Supplimenting income with aerial photography

[COOPERVANE]

Has anyone here ever tried to start an aerial photography business to suppliment your income?

What difficulties did you encounter? How did you set prices? who did you primarily target?

Any insight would be appreciated

Coop

 

[BizPilot]

Did it. Success.

Hi,

I did it back when I was a CFI in the mid 90's. WORKED EXCELLENT FOR ME!! I only lived in a town of about 23,000 too. Here's how I did it:

I rented a C150 at $40.00/hr. Took a Canon EOS Rebel G cam with me, and a 210mm zoom lense. (You really don't want to go below 1000ft single pilot.....believe me....managing a camera, a C150, and a window can be a lot more difficult than it sounds.....especially on a bumpy day). Take a friend to fly straight and level if you can. I zipped all around town and took an aerial photo of every factory and large company in town. Amounted to about 32 photographs. Had the film developed. Took the 3x5 prints to each company. Asked to speak with a VIP at the front desks. I gave a quick ho-down about who I was and what I was doing (Less than 2 minutes). I had a 75% response rate. I had the prints developed into 20x30 poster prints.....costs about $18.00 to do.....then paid to have the photos framed (high quality) at a local frame shop.....got a reduced rate about $180.00 fully framed and matted. Took the photos into the customers and charged them 2 1/2 times what I paid. About $400 to $600 each. Profitted about $200 $250 per photo after all my expenses. Made me about $6500.00 in one week. No lie. Worked out pretty slick. PM if you want any other details......film speeds, shutter speeds, etc. With digital cams nowdays.....you could make a killing!! Wish I had digital back then!! Good luck....fly safely!! I don't want to hear about a C150 being augered in by some hot shot photographer next week!