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OFF Aviation
Aerial Photography
Thank you for your interest in our Aerial Photographs. We specialize in high quality Custom Aerial Photography serving Real Estate, Legal, Technical, and other markets. These photographs can be Verticals, Scaled Verticals or Oblique Aerials.
Want scaled verticals
(1000 to 1, 500 to 1, etc.) to aid landscape architecture?
Do you need inexpensive progress photos of your construction site?
Want to have a unique view of your real estate?
Would accurate scaled verticals help explain the accident scene?
Want to add an eye catching photo
to your wall?
We supply your pictures in several formats:
prints (proof & finished prints all sizes)
digital low resolution (web, progress
pics. etc.)
digital high resolution
digital (enhanced and modified)
digital (
DVD-R, CDR or on our server)
we specialize in map views of large areas
Use our photographs on your web site at no cost
OFF Inc. specializes in Custom Aerial Photography and has served Kingston & Ontario since 1983. Our Fleet of aircraft are in the air daily. We shoot our Aerial Photographs using the latest digital cameras in order to provide you with the medium best suited for your needs. Our custom designed belly camera mounts enable us to provide extremely sharp and accurate low-level vertical photos.
All images & pages on this site are Copyright @ 1998 Ontario Fun Flyers Inc. Kingston, ON
| A Brief History of Aerial Photography in Canada |
Aerial photography caught on early and quickly in Canada mainly because of the pioneering efforts and foresight of Captain E.G.D. Deville, Surveyor General of Canada, from 1885 until his death in 1924. Deville was a brilliant scientist, inventor and administrator. At the start of his career, for example, maps were plotted using photographs taken from mountain tops. By the 1920s, regular aerial photography flights for mapping and forestry inventory had been established across the country, largely because of Dr. Deville's efforts and firm belief in the potential of this new surveying method.
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It was Britain's donation of a few wartime flying boats and the formation of the Air Board of Canada in 1919 that got aerial photography off the mountain tops and into airplanes in Canada. The Air Board, responsible for the control of commercial and non-military government flying, together with Dr. Deville's department, organized the first experimental survey over Ottawa in 1920. |
 Crew of Vickers Viking poses with reconnaissance camera. |
The results were sufficiently encouraging to establish aerial photography as a revolutionary topographical surveying method. Because of this development, Canada today has one of the most comprehensive storehouses of aerial photographs in the world.
In 1925, the Interdepartmental Committee on Air Surveys (ICAS) and the National Air Photo Library (NAPL) were established to take charge of all federal non-military air-photo activities. Originally part of the Department of the Interior, they are now key components of the Centre for Topographic Information of Geomatics Canada, a part of the Earth Sciences Sector of Natural Resources Canada.
Until 1956, most photographic surveys were flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Since then, however, all aerial photographs used for federal mapping have been contracted to commercial air survey firms. The federal government initiates the bulk of aerial photography in Canada; the Interdepartmental Committee on Air Surveys (ICAS) supervises and determines, through a bidding process, which contractor will do the photography and sets forth the specifications to be followed. ICAS coordinates all federal aerial photography and works together with the provinces to align federal and provincial programs. ICAS prevents duplication, establishes priorities and, in general, ensures that maximum benefit is derived from each flight.
Over the years, aerial photographic surveys have been made on a regular basis for mapping, charting of the sea coasts, building of highways, town planning and any ground activity where a measure of size or change must be made. Aerial photography provided the first true measure of the size and physical makeup of the surface of Canada. Over the past 50 years, it has played a vital role in such major engineering developments as the Trans-Canada Highway, the Labrador Railway line and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Aerial photography proved invaluable in the opening of the North and in the evaluation of Canada's forest resources. Today, aerial photography remains an essential tool in mapping, the management of forests and waters, in pollution and vegetation damage control, and in urban planning and environmental management.