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Flying camera keeps an eye on Malahat roadwork

A Sidney photographer has developed an innovative technique for photographing large engineering and construction projects from a small airplane, and he has a unique perspective on the Malahat construction project.
Malahat project aerial.jpg
A section of the Malahat as photographed by Russ Heinl, who uses a small aircraft to take photos of road construction and other projects, then "stitches" the images together using computer software.

A Sidney photographer has developed an innovative technique for photographing large engineering and construction projects from a small airplane, and he has a unique perspective on the Malahat construction project.

Russ Heinl shoots aerial panoramic photos and then uses computer technology to “stitch” the photos together so that two or more kilometres of roadway construction is captured in one shot.

The images, updated monthly, help Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure project managers and engineers see how the project is progressing, Heinl said.

“When you see it from the air, there’s so much more than you can see from the sightline of the road,” Heinl said. “When you see the whole scope of it, you can see there’s a whole lot of work going on up there.”

The construction is taking place between the south Shawnigan Road turnoff and the summit. The road is being widened to eliminate problems with merging from two lanes to one in the northbound and southbound lanes.

Heinl has also chronicled month by month the construction of the Cisco warehouse in Langford from eight different angles, and shot aerial photos of highway projects in Greater Vancouver.

Photographic proof is useful for ongoing projects where banks and investors want to see progress, he said.

“I’m the only person doing it as far as I know,” Heinl said of the aerial panoramas.

It’s quite a switch from Heinl’s previous photography projects, which include art books such as Above Victoria & Vancouver Island, Over Beautiful British Columbia, and Vancouver and the Lower Mainland from the Air.

“I’m known for my beautiful aerial photography, but these [construction] images are hard-core engineering,” Heinl said. “They’re not beautiful. They’re very factual. The idea is to give you visual information on the ground.”

The software that connects each photo requires 25 per cent of each photo be overlaid with the next, he said. A gyro-stabilizer on the aircraft keeps the camera steady, but the plane is moving at a speed of about 120 kilometres an hour.

“The camera has to be lined up with the road very precisely,” he said.

The airplane has to follow turns in the road to get the imagery to work. If a car is moving close to the same speed as the airplane, it may show up eight times in an assembly of photos.

The resolution of his camera captures the colour of people’s shoes from 2,000 feet in altitude.

“Normally, when you’re in a plane or helicopter and you want a sharp image, you use a wide-angle lens,” Heinl said.

“The last thing you want is a telephoto zoom and movement because the amount of shake and movement would be huge because you’re magnifying. This system allows me to get really close to the ground.”

Much of the art photography was done using helicopters, which is prohibitively expensive for smaller jobs, he said.

The cost using helicopters would be thousands of dollars, but a small fixed-wing aircraft allows Heinl to bill the government $500 for each outing.

“Operating from a fixed-wing aircraft rather then a helicopter makes these sorts of assignments affordable.”

smcculloch@timescolonist.com