Aerial photographic equipment – medium format!

May 10
09:17

2008

Keith McGregor

Keith McGregor

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Commercial Aerial Photography has many uses and will place a variety of requirements on equipment. The quality and clarity of the image that is demanded can vary greatly. The term ‘Medium Format’ refers to a medium size film format which has traditionally meant larger than 35mm but smaller than 4”x5” sheet film. In the past this has provided the bench mark for most aerial photography and despite the advances in digital cameras it can still provide the benchmark for many photographers.

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There are certainly advantages to using medium format and Vertical Photography will usually demand this as clients will often want a high level of detail in order to enlarge areas or strips of an image. However,Aerial photographic equipment – medium format! Articles Progress Photography which will be undertaken to show the continued building or development on a site at a fixed point in time is often used to illustrate the growth of project to stakeholders and does not require the high level of detail. Many companies will actually request smaller files which can be e-mailed between the stakeholders and therefore medium format is not appropriate. Construction Photography however will often require high quality prints and it is often used for display purposes with enlargements on walls of offices.

A commercial Aerial Photographic Library will gain from using medium format although it is advantageous to convert the images to digital format for archiving and instant recall while also retaining the negatives. The reason for this is that a library enquiry will rarely ask for the site/buildings which were originally photographed but there is usually a good chance that a well established library will have completed a site nearby and will have some images with the new subject in. Therefore if the originals are of high quality with maximum detail is may be possible to crop and enlarge the original image to move the new subject into the centre frame.

Over time it is evident that medium format film cameras will be replaced and there are already many ‘full frame’ digital SLR’s on the market which provide a ‘full frame sensor’ and are perceived to provide the detail of medium format film. This is being expatiated by the fact that the medium format film is usually converted into a digital media for processing.