Aerial Photography Directory November 2015 Newsletter

A New Look

The Aerial Photography Directory has undergone a radical makeover. Next time that you are out in public, do take a moment to look at everyone passing by, heads bowed, moving purposefully forwards. Perhaps darting to one side every now and again.

No, they are not on a Route March to work, more likely they are engrossed in their mobile device. It's funny how things come full circle. PCs started with low resolution screens and when t'Internet came along, websites were optimised for smaller screens (640 x 480 pixels, typically).

As technology improved, screen resolution improved and websites got wider to fit more in. It was unthinkable to put any content 'below the fold' as it would not get seen.

When mobile phones arrived, screens were text only. Then Nokia started to introduce low resolution graphic displays, good for playing snake or Tetris and that was about it. However, in the mobile arms race, this extended to larger and larger screens and they also became touch sensitive.

At the current time, a significant number of users use mobile devices that to some extent reflect the low resolution PCs and website designers have had to allow for this. Hence the long, scrolling pages that you see nowadays. Below the fold content is now expected and Google has publicly stated that it will give preference to mobile-enabled websites.

TL;DR  The Aerial Photography Directory is now a single column website, optimised for mobile devices, whilst still being perfectly useable on a PC or Mac. Behind the scenes we have made it much more manageable and are adding a plethora of features for you.

A photograph is a photograph, right?

The good thing about Aerial Photography is that if you want to provide it, then it is dead easy to set up and start taking bookings. If you are an Aerial Photographer, that is.

The bad thing about Aerial Photography is that if you want to provide it, then it is dead easy to set up and start taking bookings. If you are looking for Aerial Photography, that is.

If you walked into a Photography Studio for some Portraits or you invited in a Product Photographer to shoot your latest and greatest, how would you feel if (s)he opened up her/his bag and pulled out a Go Pro camera? A little bit surprised, I'd expect. Miffed? Ripped off? "I could do that"?

A Go Pro is a leisure camera. It's designed to be strapped to a helmet (bike, snowboard etc) and take action shots. It's not a Professional camera for Professional photographs.

So, why is it acceptable to aerial photographers to sell their services based upon a DJI Phantom with a Go Pro strapped to it? For under £1,000 you buy a Phantom and a Go Pro, take the test (if you want to be legitimate) then you are up and running. Sure, you get better photographs than anything that can be achieved by a land-based camera and if you are inspecting a roof or larking about, then why not? Who cares about quality? Price is King.

On the other hand, if you are paying for a professional Aerial Photographer to shoot your wedding, Hotel, Property for sale, then surely you should get a professional for your money? Someone that uses a proper camera, knows what the settings are and how to tweak them. A camera that produces images with good colour depth and quality.

Overshoot gets beaten on price for a lot of work. But there again, Waitrose loses out to Aldi and Lidl on price. It's annoying, but those that appreciate that a Professional will use professional equipment will get better value and quality for their money.

If you are looking for some Aerial Photography, your first question should not be "How much?". Rather it should be "How are you going to get the photographs that I want?"

The World’s Smallest 80MP Medium Format Camera for Drones Unveiled by Phase One Industrial

We can all dream.

In addition to its main photographer-oriented business, Phase One also develops camera gear under Phase One Industrial, a leading manufacturer of digital medium format cameras for aerial photography.

The latter brand has announced a new camera called the Phase One iXU 180: the world’s smallest 80 megapixel medium format camera designed for drones.

It makes you wonder where this will all stop. When mobile phones have cameras with resolutions up to 20MPx and top end cameras such as this top 80MPx, we are getting closer and closer to the analogue resolution of film - so much so that there has to be some overlap ISO levels of digital far exceed that of film