Aerial photography on film — advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages - High ground resolution (a frame of aerial film can resolve very fine detail). - Flexibility — mission-on-demand, varied altitude/lens combinations. - High geometric reliability — a stable imaging plane + known lens geometry. - Relatively inexpensive vs. satellite tasking.

Disadvantages - Daylight only — typical acceptable window is 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM local (for good sun angles). - Poorer contrast at shorter wavelengths (blue scatters in the atmosphere). - Film is non-reusable, expensive to process, storage-heavy. - Inconvenient — must fly, land, develop, scan. - Inefficient for digital analysis — has to be digitized before any modern GIS/classification work.