Aerial Archives provides very high resolution aerial photography from archives and on assignment.

Some applications of aerial photography require an exception level of detail. When this is the case, only very high resolution aerial photography will sometimes be useful, particularly, when the subject matter being examined or illustrated is particularly small.

An understanding of scales is helpful when comparing vertical aerial photography. Scales are usually expressed either as a ratio of part to part, e.g. 1:12,000 or a ratio of inches to feet (e.g. 1"=1000'). Note that both of these scales are identical. In general a film original of relatively recent vintage can withstand a 10x enlargement though sometimes they are enlarged to 20x (noticeable fall-off in quality). This means that a 1:20,000 scale image can be enlarged to approximately 1"=167' (20,000/12 x 10) at a 10x enlargement.

Resolution in digital aerial photography is usually expressed in a scale of a certain unit of distance represented by one pixel or picture element, for example, a digital aerial product may be rated at a 1' pixel. A one foot pixel resolution will usually be suitable for showing, when printed, no less than 100' feet before the resolution begins to become unacceptable. High resolution digital photography will be expressed in inches per pixel of resolution.

For certain markets, Aerial Archives can provide very high resolution imagery. Some of the highest resolution imagery on a film scale, was flown to a scale of 1"=200' or 1:2400, and some of the highest resolution digital photography was flown to a scale of one pixel equals 6 inches or 3 inches.

Aerial Archives will also fly custom aerial photography missions to capture very high resolution aerial photography when this is required for the particular application. These can be both vertical (straight down) or if more useful (oblique) at an angle.

Resolution samples are available for review at samples of high resolution aerial photography.