Color Aerial Photography: Toy or Tool?

The resolution and color balance of aerial color photographs has been sufficiently improved that they should be considered for routine resource inventories, but they cannot yet be unhesitatingly recommended. Some soil and geologic units unidentifiable in panchromatic prints can be readly distinguished in color. The greater information content of color photography makes vegetation interpretation easier. Vegetation appears more as a spatial volume than as a surface in color photographs, permitting more effective interpretation in shadows than is possible in black and white. Color photography is more expensive than panchromatic, and more is required in exposure, processing, and selection of proper season. Transparencies are superior to color prints because of better resolution and color balance, but are hard to use in the field.