Dear All, I asked for information on small scale aerial photography recently and was kindly sent information by various members. Thanks to Irene Mazoff in particular for a very comprehensive reading list plus websites. [info at the end of this message] I've just been to a meeting of the aerial photography 'group', part of the Royal Photographic Society, and had the opportunity to speak directly to some of the small scale practicioners. I thought this would be a good point at which to offer my opinions since there's obviously a lot of interest in aerial photography. Note that my own comments relate to aerial views in developing countries, often in remote places and, more importantly, operating on small budgets. Whilst there are portable methods for getting the view from above, methods which involve kites, model planes, model helicopters (yes!) and balloons, none of these strike me as particularly easy or cheap or portable to use. I recognize that others get these systems to work, but when your main job is not photography but doing investigations on the ground of some forestry or tree feature, there's not a lot of time to invest in getting to grips with flying a model plane. Or getting helium to operate the balloon. You are also faced with the problem of knowing what you've photographed with balloons and the like. Really what you want to do is to pay someone else to take the photos for you, which brings us back to the fabled Cessna. Lots of them around, apparently, easy to hire and cheap to operate. You've just got to convince the owner to either replace the door with a modified one complete with camera attachment, or ask him if you can drill a small square to take a modified Nikon (complete with own hard disk, Kodak system for straight to CD). The Nikon costs around 20 000 USD plus, but does offer high quality and the facility to take photos of trees from low altitudes (under the clouds). If you can use the modified door method we're talking hundreds of pounds for a day's photography. Quality was good, small format 35 mm on negative stock. I spoke with people from Bath Spa Univ College (Alexander Koh: a.koh@bathspa.ac.uk) who use the Nikon system and either hire out the camera or go and do the job themselves. Unless you have the time and commitment to try the more Heath Robinish methods (balloons etc,) I suspect this is going to be the best compromise. To give an idea of costs, Alexander said that three days photography in Uganda, staff costs, flights, hotel and materials came to 12 000 GBP. Not exactly cheap, but there again spending precious time learning how to use a model plane and buying and maintaining it is more than a Mars bar. One final method: the mast. This is unlikely to be available in deepest Amazonia, but at other sites there may be someone with an extending mast which is mounted on the back of a Landrover or equivalent. Goes up to about 20 metres, I believe, and you can fit a small video camera to see what you're pointing at. Needs calm days! So, I suspect we're not that much further forward, those of us who want aerial photos for general rather than specific purposes. Until, of course, the 'new' satellite imagery becomes available, and we can buy our images at whatever scale off the web. Drool. Eric Boa CABI Bioscience ========== Info from Irene Mazoff Good reading, lots of forestry applications but not very many unmanned platforms: ASPRS (ed.) 1997: Proceedings of the First North American Symposium on Small Format Aerial Photogrammetry, Oct 14-17 1997, Cloquet, Minnesota, USA. (= ASPRS Technical Papers.) Bethesda, 218 S. Lots of applications with unmanned platforms (in German...) ISPRS, DBM (Hrsg.) 1987: Luftaufnahmen aus geringer Flugho-he. Arbeitstagung der Kommission V der Internationalen Gesell-schaft fur Photogrammetrie und Fernerkundung, Bochum, 20./21. Marz 1986. (= Veroffentlichungen aus dem Deutschen Bergbau-museum, 41.) Bochum, 135 S. General introduction and overview to the subject: WARNER, WILLIAM S.; GRAHAM, RON W.; READ, ROGER E. 1996: Small Format Aerial Photography. Caithness, 348 S. Kite photography (it does work, too!): AUTHA, DANIELLE; NEGRE, SERGE; BEAUFORT, GEOFFROY DE; FOSSET, RAOUL o.J. [1988]: Labrugiere - berceau de l'aerophoto-graphie par cerf-volant/birthplace of kite aerophotography. Arthur Batut 1846-1918. 155 S. KUNKEL, HANS-JOACHIM 1985: Drachen als Kameratrager fur Luftaufnahmen im Nahbereich. - In: Arbeitsblatter fur Restaurato-ren 1985 (1), S. 96-102. important internet address for kitographers: http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/~cris/kap/ Ballons and blimps: BADEKAS, J.; PEPPES, E.; STAMBOULOGLOU, E. 1980: Low altitude aerial photography. - In: International Archives of Photogram-metry and Remote Sensing 23 (B10), S. 1-20. BURKERT, A.; MAHLER, F.; MARSCHNER, H. 1996: Soil pro-ductivity management and plant growth in the Sahel: potential of an aerial monitoring technique. - In: Plant & Soil 180 (1), S. 29-38. CUMER, ADRIANO; GHERARDI, LUDOVICO; VENERI, STEFANO 1991: Rilievi fotografici di grande scala su aree ristrette eseguiti utilizzando palloni frenati di piccolo diametro e fotocamere com-patte di 35 mm di format. - In: Monti e Boschi 1991 (2), S. 6-9. DAVIS, MARK A.; JOHNSON, GERALD W. 1991: A simple and in-expensive method of obtaining low-altitude photographs of vege-tation using a tethered balloon. - In: Prairie Naturalist 23 (3), S. 153-164. MARKS, A. R. 1989: Aerial photography from a tethered helium filled balloon. - In: Photogrammetric Record 13 (74), S. 257-261. PALACIO-PRIETO, JOSE. L.; LOPEZ-BLANCO, J. 1994: Videogra-phy: an alternative remote sensing tool for monitoring gully erosi-on. - In: ITC Journal 1994 (3), S. 233-237. PITT, DOUGLAS G.; GLOVER, GLENN R. 1993: Large-scale 35-mm aerial photographs for assessment of vegetation-management re-search plots in eastern Canada. - In: Canadian Journal of Forest Research 23, S. 2159-2169. PITT, DOUGLAS G.; GLOVER, GLENN R. 1996: Measurements of woody plant attributes from large-scale aerial photographs. - In: New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science 26 (1/2), S. 53-73. PITT, DOUGLAS G.; GLOVER, GLENN R.; JONES, R. H. 1996: Two-phase sampling of woody and herbaceous plant communities using large-scale aerial photographs. - In: Canadian Journal of Fo-rest Research 26 (4), S. 509-524. Model airplanes: FOUCHE, P. S. 1995: The use of low-altitude infrared remote sen-sing for estimating stress conditions in tree crops. - In: South African Journal of Science 91, S. 500-502. FOUCHE, P. S.; BOOYSEN, N. W. 1994: Assessment of crop stress conditions using low altitude aerial color-infrared photography and computer image processing. - In: Geocarto International 2, S. 25-31. KOO, T. K. 1993: Low altitude, small format aerial photogramme-try. - In: The Australian Surveyor 38 (4), S. 294-297. NYQUIST, JONATHAN E.; FARMER, C. DAVID : Inexpensive ae-rial photographic mapping for environmental site characterisation using radio-controlled aircraft. (unpublished, http://www.esd.ornl.gov/ern/uav/toc.htm) PRZYBILLA, H.-J.; WESTER-EBBINGHAUS, W. 1979: Bildflug mit ferngelenktem Kleinflugzeug. - In: Bildmessung und Luftbildwe-sen 47 (5), S. 137-142. WALKER, JAMES W.; DE VORE, STEVEN L. 1995: Low Altitude Large Scale Reconnaissance: A Method of Obtaining High Resolution Vertical Photographs for Small Areas. Denver, 161 S. Very good do-it-yourself-book! Microlights: GRAHAM, R.W.; READ, R. E.; KURE, J. 1985: Small format microlight surveys. - In: ITC Journal 1985 (1), S. 14-20. ----------------------------------------------------- Irene Marzolff, MSc Arbeitsbereich Angewandte Physiogeographie der Tropen und Subtropen (APT) Institut fuer Physische Geographie Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg Werderring 4 D-79085 Freiburg i. Br. Tel. +49-761-203-9222 Fax +49-761-203-3596 http://www.uni-freiburg.de/physgeo/personen/irma.html
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