I took the kite out again yesterday to the same park, equipped with a new camera (Canon Elph 160, lighter and higher resolution than the phone) and 200 extra feet of string. I tried pointing the camera level, since last time a lot of the pictures ended up pointing farther downward than I wanted. Unfortunately I didn't really get anything that turned out too well. I think I attached the rig too close to the kite, because it seemed to be swinging around more than last time. Most of the pictures had some motion blur. I'll switch back to 22.5 degrees down next time too, because there was too much sky in most of the shots. I did find (after the fact) a different custom firmware for this camera that seems like it will work better for keeping the shutter speed to a fast minimum value that I can set.
The "landing" was a bit eventful. As I was trying to bring the kite down, it must have gotten caught in a thermal, because it wanted to go directly overhead. This situation was a bit scary because if it "overflies" (goes upwind of me) the line can go slack, and then who knows where it might end up. Having the rig so close to the kite also seems to make it more unstable when the tension drops - the rig pulls the nose down and the kite starts gliding instead of pulling against the string. I'll need to adjust that and play with the bridle point next time. Luckily I had plenty of space in this park, so I dropped the winder and ran the line down to make sure the kite didn't get stuck in a tree or crash into a car. It ended up crashing nose first in the grass, closer than I would have liked to the parking lot. I'll need to re-glue the base of the camera rig, but other than that there was no damage. I'll post one shot, even though it's not that great. Hopefully I'll get better results next time.