Building Our Four-Camera Mount System: Bigger Coverage, Smarter Tech

At MAUI63, we’re always looking for smarter, more efficient ways to spot marine mammals across large areas of ocean. Our latest project? Building a four-camera mount system to help us capture wider coverage - and sharper images - from the air.

The goal was simple: get large-scale coverage at high resolution, without the high price tag. In theory, four top-end DSLR cameras working together could capture a kilometre-wide swathe of ocean in detail fine enough to detect Māui and Hector’s dolphins. In practice, that meant solving challenges around vibration, focus, power supply, and camera synchronisation - all inside a small aircraft.

Over the past few months, we’ve tested and refined the system, including trial flights over Lake Rotorua using our inflatable test dolphin (yes, really). We’ve experimented with different lenses, power setups, and vibration-dampening options to get the clearest possible images. Our current setup uses four Sony A7R V cameras, all triggered simultaneously by a custom GPS system. The result is a compact, robust mount that can support days of flying and generates about 7000 high-quality images per hour.

We’re continuing to troubleshoot a few quirks - including some image blur which is being caused by the exhaust from the plane - and exploring way to improve our system. Future improvements include live image capture and processing in-flight, so we can detect dolphins and other marine mammals in real time and reduce post-flight data handling.

This work is helping us push the boundaries of what’s possible in aerial wildlife monitoring - combining field testing, clever engineering, and AI to make surveying and detection faster, more accurate, and more scalable.

For those interested in the technical details, you can explore our documentation and code on GitHub:

👉 MAUI63/survey-computer-vision