Hello all:

We currently fly the DJI M600 Pro with the Zenmuse X5R 20 Mp camera.  We generally fly between 200 and 300' AGL to assure overlap and coverage and we get decent Surveying level Horizontal and Vertical accuaries (0.02' - 0.4' Horizontally and 0.20' Vertically respectively). This will work for many applications but hard pavement it will not.  We Survey-in our GCP's minimum 4 usually 6-8, and mark them on ALL photos they're visible. Our GSD is usually  right around 0.7 to  1 inch or so (+/-).

So I've seen a few Surveyors talking about using a 100 Mp camera, i.e. Hasselbland for example, and began wondering.  If I upgrade, will this increase my H and V accuracies and precisions?  perhaps marking the GCP's on images being a little easier??

Thoughts?

Thank you,

Alex Wolfe Parnes, PSM
County Surveyor
Pasco County, Florida

Alex, thanks for your post, we will verify with our engineers about your question, will come back to you once there is any update, thanks for your patience.

Yes it absolutely will.

Hasselblad provided customer stunning resolution and image quality with its high pixels and processing system, but the coverage of the image depends on FOV of the lens, we would appreciate if you could provide us more details about your need.

Yes, but seeing as you're limited to roughly 400 ft under Part 107, it's honestly way overkill for low altitude photogrammetry.  The 100 mp camera will produce HUGE amounts of data when run through an image processing software like Pix4D.  That camera is also quite expensive.  

The X5R is not a great camera for photogrammetry purposes.  We had the same camera for a while, and could not achieve the accuracy we were looking for.  Something with a mechanical shutter and global sensor  will serve your purposes better.  Try a full frame camera like the Sony A7R or A7Rii.  We use the 36 mp A7R for survey grade photogrammetry work in North Carolina and have had some very good results.  Feel free to message me for some additional details.