aerial photography from manned aircraft

[aerialimagery]

I'm curious if anyone here is doing aerial photography from airplanes (or helicopters). I recently got two big jobs (more than $3k each--big for me at this time and each can be done in a two to three hour flight). I'll have to use an airplane because the properties are so large (more than a square mile) that I need an agl of 3,000 feet or more. Although I have paid for my drone many times over, I haven't gotten to a level of business anywhere near what I was used to with my previous aerial photography business from airplanes and helicopters (and that business is now mostly gone because of drones and much more competition). Drone photography for me has been more of a part-time income, and has been dwindling because I was drawing from previous customers and have been getting very little new business. Anyway, I have been thinking maybe there could be a new niche for aerial photography of very large properties that can only be adequately photographed from manned aircraft.

 

[TreeLineView]

My largest Solar customer uses manned aircraft for inspections when they have 100 + acres of panels to scan in a single flight. Those high end sensors take far less images. Easier to process. We get all the Arrays that are smaller than 25 acres or in City areas where they can't fly.

 

[Vic Moss]

It's not a new niche, it's an old one.

Drones are great for most aerial needs. But shooting from aircraft has been around since the first days of the U.S. Civil War (tethered hot air balloons).

Personally I always fly in a Cessna 172 or 182. Their right side windows open and they're a high-wing aircraft. My favorite plane to use was a 1950's Korean Army spotter plane. It was stationed here in Colorado for a couple of years. It was painted up with U.S. Army colors for airshows. It was an eye stopper. The pilot could also put it pretty much straight on it's side if I need to shoot a God's Eye shot. Not exactly, but close.

And it has a stall speed off around 25MPH, so it would fly very slow, which is great for what we were doing with it.

Fun times, but I like my feet on the ground when I'm taking aerial photos. There is still the occasional request for shots from manned aircraft, but it's rare these days.

 

[Ajkm]

I can't see how using manned aviation for aerial photography of large areas could be described as "a new niche".

 

[mdurbanek]

It's not a new niche, it's an old one.

Drones are great for most aerial needs. But shooting from aircraft has been around since the first days of the U.S. Civil War (tethered hot air balloons).

Personally I always fly in a Cessna 172 or 182. Their right side windows open and they're a high-wing aircraft. My favorite plane to use was a 1950's Korean Army spotter plane. It was stationed here in Colorado for a couple of years. It was painted up with U.S. Army colors for airshows. It was an eye stopper. The pilot could also put it pretty much straight on it's side if I need to shoot a God's Eye shot. Not exactly, but close.

And it has a stall speed off around 25MPH, so it would fly very slow, which is great for what we were doing with it.

Fun times, but I like my feet on the ground when I'm taking aerial photos. There is still the occasional request for shots from manned aircraft, but it's rare these days.

Back in the 70's when I started out as a photographer, we would call the local flight school ahead of time and they would have the Cessna's passenger door removed before we arrived. Much easier than shooting out of that window, but it was somewhat unnerving the first time up. And cold in the winter, even in Arizona & California.

 

[Kristina Fowler]

I recently got two big jobs (more than $3k each--big for me at this time and each can be done in a two to three hour flight).

What was your workflow/shot list? Were these all obliques? What was your equipment list? How was your camera mounted? Handheld out the window? Mounted on a strut?? Body and lens specification?? T.I.A.

 

[aerialimagery]

I meant that in the sense that previously all aerial photography was done from manned aircraft and drones have eliminated much of the need to use them, except in the case of properties that are so large that they would be better photographed from an airplane at a higher altitude than a drone can fly. I know it's not a new idea to take photographs from an airplane and I've photographed thousands of subjects (usually industrial plants, but also colleges and hospitals) from primarily Cessna 172s and a small percentage from Robinson helicopters. I mentioned in my original post that I previously had an aerial photography business using manned aircraft as my platform.

Anyway...by "new niche" I was contemplating the idea of going after the type of customer those flying drones won't bother with, and do so on a larger scale than just occasionally. So that would be "new" for me.

I recently received $6k worth of such work for two different companies. Each can be photographed in two or three hours, so it pays a lot better than what I've been doing with my drone, but there is also much travel time involved and properties that are 2 to 4 square miles in size that need to be photographed might be few and far apart to make a go of it, but I just wanted to get an idea here if others are getting requests for that type of photography.

 

[aerialimagery]

What was your workflow/shot list? Were these all obliques? What was your equipment list? How was your camera mounted? Handheld out the window? Mounted on a strut?? Body and lens specification?? T.I.A.

These are all to be hand held obliques, and I will be doing the photography from a Cessna 172 through an open window. They want detail but also pretty pictures. I'll be using a K-1 Mark II full frame Pentax camera. There are no specifications. I've worked with them both before. They just want well-composed sharp images.

 

[R Martin]

I'm curious if anyone here is doing aerial photography from airplanes (or helicopters). I recently got two big jobs (more than $3k each--big for me at this time and each can be done in a two to three hour flight). I'll have to use an airplane because the properties are so large (more than a square mile) that I need an agl of 3,000 feet or more. Although I have paid for my drone many times over, I haven't gotten to a level of business anywhere near what I was used to with my previous aerial photography business from airplanes and helicopters (and that business is now mostly gone because of drones and much more competition). Drone photography for me has been more of a part-time income, and has been dwindling because I was drawing from previous customers and have been getting very little new business. Anyway, I have been thinking maybe there could be a new niche for aerial photography of very large properties that can only be adequately photographed from manned aircraft.

The business is still there for fixed-wing aerial photography. While UAVs are great for a few hundred acres or less, large-scale ortho work is still left up to fixed-wing flights. NCTCOG still flies counties to update their services on a rotating basis. We (and a lot of other entities) cost share those flights and get our county ortho to use as a base map. Can't do that scale with a UAV unless you bump it up to the military at this point.