What is the best time of day for Agriculture capture?

Hi,

I’m going to be heading to a farm to do my first agriculture capture with a drone. When is the best time of day to do this? I thought noon would be good, but then wouldn’t the drone shadow be in most photos?

Let me know when you think is best. Sometime afternoon is best for my schedule (1pm-9pm).

Thanks!

–Kent

Hello Kent,

I recently watched a free webinar provided by Drone Deploy, you can find them in the Resource Section of the main page. This one covered the basics and was an introduction to Agriculture, it mentioned that the best time to provide your service if possible is between 10am - 3pm depending on what the surrounding layout of the property. For instance, if it’s lots of tree’s surrounding the farm land - consider going in the middle of the day when the field is properly covering the whole location.

Good luck! I hope it goes well for you.

At this point I’m planning on flying around 1:30pm.

Thanks for the response!

–Kent

Good plan!

Good luck.

– Rob

I fly for a general contractor and we are very similar as we survey civil work. It depends on what part of the country you are in. We are in central Texas and the best imagery happens from 9-11:00am and 2:30-4:30pm. Sunrise and sunset aren’t good because they cast shadows and obviously whatever your “high noon” is does not work because of the nadir shot and the 90d reflection.
In my opinion it has less to do with time as it does conditions. The absolute best condition is fully overcast and still. Even though it doesn’t seem like there is a enough light today’s cameras make that a non-issue. Absolute minimum on reflections makes for vibrant color and better detail, which allows the software to make more points. Partly cloud days are a no-no and you will never get a consistent exposure. They are good for aerials and Spherical Panoramas…
If you learn a little post-processing to balance the histograms it gets even better. It’s kind of like golf. If you see that perfect day or couple of days you better be ready and get out there. Even if it is a couple of days off schedule.

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