You may think that aerial photography is out of your reach, but if you have this mindset you are missing out on a multi-million dollar market that you can tap into yourself with minimal investment. No matter who you are, you can get started in the aerial photography business and make a fortune.

How Much Can You Make with Aerial Photography?I remember the first time I was introduced to the idea of aerial photography. I was in a friends home and I saw he had a picture of his house on the wall. It was a beautiful aerial shot and I asked him where he got it. He said that 20 years ago a guy came to his door with the aerial picture of his home and offered it to him framed as a 12×18 for $200. He also has a smaller sized 8×10 that he was selling for $100, and my friend bought both of them.

So right away I began to do the math in my head and it was spinning with ideas. Now not everyone will want a picture of their homes, but most will think it’s a great idea and be more than willing (in certain wealthy neighborhoods especially) to fork out a few hundred dollars to get that shot that otherwise they could never have.

The example with my friend was 20 years ago and my friend lived in an average middle class neighborhood.. You can probably charge much more than that now and hit an entire street at one time. Even if 20% of the people whose doors you knocked on were interested you could make $1,000 from a single airplane flight.

Now it would be best to already have one home owner or business owner signed up to pay you for the picture before you go up in the plane. And then you can take a few extra pictures of surrounding houses while you are at it and have greater potential for even more money. Any sales you get besides the one you were contracted for is just bonus money.

Do I Need to Fly to Do Aerial Photography?

Whether you are a pilot already or you want to pay a pilot to take you up in the air to get some aerial pictures, you need to check with your local laws to make sure you don’t get into trouble. But an airplane may not be the best way to get the best aerial shots.

Most planes are not supposed to go much below 1,000 feet and this is too high to do some good quality aerial photography, although still doable. It is best to work between 100 and 250 feet for most businesses and houses, unless the building is particularly large. Usually you can rent a pilot and plane for between $100 and $150 per hour. Of course you will have to pass this cost along with your rates, but you can more than make up for it with stunning pictures from the air.

Shoot Great Aerial Photos without a Plane

Now you don’t even need to go up into the air to get amazing aerial photos.
Here are some ways you can get your camera in the perfect position way up in
the air to get the shots:

• Remote Control Planes
• Remote Control Helicopters
• Mast Systems
• Remote Control Blimps

These above methods are great because you can get pictures from much lower flying levels and make sure you get the perfect shot every time. But not all of these methods are created equal. RC planes just move too fast and so it’s hard to get a picture that is not blurry. So many will resort to using RC helicopters as they are much more stable and can fly in place. This usually requires two people; one to fly the helicopter and another to operate the controls for the camera. The only problem is that the gas RC helicopters that are required to lift the cameras have too much vibration and cause the images to be blurry more often than not. You could invest in a stabilizer of some sorts bu then there is also the problem of noise and people complaining, which happens more often than you may think.

There are some situations where an RC chopper will work just fine, but I find that the best systems are the high mast systems and small blimps. Most of the masts will go to 50 feet which will be good for most homes, but if you need some more lift you can get great stability with a balloon system. The camera stays very steady in a balloon system and all there is no noise at
all.

If you are interested in getting started with aerial photography than I highly suggest you check out the website over at http://www.aerialproducts.com. They have just the systems you  will need for getting a balloon system or mast system.

Either way it will require a little investing so make sure this is something you want to do before you commit to it. A good idea would be to interview different home owners and businesses in town and see if that is the sort of thing they would be interested in having done for them. Based on how people respond to your questions can determine what the market is like in your area for aerial photography.

I absolutely love aerial photography and it’s a fun, relaxing way to generate huge amounts of income in the right environments. It would not be uncommon to make several thousand  dollars every month so you would be able to pay off that balloon or mast system in a short period of time.

I hope this opened your eyes a little to the potential there is in all kinds of photography. In the next tip we are going to look at how you can make money from pictures you never even took. You won’t want to miss our last part of the series on how to make money with your photography.

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