Aerial photos are a great way to document progress if you take them on a regular basis. I recently ran across the difference between photos taken from a Helicopter and those taken from a Plane. It’s important to understand the difference when you’re signing up an aerial photographer. I recommend aerial photos of buildings be shot from helicopters on all most all occasions. There will be some exceptions, there always are but if you’re considering aerial photos make sure they’re taken from a helicopter.

I have a project that requires aerial photos once a month. On our shoot date we had a problem with the helicopter and because we were pressed for time we decided to shot the project from a Plane. The next month things were back to normal and we were shooting from the helicopter again. There is a clear difference between the two images. When shooting from a plane you have to fly much higher which causes a longer shot in order to get the same isometric view as you would from a helicopter.

Plane

Helicopter

I should point out that there are some advantages with shooting from a plane. It’s less expensive because you can travel farther distances in shorter amounts of time on less fuel and planes rent for less than helicoptors. Your probably looking at about 1/2 the cost to shoot from a a plane rather than a helicopter. So what is cost for aerial photos from a helicopter? I would budget around $400 – $5000 per project per flight. Of course you’ll need to contact your local aerial photographer and get a quote but this should give you something to expect.

Tips on the price:
Give the photographer a 1-week window so he can “piggy-back” your project with others in the area. This will help save on the rental and fuel cost. Give him some repeat business and commit to photos over the duration of the project. Photographers are typically self employed freelancers who like to have long term projects like monthly aerial photo gigs. Unless you’re in a big city you’re going to probably have difficulty shopping your number around. These aerial photographers all fly out of the same airports and usually have a good idea of what there competitors are charging. And most importantly make sure you know what kind of air craft they will be using to take your photos.

Tags: Aerial, Helicopter, Plane

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Tip Center. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.