# aerial.melbourne — full detail > Aerial photography in Melbourne. Fine art drone prints of Melbourne and Victoria, plus commissioned aerial photography and videography for property, corporate and editorial clients. > Index version: /llms.txt · Site: https://aerial.melbourne Operated by Josh, a Melbourne-based drone pilot and digital manager. Accredited to operate commercially under CASA regulations and insured for commercial work. Service area is Melbourne and Victoria. Contact: josh@aerialmelbourneprints.com --- # DRONE PHOTOGRAPHY MELBOURNE (commissioned work) Service page: /drone-photography-melbourne/ ## What is shot Real estate and property — listing photography and video for agents and developers: full exteriors, land boundaries, and neighbourhood context a ground-level shoot cannot show. Construction and progress — monthly progress documentation from a fixed position so the set reads as one sequence; priced as a series rather than per visit once a schedule is locked in. Corporate and brand — headquarters, site documentation, and hero imagery for businesses that want their location shown properly rather than stock-photo generic. Architecture and landmarks — custom commissions of a specific building, venue, or site: the same process behind every print in the collection, shot to the client's brief. ## Process 1. Enquire — email the brief: location, what you need (stills, video, or both), and your timeline. Reply within one business day with availability and a quote. 2. Plan the flight — airspace, permissions, and weather windows are checked and a shoot date confirmed. Most jobs need one clear morning or evening for the best light. 3. Shoot and deliver — edited stills or footage delivered within 3 to 5 business days. Licensing for the intended use is agreed upfront. ## Published rates Melbourne and Victoria, at the same rates — travel inside that area is not a surcharge. - Residential real estate package: $250. One visit to a house or small property. Airspace check at the address, exteriors, land boundaries and neighbourhood context, edited stills licensed for the listing. Turnaround 3–5 business days. - Commercial half day: $800. One shoot window, usually a morning or an evening for the light. Airspace check and any approvals flagged before the day, stills or video or both, usage agreed upfront. Turnaround 3–5 business days for stills, longer for video. - Commercial full day: $1,600. The same scope across a full day: several locations in one booking, or a complete documentation pass of a single site. Not offered: per-edited-image pricing, and helicopter aerial photography of any kind. This is a drone-only operation. ## Commission FAQ Q: How do I hire an aerial photographer in Melbourne? A: Email the brief: the location, what you need (stills, video, or both), and your timeline. You get a reply within one business day with availability and a quote. From there it is airspace and weather planning, then a shoot date. Q: What areas of Melbourne do you cover? A: All of Melbourne and Victoria, at the same rates. That includes the CBD, Docklands and Southbank; inner suburbs from Carlton and Fitzroy through Richmond, Collingwood and South Yarra; bayside through Port Melbourne, St Kilda, Brighton and Williamstown; the east through Hawthorn, Camberwell and Box Hill; the north and west through Brunswick, Preston, Footscray and Sunshine; outer Melbourne including Werribee, Point Cook, Dandenong, Frankston and Craigieburn; and regional Victoria from Geelong, the Bellarine and the Surf Coast to the Mornington Peninsula, the Yarra Valley, the Macedon Ranges, Ballarat and Bendigo. For jobs outside Victoria, get in touch and I will tell you whether it is workable rather than quoting blind. Q: How long does it take to get the finished images? A: Typically 3 to 5 business days after the shoot for edited stills, and longer for video depending on scope. Licensing is agreed before the shoot rather than after, so a real estate listing and a corporate campaign are quoted differently from the start. Q: Do you handle airspace approvals and permissions? A: Yes. Every enquiry starts with checking the airspace at your address, because control zones, altitude caps, and helicopter corridors decide what is actually possible before anything else does. Where a site needs formal approval, that gets flagged in the quote rather than discovered on the day. Q: What does commissioned aerial photography cost? A: A residential real estate package is $250, a commercial half day is $800, and a full day is $1,600, anywhere in Melbourne and Victoria. Unusual scope, recurring visits, or broad usage licensing are quoted on top of that. Market ranges for the rest of the Melbourne market are in the pricing section below. Q: Are you accredited and insured to fly commercially? A: Yes to both. Flying commercially in Australia requires CASA accreditation, and commercial jobs are covered by public liability insurance. Every flight runs under CASA's standard operating conditions: a maximum of 120 metres above ground level, 30 metres clear of people not involved in the operation, within visual line of sight, and in daylight. Q: Do you offer helicopter aerial photography? A: No. This is a drone-only operation. Helicopter charter in Melbourne runs well over $1,000 per flight hour before the photographer, and for the overwhelming majority of jobs a drone produces the same image for a fraction of that. Q: What do you deliver? A: Edited, full-resolution files rather than everything the drone captured. Stills arrive as finished JPEGs sized for web and print; video is graded and cut to length in up to 4K. Close-proximity FPV work is available where a standard camera drone cannot operate safely. --- # PRICING Published rates for aerial.melbourne: $250 residential real estate package, $800 commercial half day, $1,600 commercial full day, across Melbourne and Victoria. The ranges below are the rest of the Melbourne market, across operators generally, and are not this operator's prices — they sit above the published rates above: - Single-location shoot, edited stills: $350–$800 - Single-location shoot with video: $600–$1,500 - Half-day commercial booking: $900–$2,000 - Real estate (8–15 edited stills, one visit): $350–$600, dusk shoots at the top of the range - Construction progress, priced per visit on a locked schedule: $300–$500 - Corporate and brand: from $800 into five figures depending on scope ## What moves a quote Q: Why do aerial photography quotes vary so much? A: Three things, and none of them is the drone. Airspace work differs by site, because a job in Werribee is not the same job as one in Southbank. Weather reschedules have to be paid for by someone. And editing time scales with how many finished images you order. Q: What makes an aerial photography quote more expensive? A: Proximity to the CBD, an airport, a helipad, or a public event, because each needs airspace work and sometimes a formal CASA approval that takes weeks. Tight deadlines and flying near people also add cost. So does broad usage licensing: photos for one property listing are priced differently from the same photos on a billboard. Q: What should I ask an aerial photographer before booking? A: Ask whether they hold CASA certification appropriate to the job and carry public liability insurance, and expect immediate, specific answers to both. Then ask what happens if weather kills the shoot date, how many edited images the price includes, and who owns the raw files. Q: What credentials should a Melbourne drone photographer have? A: Two are not optional. CASA certification appropriate to the work, which means either flying under a certified operation or, for smaller drones, registration and accreditation in the excluded category. And public liability insurance, where $10 million is the common minimum and many corporate and government sites will not let a drone launch without seeing the certificate of currency. Q: What happens if the weather cancels an aerial shoot? A: Melbourne can kill a shoot morning with wind that was not in yesterday's forecast, so operators worth hiring give you a primary date and a fallback and do not charge you twice. Get the reshoot policy in writing before booking. --- # DRONE VERSUS HELICOPTER Q: Should I use a drone or a helicopter for aerial photography? A: One site, under 400 feet, where detail and precision matter: a drone, and it is not close. Whole-of-city vistas, several distant sites in one session, or large campaign coverage: a helicopter. Q: How high can a drone legally fly in Australia? A: Drones are limited to 120 metres above ground level, about 400 feet, without a specific CASA approval. Helicopters work above 1,000 feet over built-up areas. That single altitude rule settles more platform decisions than any pricing conversation. Q: Is drone photography cheaper than helicopter photography? A: Substantially. Helicopter photography in Melbourne means chartering an aircraft, typically well over $1,000 per flight hour before the photographer, plus positioning time from Moorabbin or Essendon. Most drone jobs cost less than the helicopter spends warming up. Q: Is drone image quality good enough for large prints? A: Yes. Current drone sensors produce files that print cleanly at A0. A helicopter photographer with a $50,000 medium-format system still wins a resolution contest on paper, but for web, marketing, and most print use nobody can tell the two platforms apart at final output. Drones also hold a GPS position to within centimetres, which is why construction progress photography moved almost entirely to drones: the same angle, month after month, repeatable to the pixel. --- # FINE ART PRINTS ## Collection - 333 Collins Street Dome — overhead view of the ornate copper dome. Shot from 400ft / 122m. Melbourne CBD (-37.8176, 144.9644). URL: /prints/333-collins-street-dome - Albert Park Sunset — Albert Park Lake at golden hour with Melbourne skyline. Shot from 380ft / 116m. Albert Park (-37.8492, 144.9693). URL: /prints/albert-park-sunset - Floating Over Melbourne — hot air balloons over the CBD at sunrise. Shot from ~400ft / 122m. Melbourne CBD (-37.8136, 144.9631). URL: /prints/floating-over-melbourne - Melbourne City Twilight — CBD skyline at dusk, tower lights against deep blue sky. Shot from ~400ft / 122m. Melbourne CBD (-37.8136, 144.9631). URL: /prints/melbourne-city-twilight - Melbourne Arts Centre — overhead of the Arts Centre spire's lattice steel structure. Shot from ~250ft / 76m. Southbank (-37.8210, 144.9686). URL: /prints/melbourne-arts-centre ## Specifications Paper: Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm, archival pigment inks. Sizes: A-series from A4 (21 × 29.7cm) to A0 (84.1 × 118.9cm). The Melbourne Arts Centre print is available in A3, A2, and A0 only. Pricing: from A$41; Melbourne Arts Centre from A$63. Varies by size. Production: made to order, 5–7 day production. Shipping: tracked delivery, free within Australia. Checkout: processed via Shopify. --- # EQUIPMENT DJI Mavic 3 Pro (primary, Hasselblad sensor), DJI Mini 5 Pro, DJI Avata 360 FPV, DJI NEO, Insta360 X5. The same equipment is used for the print collection and for commissioned work. Full list: /gear --- # TOOLS Flight Check (/tools/forecast) — real-time drone flight condition checker for Melbourne. GO/NO-GO verdict, wind, gusts, KP index, golden hour. Installable PWA. Drone Bot (/tools/drone-bot) — Telegram bot with 24/7 alerts for Melbourne drone pilots. --- # CONTACT Email: josh@aerialmelbourneprints.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/aerial.melbourne Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia Sitemap: https://aerial.melbourne/sitemap-index.xml