Aerial Photographs (from AMES Pilot Land Data System); USGS EDC, Sioux Falls

The photos were obtained from cameras mounted on high and medium altitude aircraft based at the NASA Ames Research Center. Several cameras with varying focal lengths, lenses and film formats are used, but the Wild RC-10 camera with a focal length of 152 millimeters and a 9 by 9 inch film format is most common.

The positive transparencies are typically used for ancillary ground checks in conjunctions with digital processing for the same sites. The aircraft flights, specifically requested by scientists performing approved research, often simultaneously collect data using other sensors on board (e.g. Thematic Mapper Simulators (TMS) and Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanners). High altitude color infrared photography is used regularly by government agencies for such applications as crop yield forecasting, timber inventory and defoliation assessment, water resource management, land use surveys, water pollution monitoring, and natural disaster assessment.