Photos of the ground taken from high altitudes belong to what is known as aerial photography. All sorts of platforms can be used for it from kites, poles and parachutes to helicopters, dirigibles, planes and balloons. The history of this kind of photo begins in mid 19th century in France with the balloonist Gaspard Felix Tournachon. In time all sorts of motion picture cameras were mounted on aircraft particularly for military and security purposes.
Aerial photography serves for a variety of purposes and applications. Since digital cameras are widely available for average consume, lots of people take amateurish photos. Yet, the scientific approach is a lot more extended. Aerial photography is very practical for cartography. Topographic maps would be very hard to create without such photos. These applications are not new, but the novelty now consists in the processing software such as GIS.
Geographic information systems (GIS) are now used by all mapping agencies, and aerial photography makes it possible to align the images with the real-world coordinates so that they can be registered and deployed widely. Google Maps highly depends on aerial one, and with this model we are not far from the operational model of Google Earth that relies on satellite images to create a simulation of 3D landscapes.
Commercial advertising, surveillance, artistic projects and environmental studies are just a few other domains in which aerial photography plays a very important role. One other issue noteworthy here is the possibility to document events and features on private properties. Photographic information is essential for many legal actions since anything that can be viewed from public space does not infringe the right to privacy, according to the US law system.
Aerial video is becoming the alternative to aerial photography, since meta data can be embedded in the video using the GPS system. This means that science and technology could be moving beyond the realm of aerial photo into something a lot more complex. The complexity of the applications is incredible and thanks to the visible progress made in the design of the cameras.
As for private applications, people use aerial photography to determine the limits of land properties or to simply get nice pictures without a certain practical objective in mind. Mention must be made here that it requires the use of a very good digital camera, with a motion stabilizer and great good optics. Otherwise, you will not get much of the photos!
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