Aerial photography and video that clears the paperwork

Guelph, Ontario. Most work sits within an hour of it — Guelph and Wellington County, Kitchener–Waterloo, Cambridge, Hamilton, Brantford, Milton and the surrounding townships — which is close enough to reach a site, fly it and be back the same morning. Beyond that radius the work is still perfectly possible and regularly done; travel is simply quoted with the job rather than absorbed into the day rate. Tell us where the site is and you'll get a number that includes getting there.

A property or marketing shoot starts at CA$450. A half day on site is from CA$650 and a full day from CA$1,100. A structure or roof inspection starts at CA$500, and a survey delivered as an orthomosaic map from CA$800. Every one of those includes the site survey, the airspace check, the flight and delivery of the imagery. What moves the number is whether the site sits in controlled airspace, how much flying time the coverage needs, and how much editing you want afterwards. Repeat visits are priced differently again, as a documentation programme rather than a series of shoots. Tell us the location and what the imagery has to show and we'll quote properly rather than guess.

Both, and they are priced differently. A documentation programme is repeat visits to the same site from the same waypoints on a fixed schedule, from CA$295 per visit with a minimum of four visits, invoiced monthly. That is what construction sites, developments and aggregate operations generally want, because the value is in the comparison between visits rather than in any single set of images. There is a one-time CA$850 mobilisation charge on a new site for the baseline flight, the repeatable waypoint mission, the airspace authorization and the contractor onboarding paperwork.

Airspace permission and property permission are two separate things. Airspace in controlled zones requires a written RPAS Flight Authorization from NAV CANADA, which we obtain. Access to the land itself is the property owner's to grant, so if you're commissioning a shoot on a site you don't own, that permission needs to come from whoever does. We'll tell you which approvals a given site needs before you commit.

Flying is usually a half day. Turnaround depends on the deliverable: lightly edited stills come back within a few days, a finished video edit takes longer. If a site needs an airspace authorization, allow lead time before the flight itself — NAV CANADA requests aren't instant, and applying at the last minute is how shoots get postponed.

We reschedule. Wind, precipitation and low cloud all affect whether a flight is safe and legal, and marginal conditions produce imagery you wouldn't want anyway. We monitor the forecast ahead of a booked date and will tell you early rather than on the morning.

Worth agreeing in writing before the flight rather than after. Licensing terms vary with the job — a one-off marketing shoot and an ongoing documentation contract are different arrangements. Raise it when you inquire and we'll set out what's included.

Indoor flight sits outside the Canadian Aviation Regulations, because CARs Part IX governs navigable airspace. That makes it a matter of site safety and the building owner's rules rather than Transport Canada's. It's often practical for warehouse, plant and large interior spaces — ask and we'll assess the specific site.