Questions people ask before booking

Ground photos show a wall. Aerial captures from fixed positions show the whole site, the same way, every time. The difference matters when someone who was not there needs to understand what changed, or when there is a dispute about when work was done. Most clients keep taking their own photos. Ours are the record they hand to the owner.

No. The smallest programmes we run are a few visits over a single phase, or a single inspection of one building. What matters is whether someone needs to see or measure something they cannot easily get to. Project size is not the deciding factor.

It depends on where the site is and whether airspace authorisation is needed. Tell us the location and we will give you a date. Ben flies personally where he can and dispatches a vetted, licensed, insured operator elsewhere in Canada. Either way, Lensdrone is the one accountable operator of record.

Ben where the site is within his reach. Elsewhere in Canada, a subcontracted operator Lensdrone has vetted for licence, insurance and experience, briefed on your site and working to the same capture plan. One company, one invoice, one operator of record either way.

Yes. Files can go into your Procore or ACC project. If your team already uses DroneDeploy, Pix4D, Propeller or similar, we capture to that platform’s spec and deliver into your account. See the flights for your platform service.

You do. Every photo, video, map and model is yours to use however you want, with no licensing fee and no expiry. We keep a copy for the duration of the project in case a file goes missing on your side, then delete it unless you ask us to keep it.

Stills as JPEG (RAW on request), video as MP4 in 4K, orthomosaics and elevation models as GeoTIFF, point clouds as LAS or LAZ, meshes as OBJ or glTF, contours and linework as DXF or DWG, reports as PDF with a CSV of findings where relevant, 360s as equirectangular JPEG plus a hosted viewer. Anything else, ask.

No. A legal survey, boundaries, legal descriptions, plans of subdivision, can only be produced by a licensed land surveyor, and we are not one. We produce measurable imagery, maps and models with a stated accuracy that is verified against independent checkpoints. Your surveyor or engineer relies on it and signs off. On jobs that need both, we work to your surveyor’s control.

Usually not. LiDAR gets bare-earth elevation under vegetation because some laser pulses reach the ground between the leaves, so it is right for forested corridors and flood modelling. It costs more and gives you no imagery. For an open site, photogrammetry produces the surface model and a picture you can look at, for less. We say which one your site needs before you pay for either.

Ask for what the output has to do, not a number. Looking at a site needs no ground control. Measuring stockpiles needs the map to agree with itself. Putting the capture on a design surface, a property line or a permit needs it to agree with the real world, which means surveyed ground control and checkpoints. We scope the accuracy to the decision it supports, state what was achieved, and show the residuals.

Photos, 360 walkthroughs, maps and models organised by where and when they were taken, so a site can be revisited as it was on a given date. The value is not any single image. It is that the record is systematic enough to answer a question two years later, when the wall is closed and the person who was there has moved on.

Most urban sites are. Every operator we dispatch holds the Advanced RPAS certificate, which is the one that permits controlled airspace flight, and we request NAV CANADA authorisation before each visit. It adds lead time to the first capture, rarely to the cost.

We fly in winter across Canada. Cold shortens battery life and low sun changes the look of the images, so we plan for shorter flights and midday captures. Heavy snow or freezing rain will move a visit by a day or two, and we tell you as soon as we know.

Yes. Commercial liability insurance for RPAS operations, with a certificate naming your company or the owner as required by your contract. Ask for it at scoping and it arrives with the quote.

The Advanced RPAS certificate permits flight near people and, with the right aircraft, over them. Flight over live traffic usually needs a Special Flight Operations Certificate. We plan around it where we can and apply for it where we cannot.