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About Aerial Photography
One of the most difficult pictures to take is from heights between 50 feet and 250 feet. That fact alone makes blimp and pole aerial photography a valuable and unique service. You may have found this website because you were either interested in starting an aerial photography business, or already have an aerial photo business using a helicopter or fixed wing aircraft and find those methods too expensive and dangerous.
Welcome to Balloon and Mast Based Photography
Aerostats and masts are much cheaper to operate than helicopters and airplanes. Our systems are commercial, professional equipment that are used daily throughout the world. There are very few competitors in this field, please evaluate all your options before making a decision. We are confident you will find us easy to work with, easy to understand, very helpful before, during and after your purchase, and we are the most knowledgeable about how to make a business out of providing aerial photography services.
Balloon Systems
Based on blimps or balls, these systems go as high as 1,000 feet. The best way to get shots of developments, golf courses and shopping centers.
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Mast Systems
Fast and easy to setup, masts and poles are great for single story homes and smaller commercial properties. 50 feet is a great vantage point.
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Balloon and Mast Combo Systems
For the complete business, masts and blimps are a great combination. Cover all your opportunities and keep your time on location to a minimum.
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Blimp or Mast?
The illustration below highlights the height and perspective difference between a mast and a blimp. The mast is limited to 50 feet/15 meters while the blimp can go as high as 1,000 feet (300m). Note that most photos are taken from 200 feet (60m).
The main advantages to a mast are setup time, operator training and camera stability.
The main advantages for using a blimp or ball are height, ease of moving around, and initial purchase cost.
You Can Make Money in Aerial Photography
As with any business, there is opportunity and there is risk. We believe there is ample opportunity to make money in offering aerial photography services. We design and build the most commercially viable equipment for aerial photography in the world. If it were a matter of just having the right equipment, your success would be guaranteed. Unfortunately, it is not just about the equipment we provide you for your business, there are other factors which will determine your success. These factors should be part of your business plan; how much you charge for services, how you go about marketing your services, how you manage your scheduled book of jobs, and of course how well you control costs. If you approach this as a business, and concentrate on certain market segments that are under-served, you will have a great business.
Aerial Photography from Blimps, Balloons and the Alternatives
RC helicopters
There are remote control helicopters, and there are a number of people who do an excellent job flying them and love to tell you that they can. There is a significant risk of crashing and the damage may not be limited to the equipment. I suggest you go to your local RC flying club and discuss the potential of using an RC helicopter. Also check with your local FAA Flight Services Office as a number of former RC Helo pilots are now APC aerostat customers.
Fixed-wing and standard helicopters
The quality of a shot through aviation windows is terrible, which means you have to open a door or a window and hang out of the aircraft to get a good shot. Some might find this fun. The minimum altitude aircraft can legally fly over populated areas is 1,000 feet which means you are already at a disadvantage to balloon photography.
Kites, very light balloons and manual masts
These are the least commercially viable options. They are great for hobbyists, not for businesses! The kite and light balloons don't have pan/tilt and zoom control over the camera; you just throw the camera in the air on continuous shoot mode and hope for the best. The manual masts take forever to get to height, are extremely unstable, and again you have no control over the camera. With any of these options you need a laptop on site so you can remove the flash card, load onto a laptop, view all the shots and look for the one that you need. After 3 to 4 hours on site you might actually have a photo you can sell. Or you might not... We call this lotto photography.
About Aerial Products and Southern Balloon Works
We are a solid company you can rely on. We've been designing and building aerial photography systems for over 5 years. That's a long time in this business. We've had the benefit of using the equipment and of receiving customer feedback over the years on how to make improvements. We are constantly engineering new ways to make the systems easier to use and more durable. These efforts result in robust equipment for your business. Lastly, we have multiple product lines so we are a financially sound company with expertise in balloon making, remote camera control and remote control blimps. We have customers in over 45 countries! We license-manufacture the only two proven wind-resistant designs in the world, the balloon for the Sandy Allsopp Helikite and the Skydoc for Floatograph.
Why our aerial photography equipment is the best choice
Each major component has been separated to give you specific benefits of our systems. We are a bit biased, but whenever someone comes to visit us to demo our equipment, and they've seen the others, they always leave with an order in production.
Wireless Ground Station
The benefit of having a wireless ground station for mast systems is that the cables are not getting tangled around the pole and are not getting in the way when the mast is collapsed. Not only is the cable wrapping a hassle, it looks unprofessional when you are on site. Think of how fun it is winding and unwinding extension cords or garden hoses. Also, the range of mobility is far greater with wireless than with cables. When you have to go back to the truck to get something or move around the site to check lighting, you don't have to unload your gear or find some place to put it down. With our wireless ground station you just carry it with you.
For balloon photography it is essential that you have a wireless ground station. Can you imagine handling 300 feet of copper cable? (Benjamin Franklin did this and discovered electricity...)
Full 360 degree Pan and 90 degree Tilt Unit
Aerial Products' mast and balloon pan/tilt/zoom systems are not limited in range of motion like our competitors. You can aim straight down and turn as many times as you wish in any direction. The benefits are that you don't "hit the stops" during a photo shoot and have to adjust your equipment to get the picture, you never have to worry about not being able to get your camera in position, and you are not forced to unwind wires when you try to pan farther than a full turn. Our units are made of a light-weight durable plastic instead of heavier metal to reduce weight. This allows you to use a smaller balloon and a lighter head-load mast which saves money in operational costs as well as the cost of the balloon and mast.
Camera Triggers and Video Downlink
Aerial Products takes a different approach at controlling the camera's trigger and zoom. Our competitors try to use off-the-shelf components which in some cases require you to use a laptop as well as a hand-held controller. Not a problem if you have three hands. Of course with our approach all controls are completely wireless from the ground station. Our systems control the cameras by either a cable-trigger or infrared signals on the pan/tilt unit, whichever the camera is compatible with. We design our own circuit boards and software so you can use the same small hand-held Remote Controller for all functions; pan, tilt, zoom and triggering the shot. This is not only convenient it also saves money by not requiring a second person on the job and having additional expensive equipment like a laptop. Also, our trigger circuit boards and cables can be replaced with newer versions for controlling new cameras. Ask our competitors if they provide you an upgrade path for new cameras.
Operational Cost Comparison
Although it may seem cheaper to buy simpler, less functional systems, the savings is usually much less when you factor in the time it takes to complete a photography project. Kites, manual masts, non-controlled cameras on balloons, all require much more time on site. Time is money! You need to be able to do multiple shoots per day, not one per day, to make money. With the "throw in the air and shoot" systems you leave too much to luck and chance to base a business on. If you are doing this as a hobby, to take pictures of the kids at soccer or t-ball or the occasional photo of a sun setting, these are fine methods for aerial photography.
The most extreme cost comparison of Aerial Products' systems is to the use of charter aircraft. Chartering is extremely expensive, risky and can be even more time-consuming than the shot lotto (Do you feel lucky?) approach with a kite. With helicopters you have minimums of $500 to $600 before you lift off. Once in the air the rate is $1,200 per hour. Airplanes are a bit less, minimum fees of $120 and about $250 per hour for VSTOL aircraft with removable doors. These are all out-of-pocket costs you pay before you collect for your work and you take the risk of having to do the shoot over, paying the same fees again, if the shots don't work out. Compare this to the cost of helium.
Now, we are not implying balloon photography is free and there are no operational expenses. There is the helium initial fill and replenishment expense, the cost of a trailer to pull behind your vehicle, the extra gas to pull it, the potential blimp damage that requires repair and the care and maintenance of the pan/tilt equipment. However, after you add up all the expenses for each approach, mast and balloon photography is the most efficient means to getting a photograph from ground level to 500 feet.
Pneumatic Masts versus Balloons for Aerial Photography
Very often we are asked which is better, masts or balloons. There is no easy answer, it depends greatly on the type of work you are looking to be hired for. We believe the right business model is a mix of the "drive up and shoot" type jobs where you pull up, mount the mast, mount the camera, raise the mast, take the shot, lower the mast, remove the camera, remove the mast and drive off. That's a project with a shot value of about $125 to $175 for about 20 minutes on site. That type of project is perfect for single story homes, or 2-story homes shot at an angle. Typically the homes have sale prices of between $150,000 to $500,000.
For larger homes, $500,000 and up, estates, commercial properties, shopping centers, residential and industrial developments the use of a balloon is required. With a balloon you are able to get as high as 1,000 feet. However, a balloon takes more time and effort to get setup than a mast, but for the hour you are on site, the project revenue is between $250 to $500.
All about Helium and its evil twin Hydrogen
Ok, maybe you've seen the YouTube videos of someone exploding a balloon. These balloons were filled with a helium and hydrogen mixture and intentionally ignited. The deafening explosions are great for YouTube attention, not so great for camera systems. That's why we use Helium, which is a safe, inert, noble gas. It actually blows flames out, it doesn't explode and it doesn't burn. The worst it can do is make your voice sound funny if you inhale...
Gallery of Aerial Photos
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