1921 to 1950: The progression of aerial photography capture

The first programmed and systematic aerial photography was captured over the Mount Isa silver and lead fields in 1924.

Programmed aerial photography began to take shape in the early 1930s with the RAAF 1 and 3 squadrons using Wapiti aeroplanes to capture images over Caboolture and Springbrook.

By 1936, the Survey Office had undertaken its first aerial photography contract. This was issued to Adastra Airways who captured an area of about 650 square miles in North Queensland. 

From this time on, the Survey Office and the Main Roads Department were regularly preparing products from aerial photographs, including mosaics. 

In 1946, RAAF aerial photographs formed the main source of the Survey Office Air Photo Library. In 1950, the Survey Office established the Topographic (Aerial Survey) Section and installed photogrammetric instruments worth $60,000.

1951 to 1985: Australia photographically captured

Except for a small continuously covered cloud area over Cape York Peninsula, aerial photography of the whole of Australia was captured by 1963. 

By then commercial companies were using cameras with wide angle lenses. This allowed for a reduction in flying height while maintaining the same ground coverage in the photographs.

Satellite coverage
The first publicly available satellite imagery of Australia was captured from the ERTS-1 and ERTS-2 (Earth Resources Technology Satellites) in 1972. These satellites were renamed Landsat in 1975.^{Lines JD 1992}

Constructing an aerial mosaic

1986 to the Present: Transition from analytical to digital

In 1988, first order analytical photogrammetry systems were introduced.

Records from the early 1990s show that the Queensland Government aerial photography library held over four million historical and current photographs over Queensland at that time.

In 1997, digital technology replaced analytical photogrammetry. 

Current day digital photogrammetric machine

 

Current products

A number of digital aerial photography packages have been produced by the Department of Natural Resources and Water in recent years.

These include:
GeoScape - collections of scanned aerial photography over specific areas.
MapView - rectified, georeferenced and enhanced map images.

GeoScape and MapView products

 

Further current aerial photography based information:

Aerial photography
Satellite imagery