Meet BeetleCam - a a camera mounted on top of a four-wheel drive remote control buggy. The homemade device has allowed two British brothers to capture spectacular close-ups of lion prides, elephant herds and other wildlife in Tanzania.
Brothers Matthew Burrard-Lucas, 20, a student, and William, 26, a wildlife photographer, both from London, constructed BeetleCam last year in their garage and fitted the groundbreaking contraption with a camera or two weeks in August they let their electronic camouflaged companion loose in the wilds of remote Katavi National Park, South-West Tanzania.
From the safety of a landrover the duo were able to steer BeetleCam into groups of animals - normally too dangerous to approach on foot One encounter with a huge predator saw BeetleCam torn to pieces. Will said: "After obtaining our first photographs of elephants we were buoyed with optimism and decided to make lions our second subject. In hindsight this was a foolish idea. BeetleCam was promptly mauled and carried off into the bush. A long recovery mission ensued and we were extremely lucky to retrieve an intact memory card from the mangled Canon 400D body. On downloading the images, we were delighted to find that BeetleCam had performed his duty admirably, and we got a great series of images from the encounter"
Designing BeetleCam posed several challenges. The vehicle needed to be capable of traversing the uneven African terrain with a heavy payload of camera, lens and flashes. It had to be reliable in the harsh, dusty environment and would need to operate for long periods without being charged. Ideally it would do all this while remaining stealthy and camouflaged
Through several refinements and redesigns, BeetleCam was honed into a sturdy, resilient and slightly unpredictable contraption capable of periods of brilliance, interspersed with the odd period of unsolicited autopilot. We decided that would do fine. Only a few days before our departure, BeetleCam was ready to be let loose in the wild
The pair found some unexpected animal behaviour on their pioneering trip. "We thought that elephants would be a simple enough subject for BeetleCam's first outing. We were wrong. We quickly learned that elephants are wary of unfamiliar objects and, due to their highly sensitive hearing, are almost impossible to sneak up on... We eventually developed a technique which involved positioning the camera well in front of the elephant and then waiting for it approach in its own time. With this technique we enjoyed great success later in the trip and managed to get some incredible photos of these wonderful creatures.
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