Pole photography for archaeology – Part 2: Field Testing

In the first post, I wrote about how I got into Pole Aerial Photography, along with the requirements and constraints I was working under. In this post, I’m going to introduce my pole photography setup and how it worked in the field.


My polecam setup is made with a Canon G11, supported by a Hastings telescopic hotstick that can extend to 30′. The camera is triggered by a wireless remote while aiming is done through a wireless video camera and monitor.

For taking photographs at an elevation, I tested out the polecam this hole on a cliff wall which stood about 20′ high:

With the polecam extended to the corresponding height, I could get a shot and see the contents of the hole:

The same shot, with flash:

For elevated photography, the polecam is a great replacement for a scaffolding – up to a point. It enabled me to a get a camera up to most of the places that the scaffold didn’t cover and take photographs at close-range. The places I couldn’t reach even with the pole were at heights of greater than 30′, but at least with the polecam I could close up the parallax gap that much further. However, because the pole sways proportionately to the height of the pole, I found it necessary to take photographs as a relatively fast speed – 1/125 of a second, which, because the wall was well lit, was not much of an issue. But in places with less light I might need to use the flash or rely on other forms of artificial lighting. The swaying pole also makes macro photography impossible.

For low-altitude aerial photography, I tested the polecam on a surface littered with boulders. At ground level, the space looked like this:

By tilting the camera downwards at an angle and extending the pole to about 12′ off the ground, I could get a good overhead shot of the same space:

I think it would be a good way to get overhead shots of excavated pits or small spaces, but I haven’t tried anything on a larger scale yet. It should be said that the G11’s shortest focal length of 24mm still feels a little too narrow for me. I might try experimenting with a wide-angle or fisheye lens later.

What do you think? Does the polecam work? Any suggestions to make it work better? If you’re interested about assembling a polecam on your own, you can read about the parts I used in Part 3 of the series.