Aerial photography is a form of photography that involves capturing images from the air, usually from an aircraft or drone. It is used for a variety of purposes, including mapping, surveying, and monitoring. An aerial photographer is someone who uses a camera to capture an image while in the air. This can be done using an airplane, a drone, a balloon, or even a kite as a platform for the camera.
Aerial photographers often use digital reflex cameras that have interchangeable lenses and high-resolution sensors attached to them. Aerial videos are emerging as spatial multimedia that can be used to understand scenes and track objects. The input video is captured by aerial platforms that fly at low altitudes and usually consists of a strong parallax of structures that are not of the terrestrial plane. The integration of digital video, global positioning systems (GPS) and automated image processing will improve the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of data collection and reduction. A number of different aerial platforms are being investigated for data collection. Vertical photographs taken with a single-lens frame camera are the most common use of aerial photography for remote sensing and mapping purposes.
These cameras are specifically designed to capture a quick sequence of photographs while limiting geometric distortion. They are often connected to the navigation systems on board the aircraft platform, to allow the instantaneous assignment of precise geographical coordinates to each photograph. Most camera systems also include mechanisms that compensate for the effect of aircraft movement relative to the ground, in order to limit distortion as much as possible. The first environmental satellites, such as Landsat, did not question the role of aerial photography as a dominant data source for land use or land cover studies because of their relatively poor spatial resolution; however, the launch of high-resolution satellites in the late 20th century began to erode that domain. The approach depended entirely on the use of aerial photographs to identify land units and was subsequently adopted in several countries both for general resource studies and for specific development measures, such as road construction. The oldest form of remote sensing, aerial photography, is used in archaeology mainly to discover monuments in the countryside, whether they are earthen or stone buildings.
For example, satellite images have greater applications on a large scale thanks to their high temporal resolution, while aerial photography is ideal for more localized applications that take full advantage of their high spatial resolution. He discovered that vertical photographs taken with an overlay of 60% could be used to create a stereoscopic effect when viewed in a stereoscope, thus creating depth perception that could help cartography and intelligence derived from aerial images. Aerial photography continued to be important as a military surveillance tool in the post-war period, and was only replaced by digital scanners towards the end of the century. At the beginning of the conflict, the usefulness of aerial photography was not fully appreciated, since reconnaissance was carried out by drawing maps from the air. Most aerial photographs are classified as oblique or vertical, depending on the orientation of the camera relative to the ground during acquisition. Aerial photographs are most useful when precise spatial details are more critical than spectral information, since their spectral resolution is generally approximate compared to data captured with electronic detection devices. Technological advances over the past decade have revitalized the use of aerial photography in geosciences. Three years after the end of the war, the first fundamental work appeared: Aerial Photography in Urban Planning and Research by Melville C.
There are many aerial image providers that capture their own aerial images or distribute them on behalf of others in their database. In conclusion, aerial photography has been an invaluable tool for centuries when it comes to mapping and surveying land areas. It has been used extensively by military forces for reconnaissance purposes and is now being used increasingly by archaeologists and geographers for research purposes. With advances in technology such as digital cameras and GPS systems, aerial photography has become even more accurate and cost-effective than ever before.
