These two photos were taken with the same film on the same day, using conventional aerial photography.

So...why are the colors so different?

Standard aerial imagery is subject to "color shifts" as a result of such factors as film variations and differing processing routines. It is nearly impossible to tell if the color differences are due to daytime changes or simply to differences in the film and film processing! This could seriously compromise your data interpretation - your results may be unintentionally misleading.

GPSI's digital aerial images, on the other hand, will show no color variation. Our data is digital, so the resulting image is not subject to qualitative shifts over time. Our images are also standardized (calibrated) so that there is no variance in color values between pictures. Thus, interpetation of a digital aerial image will be more reliable - color changes will be due to actual changes in color value, not due to differing amounts of chemicals in the color developing bath used by your photo processing lab!

Our digital aerial images have other important advantages over conventional aerial photos, such as the ability to manipulate color bands to produce either color infra-red or true color pictures, and the ability to geo-reference the images for accurate ground measurements.

For more detail about the advantages of digital aerial imaging over conventional aerial photography, please see our Digital Aerial Imaging vs. Conventional Aerial Photography link on our Digital Aerial Imaging Services page.