No. The Soar team is using a wide-angle or fish-eye lens on their equipment
Yes they are. For
video. Pay attention:
http://www.mikedeep.com/Project-Soar/Overview/14004205_gKURwPRIMARY CAMERA (VIDEO)
GOPRO HERO HD
Rugged fisheye HD video camera
SECONDARY CAMERA (PHOTO)
CANON SD800 IS
Small, light still camera
7.1MP, 4.6-17.3mm (28-105mm equiv.) lens
Come on, Tom. If those two pictures were captured by the same camera, the second one would look a
lot more distorted.
But just for fun, let's confirm:

Yep. That one was from the still camera.
The other one, probably since the
GOPRO HERO HD is a video camera, doesn't have detailed metadata for single frames; however, the filename is
GOPRO002-XL:
http://www.mikedeep.com/Project-Soar/Sunset-Soar-II/i-QrLgsrR/0/XL/GOPRO002-XL.jpgNice try Tom.

In those other images from that same balloon, the horizon looks relatively flat.
So is the earth's horizon both flat and curved at 100,000 feet?
No, the horizon's shape changes depending on where it is on the screen because the lens is distorted.
Tell me, Mr. Bishop, how did you determine that both of those photos were taken at 100,000 feet? Let's go back to the video I had posted originally (which is from the same source as
this flickr set):
" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">From the video description:
The ascent rate was about 800ft/min
So let's look at the metadata again:

These two photos were taken 20 minutes apart, therefore the second photo was at an altitude of about 16,000 feet higher than the first photo.
So, no Tom, the earth's horizon is
not both flat and curved at the same altitude, but it
does look more curved 16,000 feet higher.
Oh, and by the way Tom, if the barrel distortion of this camera really
were as radical as you claim, the horizon in the first photo should be curving upwards as it approaches the bottom of the frame. The fact that it looks straight would have proved that the actual horizon would have appeared convex. Aren't you glad
I disproved that?