Creativity & Originality

are our passions

Stately Drones is an exceptionally creative drone agency.

We're able to provide stunning photos and captivating videos, but also 360° panoramic photos and 3D models of your residence, hotel, factory or farm. We can supply these services under direction, or help tell your story from inception to turnkey website and social media campaign.

We are constantly testing and reviewing new drones, drone accessories, drone apps, software and internet platforms to help your operations. Infrastructure inspection? We can help. Worried about drones being used for industrial espionage or facility penetration? We advise on anti-drone technologies.

Our Services

Aerial

Photographs
Various sizes and filters.

Video Clips
Various formats, frame rates and filters.

Inspections
Infrastructure: Towers, Masts, Wind Turbines.

Live Broadcasts
Subject to mobile phone coverage.

Interdictions & Interceptions
eg Marina patrols.

Events

Drone Team Building
Indoor (warehouse) and outdoor Board & C-Suite training & brainstorming exercises.

Drone Training
Formal & practical in-depth training.

Crowd Counting
using special people-recognition software.

Wildlife Counting
including shark spotting.

Post Flight

Image & Video Post-Processing
if necessary.

Video Production
Titles, voice-overs, music selection, editing and effects.

360° Panoramas
Post-flight splicing and loading to platforms.

Photogrammetry
Creating 3D models from 2D aerial photos.

Advisory

Drone Acquisition
Platform-agnostic fleet advice.

Penetration Testing
Simulate civilian drone 'attacks' on secure sites.

Anti-Drone Technologies
White papers on how to counter drone threats.

Corporate Drone Consulting
including 'Management By Flying Around, legal industrial espionage, industry-specific drone business opportunities.

Consulting

We're willing to share our expertise in this new and exciting field, particularly on wet and windy days!

Case Studies

Selected case studies of work undertaken for clients.

Mugga Lane Solar Park

Client: Maoneng Australia

Brief:

Maoneng Australia is the owner and developer of an exciting new solar park called Mugga Lane in the ACT, just 10km from Parliament House, Canberra. The enormous 40-hectare site was producing electricity from the end of 2016.

The client required 4 to 5 sets of aerial panoramic shots at short notice ahead of an official launch in February 2017, to be stitched together externally for a Chinese audience (including investors) on a Chinese 360º panorama site.

Challenges:

There was another commercial drone in operation at the solar park when we arrived with the client. We knew this in advance. It was being used for IR (Infra-Red) thermal imaging to spot potentially defective panels. This prevented us from working in half of the solar park for a few hours but allowed us to shoot video footage for the client.

Deliverables:

We delivered 6 sets of RAW images to the client. Each set contained 26 individual photographs. We selected two of the sets (shot from above each of the two distinct fields seen below) and created panoramas which we loaded on to Google Maps to assist the client's marketing endeavours.

The 360º panorama below is 'live' and searchable on google maps (where they are known as 'photo spheres'). Drag it to rotate and zoom with a middle mouse wheel or use the +/- buttons. The pictures were taken at an altitude of 119 metres above ground level and almost directly above one of the shipping container-sized inverters.

Live 360º Panorama on Google Maps

Fish Eye View of the Mugga Lane Solar Park

Fish Eye projection

Once we've created a composite spherical model by stitching multiple images together, we're able to generate different projections.

This is a 'Fish Eye' view of the Mugga Lane Solar Park. Note that we did not use a fish eye lens on the camera.

Small World Projection

The 'Small World' view is another popular and fun projection. It could be used for example on a client's website as an icon, linking to a Google Photo Sphere or printed out as a poster. The underlying file is more than 16,000 pixels wide!

Small World View of the Mugga Lane Solar Park

Composite Perspective View of the Mugga Land Solar Park

Composite Perspective Projection

The Mugga Lane Solar Park covers 40 hectares. Limited to a height of 120 metres by law) and the boundaries of the property, it is impossible to capture the site in a single aerial photo. The solution is a 'Composite Perspective' projection. A single photo similar to this could be taken from a drone hovering a long way from the site (if permissions were obtained from neighbours) but it would not have this extremely high resolution (again more than 16,000 pixels wide).

Public Video

We can produce video and recommendations for clients on how to use or host it. Our typical production resolutions are 1080p HD (very high quality ie 'High Definition'). This is perfect for internal client use (as part of a presentation at a conference for example). Public videos may need more consideration regarding the end users. Is the audience predominantly mobile or at home or corporate with high bandwidth?

Wistia (the first video below) is a high-quality hosting service perfect for embedding videos in corporate-type websites but attracts hosting charges. YouTube (the second video below) is free but may carry advertising and distractions drawing viewers away from the website in which it was embedded. Most hosting services will try and deliver video to match the end user's available bandwidth and many allow the user's to force a particular resolution (via a 'gear') icon, but in practise this cannot be guaranteed.

For our Mugga Lane client, a video was a 'nice to have' outcome but not the primary objective (which was a set of panoramas). The video footage we shot was mainly while travelling to and from the panorama locations agreed with the client and was in a sense a 'by-product'.

The two videos below are identical (other than the different preview images) and were loaded to both platforms at 1080p HD. As such you should be able to test both for your particular platform and location.

Tip: Click the rectangle icon at the bottom right of either video to watch in full screen mode

Mugga Lane Solar Park hosted on Wistia

The underlying file is 1080p HD. Select the 'gear' icon and a lower definition file, if bandwidth constrained (and this doesn't happen automatically)

Mugga Lane Solar Park hosted on YouTube

YouTube is a free service and aggressively delivers a low-bandwidth video to suit the end user/device. This may results in a loss of image quality.

Blue Mountains City Art Gallery & Cafe

Client: Blue Mountains Cultural Centre

Brief:

The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre (BMCC) is a non-profit complex in the heart of Katoomba, the tourist capital of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Greater Blue Mountains Area. The Cultural Centre is an independent part of the Blue Mountains City Council and includes:

The Blue Mountains City Art Gallery.
The quiet, relaxing Gallery Cafe and a shop.
The Blue Mountains World Heritage Interpretive Centre.
A viewing platform open to the public at not cost.
A library.

The BMCC opened in November 2012. It has solar panels to cut grid electricity consumption and a green roof garden to filter rain water.

The BMCC is only 180 metres from the train station yet is often missed by tourists as it is 'hidden' in front of the majestic Carrington Hotel and accessed from Katoomba Street (the main road) through short alleys.

The brief was to help visitors find the BMCC, showcase its green credentials, emphasise the Blue Mountains City Art Gallery (which can at times be hired) and create content for existing BMCC social media channels. Additionally the new and separate branding of the Blue Mountains City Art Gallery (BMCAG) was to be pushed even though it is an integral part of the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre (BMCC) which is an independent unit of the Blue Mountains City Council (another BMCC acronym).

Challenges:

Challenges for this particular site include:

A highly reflective roof which is also corrugated leading to moiré patterning.
The south side of the Carrington Hotel is deeply shaded at midday in autumn.
The need to stay within the boundaries of the BMCC for safety reasons.
Curious patrons intrigued by drones.

Deliverables:

In an Australian and possibly world first, we flew our drone INSIDE the City Art Gallery. The video shows both external and internal aspects of the BMCC and was shot entirely by drone. Watch to the very end (past the credits) to see the drone flying inside.

Ideally watch in 720pHD or 1080pHD which require more bandwidth. Use the gear icon (bottom right side of YouTube)

We also delivered two 360º Panoramas loaded on to Google Maps (where they are known as Photo Spheres). Google has only just (2017) allowed the connection of panoramas. For example if you face south (should be the default view) for the panorama below, an arrow should appear (as with ground-based Street View) which jumps to the panorama over the BMCC's viewing platform. Use 'View on Google' (top left) to see the panoramas full screen.

A few of our favourite photos

Click on any image to see it in full and start the slide show. Curious about the location? Just hover over the full-size image.

Viewing Tip #2: Toggle the function key <F11> (most PCs) to hide everything but the slide show in Chrome or Edge browsers. For Macs, toggle the three <Control><Command><F> keys together to fully open Safari, or revert to the original window size.