Photography Services
From a standout holiday let to a property sale or commercial space, start with the service that matches the job.
Roof and building condition imagery, site and land aerials, progress records and 3D capture, flown across Somerset and the South West. Imagery your surveyor can work from, delivered in 48 hours.
If you have searched for drone surveys or drone surveyors in Somerset, it is worth me being straight with you about what I do and what I do not. I am Matthew, a CAA-licensed drone photographer based in Weston-super-Mare, and I am not a chartered surveyor. What I do is capture the high-resolution aerial imagery, 4K video and 3D models that surveyors, architects, builders and property owners need in order to see a building properly: roofs, chimneys, elevations, plots, boundaries and whole construction sites, photographed from angles nobody can safely stand at.
The reason people come to me first is speed and cost. A flight takes one person, one visit and no access equipment, where the same look at a roof by traditional means means scaffolding, a cherry picker or a tower, and a wait for all three. If what you actually need is a measured or structural survey, I am the imagery half of that job, and I am very happy to work alongside your surveyor and shoot to their brief. The rule I hold to everywhere on this page is simple: I capture, your surveyor interprets.
I fly every job myself. There is no sub-contracted pilot, no call centre and no account manager between you and the person who will be standing in your garden with a controller, which means the brief you describe on the phone is the brief that gets flown.
I have been photographing property for seventeen years and flying commercially for five, and most of my inspection work now comes from surveyors, roofers and builders who need a clear look at something before they price or report on it. If your job is not one I should be doing, I will say so and point you at who should.
Five kinds of aerial capture cover almost every enquiry that arrives under the heading of a drone survey. Most jobs are one of these, some are a combination, and combining them on one visit is usually cheaper than booking them separately.
Close, sharp 4K stills and video of roofs, chimneys, gutters, flashing, verges and solar arrays, with nobody leaving the ground. It is the quickest way to see whether a slipped tile is one slipped tile or the start of a bigger problem.
Elevations, facades, parapets, cladding joints and the details that sit thirty feet above the nearest safe ladder position. I fly a planned pattern so coverage is consistent across each elevation rather than a scatter of one-off shots.
Repeat visits on a schedule, flown from matched positions and heights so the images line up month to month. That is what makes the sequence read as one continuous record of the build rather than a folder of unrelated photographs.
Overhead and oblique aerials of plots, boundaries, access points, drainage runs and neighbouring context. They answer the questions a street-level photograph cannot: how the plot actually sits, where the access pinches, what backs onto it.
A Gaussian splat is a photorealistic 3D scene reconstructed from a set of drone images. Instead of scrolling through photographs one at a time, you move around the building in a browser and look at it from any angle you like, including angles nobody could stand at. Photogrammetry is the more established relative of it and produces a textured 3D mesh from the same kind of imagery.
One thing to be clear about: it is a visual model, not a measured survey deliverable. Do not scale dimensions off it and rely on them.
The three images in this section are illustrations of the technique rather than client deliverables.
The enquiries split fairly neatly into five groups, and the brief is different for each one.
You are about to buy a house with an unknown roof, or you have been quoted for repairs you cannot see the need for. A short flight gives you clear pictures of the roof, the chimney and the guttering so you can make the decision with your eyes open rather than on trust.
I supply the aerial imagery that goes into your inspection or report, shot to your brief and delivered as full-resolution files. You keep the professional judgement and the liability that comes with it. I have no interest in interpreting the building for you, only in getting you a clean look at it.
Quoting without ladders, cherry pickers or a wasted first visit. Aerial imagery lets you see the pitch, the material, the condition and the access constraints before you commit a price, and it gives your customer something to look at when you explain why the job costs what it costs.
Scheduled progress records that build into a timeline of the whole project, plus aerials for sales and funding material. One photographer, one set of flight positions, a consistent record from groundworks through to handover.
Plots, boundaries, access and the surrounding landscape, shown properly. For land sales and planning submissions an overhead view does more work than any written description, and it stops a good site being judged on a photograph taken from the gate.
The phrase "drone survey" gets used to mean two very different things, so here is the line drawn clearly. Everything on the left is what you receive from me. Everything on the right needs a chartered surveyor, and I will happily supply them the imagery to do it with.
None of that is a limitation I am apologising for. It is a division of labour: the imagery is my half of the job and the professional opinion is theirs, and work done that way tends to be both quicker and better evidenced.
I am based in Weston-super-Mare, which puts most of Somerset inside an hour's drive. The towns I am asked about most for aerial inspection work are Yeovil, Bridgwater and Shepton Mallet, where a lot of the housing stock is old enough for roofs to be a live question, along with Frome, Wells, Glastonbury and Street.
Along the coast and the northern edge of the county I regularly fly in Clevedon, Portishead, Nailsea, Keynsham and Burnham-on-Sea, where salt-laden wind does unkind things to roofs and rendering. Further out I cover Cheddar, Minehead, Chard, Somerton, Langport and Wedmore, including the Levels, where an overhead view of drainage and access tells you more than any walk around a field.
The cities are part of the same patch: Bristol, Bath and Taunton. Bristol and Bath both need more airspace planning than people expect, so I check restrictions before quoting rather than turning up hopeful. For larger projects, particularly multi-site progress records and 3D capture, I work UK-wide and travel is quoted openly as part of the fixed price.
Both cities have their own page, because the buildings and the airspace are genuinely different: drone surveys in Bristol covers period terraces, industrial roofs and the Flight Restriction Zone around Bristol Airport, while drone surveys in Bath deals with listed Georgian stock, parapet and box gutter detail, and what listed status does and does not restrict.
Step 1
You tell me what needs to be seen and why. I check the airspace, any flight restriction zones, take-off and landing permissions and the weather window, then confirm a fixed quote and a date before anything is booked.
Step 2
Usually under an hour for a house roof, longer for a site or a 3D capture. I fly a planned pattern rather than improvising, so coverage is consistent and repeatable if you want the same shots again next month.
Step 3
Files are corrected, sorted and delivered within 48 hours as full-resolution downloads. 3D captures arrive as a browser link you can share with anyone who needs to look at it, no software required.
If what you need is aerial imagery to market a building rather than inspect it, that sits on my commercial drone photography page, and property aerials for sales listings are covered under drone and aerial photography. Scheduled build documentation lives on the construction photography page. Plenty of jobs combine two of these, and combining them on one visit is cheaper than booking two.
No, and I would rather say so plainly at the top of the page than have you find out later. I am a CAA-licensed drone photographer with five years flying commercially and seventeen years photographing property. What I produce is imagery: sharp aerial stills, 4K video and 3D visual capture of roofs, buildings, plots and sites. Interpreting that imagery, signing anything or advising on condition is a surveyor's job. Plenty of my drone work is commissioned by surveyors, architects and builders for exactly that reason, and I am happy to be the imagery half of the job.
No. Measured and topographical work needs survey instruments, control points and a qualified surveyor standing behind the numbers, and none of that is what I do. What I can do is capture the site thoroughly from the air, including obliques and overheads, and hand your surveyor a complete visual record to work from. If they give me a brief, whether that is specific elevations, particular roof details or a set flight height, I will shoot to it.
You get a fixed quote before booking, based on the property, the location and how much of it needs covering, so there are no surprises afterwards. The honest comparison is that a drone flight involves one person, one visit and no access equipment, where scaffolding or a cherry picker involves hire, delivery, erection and often a road permit. That is why aerial imagery usually comes in at a fraction of an access solution, but I would rather quote your specific job than publish a figure that turns out to be wrong for it.
A Gaussian splat is a photorealistic 3D scene built from a set of drone images. Rather than looking through photographs one at a time, you move around the building or site in a browser and inspect it from whatever angle you want, including angles nobody could stand at. Photogrammetry is the more established relative of it and produces a 3D mesh from the same kind of imagery. Both are genuinely useful for documenting a property in 3D, reviewing details remotely with a project team, and presenting a development to people who cannot visit. Both are visual models rather than measured survey outputs.
Almost, but not quite, and the exceptions matter. I hold a CAA Flyer ID and Operator ID, carry public liability insurance and fly a sub-249g DJI Mini 5 Pro, which keeps me legal closer to people and buildings than a heavier aircraft would. What I still have to work around is airspace: restricted zones around airports, some Ministry of Defence sites, and the flight restriction zones that cover more of Bristol and Bath than most people expect. Landowner permission for take-off and landing matters too. I check all of it before quoting, and if a site genuinely cannot be flown I will tell you at that point rather than after taking a booking.
I am based in Weston-super-Mare, so most of Somerset, Bristol and Bath is under an hour away and I can usually be on site within a few days, sooner for urgent storm damage work. Edited imagery is delivered within 48 hours of the flight. The main variable is weather rather than diary: I will not fly in rain or in winds above roughly 25mph, so occasionally a date moves by a day or two, and I would rather move it than hand you soft, buffeted footage.
Yes, and it is some of my favourite work because the brief is usually precise. Surveyors and architects commission imagery to support their own inspections, roofers and builders use it to quote accurately, and contractors book recurring progress visits on a schedule. Recurring trade work is very welcome and I am happy to invoice monthly rather than per visit. If you want the imagery supplied plainly with no branding attached, that is fine too.
Describe the building, roof or site and I will tell you honestly whether a drone is the right tool for it, whether the airspace allows it, and what it will cost. Fixed quote before booking, imagery within 48 hours of the flight.
Ready to get your property looking its best? Drop me a message and I'll get back to you within a few hours to confirm availability and sort out a time that works for you.
From the Blog
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Professional photography that helps your property stand out. Fixed prices, no hidden fees, no fuss.