Drone view of the neighborhood from last weekend.

[buckeyefarmer]

Apples and oranges.
A Google car can only see stuff thats visible from the road (from a tall vehicle) and its driving down the road, not sitting there looking at you.
A drone (at least the ones people are complaining about) is peering into your backyard from the air, and going slowly or hovering if the operator sees something they find interesting.

so the only difference is the angle of view or the hover aspect. It's not any different, they look from an area that you don't own. Ever have a company come by and try to sell you an aerial view of your house? I have two of them myself. Anybody with a cessna or a helicopter can take the same pictures that a quad copter can take. You ever use google earth view? Taken from planes. What would you do if a hot air balloon landed on your property? shoot them also?

 

[aczlan]

so the only difference is the angle of view or the hover aspect. It's not any different, they look from an area that you don't own. Ever have a company come by and try to sell you an aerial view of your house? I have two of them myself. Anybody with a cessna or a helicopter can take the same pictures that a quad copter can take. You ever use google earth view? Taken from planes. What would you do if a hot air balloon landed on your property? shoot them also?

Cessna or chopper has to stay above 500 feet, we bought some pictures at work of the place (taken from a plane) and they are nowhere near what you can get from a drone as they are a minimum of 500 feet away (yes, you can get a big lens, but then you have to stabilize it).
The guy I know with a drone can buzz in at 50-100' and read the load rating on the tires of your car. The plane pictures, you can tell who's truck it is (by model and color), but thats about it.

Aaron Z

 

[IslandTractor]

Cessna or chopper has to stay above 500 feet, we bought some pictures at work of the place (taken from a plane) and they are nowhere near what you can get from a drone as they are a minimum of 500 feet away (yes, you can get a big lens, but then you have to stabilize it).
The guy I know with a drone can buzz in at 50-100' and read the load rating on the tires of your car. The plane pictures, you can tell who's truck it is (by model and color), but thats about it.

Aaron Z

I'm not so sure that a helicopter or Cessna photographer with a high quality telephoto lens couldn't out perform a drone with a Hero4 or equivalent on it. Virtually all drones come with ultrawide angle lenses to give the impressive panorama perspective that is so popular. A drone with 21-28 mm lens equivalent and small sensor at 100 ft is not going to outperform a helicopter at 500ft with a long lens and full frame sensor. I'm thinking that reading load rating on tires with a drone at 50-100ft might be urban legend.

 

[MossRoad]

Aerial photography and mapping has been around for a long time. I used to service this company's aircraft from time-to-time....

WAM | Home

They've been in the business for over 100 years, aerial since the 50's. If you live in the midwest, your home has most likely been photographed by them several times over the years. These are the folks local governments contract with to do aerial surveys, GIS mapping, etc...

 

[TomSeller]

Cessna or chopper has to stay above 500 feet, we bought some pictures at work of the place (taken from a plane) and they are nowhere near what you can get from a drone as they are a minimum of 500 feet away (yes, you can get a big lens, but then you have to stabilize it).
The guy I know with a drone can buzz in at 50-100' and read the load rating on the tires of your car. The plane pictures, you can tell who's truck it is (by model and color), but thats about it.

Aaron Z

Exactly right. I would barely notice a plane or helicopter at 500', but absolutely notice the drones flying around at 10' over my property. My S0B neighbor drone operator once had my heifers on the run and I guarantee that if one had broken her leg there would be no offer to reimburse me. I have "zero respect" for anyone who supports obnoxious drone operators and for obnoxious operators themselves.

I noticed that some of the drone operators on this thread have small parcels. No surprise why they want to fly over other people's property. Drone operators should be licensed and the location of their drones should be on a live on line map with the operator's name identified.

 

[dragoneggs]

Cessna or chopper has to stay above 500 feet, we bought some pictures at work of the place (taken from a plane) and they are nowhere near what you can get from a drone as they are a minimum of 500 feet away (yes, you can get a big lens, but then you have to stabilize it).
The guy I know with a drone can buzz in at 50-100' and read the load rating on the tires of your car. The plane pictures, you can tell who's truck it is (by model and color), but thats about it.

Aaron Z

I'm not so sure that a helicopter or Cessna photographer with a high quality telephoto lens couldn't out perform a drone with a Hero4 or equivalent on it. Virtually all drones come with ultrawide angle lenses to give the impressive panorama perspective that is so popular. A drone with 21-28 mm lens equivalent and small sensor at 100 ft is not going to outperform a helicopter at 500ft with a long lens and full frame sensor. I'm thinking that reading load rating on tires with a drone at 50-100ft might be urban legend.

Yeah I am leaning toward IT on this one. But this is worth a test... I will try to read the load rating of my tires. I have 1080P video and 12Mb camera on my drone. As IT said, the relatively wide view (in my case a 94deg view) will not be able to record with sufficient resolution. My educated guess.

 

[IslandTractor]

Yeah I am leaning toward IT on this one. But this is worth a test... I will try to read the load rating of my tires. I have 1080P video and 12Mb camera on my drone. As IT said, the relatively wide view (in my case a 94deg view) will not be able to record with sufficient resolution. My educated guess.

Yeah, we want data!!!!

It's not only the wide field view but the small sensor size in these Hero 4 type outdoors cameras. The 1"x2/3" sensors simply cannot compete with full frame sensors that have two or three times the area. The Hero type cameras are remarkable for being weatherproof and lightweight but the still photographs they produce simply don't compare with even what a $250 DSLR can crank out. The companies that take aerial photos use MUCH higher resolution cameras than that.

 

[4570Man]

These pictures were taken by Google earth. One is a neighbors field I had recently driven an atv across ( and yes I had permission from the owner). The other is my Grandparents place that I had recently mowed. Being able to see tracks in the grass is pretty darn good.

 

[MossRoad]

I live next to an airport. I've been around planes of all types and sizes and helicopters all my life. I've worked at airports refueling and servicing airplanes and helicopters for 6 years. You can hear helicopters coming from several miles away and going for another mile. And if they start circling over your neighborhood for more that 30 seconds, everyone in the neighborhood will come out and wonder what the heck is going on.

Surprisingly, it is NOT because of the noise level. Helicopters aren't that different in sound levels than airplane engines. It is because of the rotor slap that helicopters make. Its highly annoying, whereas airplanes and drones do not create rotor slap.

Read this FAA study on helicopter noise. Its very interesting.

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/envir_policy/media/04nov-30-rtc.pdf

In particular, this from section 3 page 7...

3.5.1 Heightened reaction to helicopter noise
Typical of heightened reaction to helicopter noise is the experience of the U.S. Navy at Miramar
Marine Corps Air Station. Miramar had long been a naval air station famed for its Top Gun
School and its F-14 Tomcats. But with Top Gun moving to Fallon, Nevada, and the Tomcats
being assigned to other bases, Miramar was turned over to the Marine Corps in 1997, which
brought in helicopter and F-18 operations. Almost from the beginning, residents have
complained about noise and pollution and expressed concerns over possible helicopter crashes.
Yet, the noise contour map is not significantly different from when the F-14 aircraft were
operating.51 In addition, the contribution of helicopter operations to the overall DNL is much
less than that of the F-18 operations.
An example of heightened reaction to helicopters at a general aviation airport was published by
Schomer (1983b).52 At an airport where the noise exposure was dominated by fixed-wing aircraft
and with less than two helicopter operations per week, 7 percent of the people exposed to a DNL
of 66 dB reported themselves to be 塗ighly annoyed by helicopters. A 1982 study from the
United Kingdom also found a heightened reaction to helicopter noise.53,54,55 In the community of
Lower Feltham, the contribution of fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft to the overall noise exposure
was about equal. However, the percentages of people who considered helicopters more
disturbing than fixed-wing aircraft were 2 to 2.5 times as large as the percentages that considered
helicopters less disturbing. In the communities of Esher and Epsom, where the numbers of
helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft were about equal, the disturbance due to helicopter noise
was 2.5 times as large as that due to fixed-wing aircraft noise. People were more annoyed by the
helicopters even though, on average, the fixed-wing aircraft were 5.0 dB louder.

 

[TomSeller]

I live next to an airport. I've been around planes of all types and sizes and helicopters all my life. I've worked at airports refueling and servicing airplanes and helicopters for 6 years. You can hear helicopters coming from several miles away and going for another mile. And if they start circling over your neighborhood for more that 30 seconds, everyone in the neighborhood will come out and wonder what the heck is going on.

Surprisingly, it is NOT because of the noise level. Helicopters aren't that different in sound levels than airplane engines. It is because of the rotor slap that helicopters make. Its highly annoying, whereas airplanes and drones do not create rotor slap.

Read this FAA study on helicopter noise. Its very interesting.

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/envir_policy/media/04nov-30-rtc.pdf

In particular, this from section 3 page 7...

3.5.1 Heightened reaction to helicopter noise
Typical of heightened reaction to helicopter noise is the experience of the U.S. Navy at Miramar
Marine Corps Air Station. Miramar had long been a naval air station famed for its Top Gun
School and its F-14 Tomcats. But with Top Gun moving to Fallon, Nevada, and the Tomcats
being assigned to other bases, Miramar was turned over to the Marine Corps in 1997, which
brought in helicopter and F-18 operations. Almost from the beginning, residents have
complained about noise and pollution and expressed concerns over possible helicopter crashes.
Yet, the noise contour map is not significantly different from when the F-14 aircraft were
operating.51 In addition, the contribution of helicopter operations to the overall DNL is much
less than that of the F-18 operations.
An example of heightened reaction to helicopters at a general aviation airport was published by
Schomer (1983b).52 At an airport where the noise exposure was dominated by fixed-wing aircraft
and with less than two helicopter operations per week, 7 percent of the people exposed to a DNL
of 66 dB reported themselves to be 塗ighly annoyed by helicopters. A 1982 study from the
United Kingdom also found a heightened reaction to helicopter noise.53,54,55 In the community of
Lower Feltham, the contribution of fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft to the overall noise exposure
was about equal. However, the percentages of people who considered helicopters more
disturbing than fixed-wing aircraft were 2 to 2.5 times as large as the percentages that considered
helicopters less disturbing. In the communities of Esher and Epsom, where the numbers of
helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft were about equal, the disturbance due to helicopter noise
was 2.5 times as large as that due to fixed-wing aircraft noise. People were more annoyed by the
helicopters even though, on average, the fixed-wing aircraft were 5.0 dB louder.

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