. >> noaa scientist and pilot john durban is tracking a mother and her calf from a distance of about ree quarters of a mile out from where he stands. john's wife and co-researcher, holly fearnbach, is under the towel that shades a control panel giving her a real time video feed that aids in guiding the flight. >> so when they come up next i'm going to move out to them ok? >> picking up more kelp at the very right edge. >> should be perfect, lets see where they are. >> now it's split second timing for john to remotely trigger the camera to take high definition photographs of the whales. >> i think they're gonna be around the corner, they went through there really quick but we got them. >> okay. >> we did well there huh? >> yep. >> this is really a tool we have for flying a camera. we're trying to make inference about size and shape of whales by taking photographs, its called photogrammetry. so this is our camera and we want to get it above the whales. >> mobly was built by don leroi (le roy) at a cost of $25-thousand dollars. it may look like a hobbyist's dream project but in fact it's