Help: Aerial photo business

[a3holerman]

Hi,
I am thinking of starting a aerial photo business. I live on Cape Cod and have has this idea in mind for 20+ years. Basically I plan to shoot waterfront homes and submit unsolisited proofs. For those who like the idea I would do a full shoot and go from there. I am becomming comfortable with Photoshop. I did do a exploritory shoot the other day with a friend and his equipment. We shot several homes from the water looking back. The equipment was a Nikon D70 with a Tamron 75-300 ish (I am not sure ) lense. We shot at 1/1250 or 1/1000 in raw at mostly the full 300mm.

My questions initally are in equipment selection. I am looking at the Canon D20 as it is 8 megapixles and seems with the Canon rebates going on a good deal. I need advice on what lense would fit my needs. I am looking obviously for sharpness. The shots we took the other day were somewhat disapointing in sharpness. I am thinking that at that shutter speed that shake was not a problem. So is there that much difference between zoom dslr lenses in terms of sharpness. I see some Nikon and Canon lenses quite a bit more expensive than the basic 70-300 ones. Would there sharpness especially in the max or almost max zoom position be worth the cost? I know this is very subjective but most all of you have far more experience than me and any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Tom
Cape Cod

[SmartWombat]

Were these shots truly aerial, from an airplane?

The biggest quality factor, you're right I think, is the lens.
Particularly the aperture you use, if to get 1/1250 or 1/1000 you open up a cheap lens (or an expensive one) to maximum aperture.
I've fouund my Canon 100-400 when wide open at 400mm is soft, with colour fringing. Almost unusable for motorsport. Stop it down from f5.6 to f9 and it's a whole different story.
And mine is *not* a cheap lens at $1600 !

Why are you going for zoom, not prime lenses?
As the cost of the flying time, can you afford to compromise on lens quality?

Do you have a link to an image, so we can look at the sharpness, full resolution?
I'm not sure that shake or motion blur won't be a problem at that shutter speed.
I've seen advertising for gyro stabilised platforms, so vibration (rather than turbulence) may be an issue.


Now, it just happens that a friend of mine set up a business here in the UK doing aerial photogrpahy.
But not quite aerial, he's using a pump-up mast on a van, or on a trailer. It's a far cheaper alternative to flying
The disadvantage is that you can only get masts up to about 70feet, and you can't do true vertical mapping images, but the huge advantage for him is the cost against his competitors in the housing (eastate agent) market.

He chose all Canon equipment, so you're in good company.
But he has a stable platform to work from, so doesn't have the same motion problems.

[another view]

You should be fine with the D70 although you'll probably want a backup if you're in business. Flying time is expensive, and if you have a camera problem you'll have to do it over again - possibly waiting until the weather is good too. Also with two cameras you can have two different lenses mounted so you won't miss your shot changing from a wide angle lens to a telephoto (and possibly dropping something or getting dust on the sensor - small planes are pretty cramped!). Comparing the D70 to the 20D, I don't know that one is clearly better than the other. The resolution difference of 6mp vs 8mp isn't enough to justify a change, IMO.

At 1/250, camera shake might be a problem. I'd go for a lens with VR (or Canon's IS if you choose their system). Nikon has a 24-120 and 70-200 that have VR, and that 24-120 could be your wide angle lens (you probably won't need anything wider or you'll start getting some of the plane in your shots).

Lens sharpness is one thing to look at, but not the only thing especially in your case. Along the lines of what Paul was saying, if you have an f2.8 lens, you can stop down to f5.6 and that should be much sharper than a less expensive lens wide open at f5.6. The VR is important though because you're not shooting with a tripod on stable ground. Plus, a polarizer filter would probably be a good idea in most cases, but that can cost you almost two stops because of the density of the filter. I'd still try for 1/250 or faster until you get comfortable with it.

Another thing to consider is if the image is slightly soft coming out of the camera, it may be able to be sharpened in Photoshop. If it were me, I'd shoot RAW and do all sharpening in the computer (none in camera). It takes a little longer this way but leaves the most flexibility for having the highest quality end result.

I have to say I'm not an aerial photographer, but I did get a ride in a small plane recently and brought my camera along. I've got a lot more appreciation for the challenges with doing it now!

[JSPhoto]

I hope he meant 20D ..... Canon does not make a D20 ... come to think of it I don't think that "other" place does either.

JS

[a3holerman]

Thank you all for replying to my post. First I own the plane but at this time do not have any quality digital camera equipment. The Nikon was a friends that was kind enough to go along and take the shots while I flew. The reason for a telephoto was to be able to better frame a shot I think? I am leaning toward Canons's 70-200 IS lense. I have done some Film photography many years ago and did realize stopping the lense down increased depth of field but did not realize it would have much an effect on a distance tele shot. This is a learning experience and fortunately I have the plane to experiment with different equipment and settings. I did shoot most of the shots in raw as I wanted to do any adjustments in PS. I am going to see if I can rent a better Nikon lense for the next shoot and see if it makes a difference.

Thanks again
Tom

[another view]

I don't know of any rental houses out there, but that's a common pro-grade Nikon lens so if they have anything to rent, that should be on the list. I'd set the camera to "shutter priority automatic" and pick a shutter speed of 1/250 with the VR on. Then I'd probably want an aperture of f5.6, and select the ISO speed based on that to get the right exposure - as long as the ISO speed is 400 or less (hopefully less). If you need a higher ISO to use 1/250 at f5.6, I'd still set it at 400 and then settle for the larger aperture.

It will take some experimenting, and you might also want to try 1/500 shutter speed to see if there's any difference in sharpness. I don't think you'll need any smaller aperture than say f5.6 or f8 for this, but I could be wrong - again, experimenting. One tip, VR lenses might take a little getting used to. Try it out on the ground first to get comfortable with it.

[a3holerman]

I don't know of any rental houses out there, but that's a common pro-grade Nikon lens so if they have anything to rent, that should be on the list. I'd set the camera to "shutter priority automatic" and pick a shutter speed of 1/250 with the VR on. Then I'd probably want an aperture of f5.6, and select the ISO speed based on that to get the right exposure - as long as the ISO speed is 400 or less (hopefully less). If you need a higher ISO to use 1/250 at f5.6, I'd still set it at 400 and then settle for the larger aperture.

It will take some experimenting, and you might also want to try 1/500 shutter speed to see if there's any difference in sharpness. I don't think you'll need any smaller aperture than say f5.6 or f8 for this, but I could be wrong - again, experimenting. One tip, VR lenses might take a little getting used to. Try it out on the ground first to get comfortable with it.

Thanks for the advice. I will try and see whats available the first part of the week when I get back. I am anxious to experiment and see the differences.
Thanks again
Tom

[chu_bun]

Arial photography is a new but pretty well developed industry with many big players. I used to work for this company visidata.com. Look at one of their sample picture:
http://www.visidata.com/DATA_SAMPLES...GB_PIC_SIX.htm
On another page, they mention a 67-megapixel camera!
Some companies also provide satelite pictures for the entire US. I think Microsoft has a page that you can type in your address and they'll show a b/w satellite picture of you house.