Outlook Universal Aerial Services, LLC. Built for the far side of the map. Outlook UAS, LLC. Built for the far side of the map.

Specified-position photography for a proposed water diversion

Specified-position photography of the Anderson Ranch Reservoir shoreline in Elmore County, Idaho, flown to a contracted shot list for a proposed water diversion.

4,206 ft
SPECIFIED CAMERA ELEVATION
11
SPECIFIED CAMERA POSITIONS
68
RAW STILLS DELIVERED

This was not landscape photography. Elmore County has proposed the South Fork Boise River Diversion Project – a pump station and pipeline that would move water from Anderson Ranch Reservoir to Little Camas Reservoir – and the proposal needed to show what the works would look like from the water. Outlook UAS flew the photography as a subcontract to a national drone-services network, to a shot list written by the proposal team.

The specification was positional and not artistic. Every frame had to be made as close as possible to 4,206 ft above sea level – six feet above the reservoir’s full pool height of 4,200 ft – so the camera stood where a boater’s eye would. Nine positions covered three lateral views of the proposed works at 500, 1,000 and 1,500 ft of stand-off. Two further positions looked down on the proposed pump station and pipeline corridor to show the vegetation clearing the build would require. A 40-degree field of view, a 50 mm equivalent lens, was specified so the frames would read at roughly the scale of human vision.

Scope & deliverables.

Capture

A single 25-minute window between 12:28 and 12:53 local, flown with a DJI Phantom 4 Pro (FC6310, 1-inch 20 MP RGB) on firmware v01.07.1641. 475 frames were captured, 211 of them DNG raw alongside JPEG, at 5472 × 3078 and ISO 100, in clear midday conditions with low wind.

Holding a fixed absolute altitude is what made this a technical flight and not a scenic one: the aircraft had to sit at a constant 4,206 ft above sea level while the ground beneath it fell away to the water, so every frame reads from the same eye height regardless of where it was taken from. Positions came from the aircraft’s own geotags; no ground control was set.

Deliverables

The contract asked for a minimum of 30 still photographs with no post-production, so that the proposal team received exactly what the camera saw. 68 raw JPGs were delivered against that minimum, with the DNG originals archived and a further 120 frames held in the backup set. Formats: JPG and DNG.

Cadence

One-off, flown to a fixed deadline as a subcontract.

Method boundary

Photography to a positional specification, not a survey. The camera was placed to a stated elevation and stand-off, but no ground control was set, nothing was measured from the frames, and no accuracy class is claimed. The images support a visual assessment of a proposal; anything requiring measured positions or professional responsibility is routed through a licensed Professional Land Surveyor.

How accuracy was held.

Produced to a documented RGB photogrammetry workflow.

Not applicable, no measurements were made.

The ASPRS ladder, explained→

Delivery commitments.

Standard-scope deliverables are typically available in the portal within 24 hours of flight; larger, survey-tested, or multisensor scopes receive quoted timeline.
Free reprocessing, revision, and re-delivery for the life of the project, within original scope.
Data is processed in the field and checked for completeness before demobilization (coverage, overlap, control residuals); final validation follows the stated delivery method.

Scope one like it.

15-minute reply. Fixed price. Lifetime data support.

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PROJECT PROFILE · CLIENT NAMES WITHHELD · ALL IMAGERY IS FROM THIS PROJECT