Taking Aerial Photos Using Farm Works Software

I went to a meeting on precision farming where a speaker encouraged us to take four aerial photos a year of our fields. He suggested a picture in March when the frost was leaving the fields. A second picture can be taken when the crops are approaching full canopy in June. A third picture can be taken in the fall around August or September when the corn is drying down. A fourth picture can be taken around September when the soybeans are starting to yellow. The photos can show differences that can be examined that you would never suspect from the ground. It can show the old tile lines in March. It can show eroded spots on the hills as well as show wet spots in the corners. You can see the replanted soybeans in the lower middle of the photo below. I can move my grid soil sample locations that appear to be on the edge of different soil conditions. My cousin Ross flew us around the fields the first time without the benefit of Farm Site Mate for about two and a half hours while we hunted for the fields. We were not very efficient in flying back and forth.

My biggest disappointment was the distortion of the field pictures when we were slightly off to the side. We tried to fly over the middle, but the distortion was worse than I would have thought. I could almost tell when to click the picture for the one direction, but it was hard to guide the plane to the right or left.

The second flight was improved by using Farm Works Farm Site Mate. I put all the field boundaries in a file at home on the desktop computer. I then added the flight course by trying to trace the most efficient route to fly over all the fields. I even put a target over the middle of each field to help take a square picture.

My brother was the navigator on the flight. He could tell the pilot whether to move to the right or left as we approached each field by looking at our target on the handheld IPAQ. The planned flight path and our actual position showed. We did not use the re-radiating antenna. It would have been difficult to run the cord outside. We felt that we would be within 30 feet of the actual position. It was even helpful to warn me as the cameraman when a field was coming up. The plane is allowed to fly without the back door and I took the pictures from there. I cabled myself inside.

I used a Kodak DC3400 digital camera. This made if easier to import the pictures into the computer. It eliminated the expense of film and the need to change film in the air. The 2.0 megapixel resolution looks fine until I zoom in to look at small areas. I think that I would like to use a 4 or 5 megapixel camera the next time. A film camera would take better pictures.

I took 84 pictures the second flight and saved the best 34. I geo-referenced the pictures to use in my mapping software. It is very helpful to have an aerial photo as a layer in any job. It is especially helpful when showing a few points, such as in soil sampling. I used a photo editor to stretch the photos to scale. I rotated the pictures to make the top North. It took much less time to edit the photos the second flight when we used Site Mate.

We flew at 6500 feet elevation above sea level with the ground at about 1000 feet the first flight. We flew at 7500 feet the next time so I could also get a mile shot with the up and down direction on the camera. I believe that we were flying about 120 miles per hour.

I don't know if we will try to take pictures four times every year. I do know that we will always use Farm Works Farm Site Mate to guide us when we do.

THUMBNAILS Click for Enlargements
Origonal logged flight path with no plan.	Flight path plan using Farm Site Mate.	Acutal logged flight path using planned path as a guide.

Aerial photo taken in the spring	Aerial Photo of same field taken later in the summer.