratories
www.ken-lab.com

L-3 Wescam
www.wescam.com

SpaceCam Systems
www.spacecam.com

Tyler Camera Systems
www.tylermount.com