FAQs

Yes. Bayside Aerial is CASA accredited and the chief pilot is UK GVC and A2CofC trained. We hold full third-party public liability insurance and our flights are logged in accordance with CASA requirements. We can supply documentation for review by clients, body corporates, or insurers on request.

Yes. We carry full third-party public liability insurance covering commercial drone operations across Australia. Insurance certificates are available on request — most commonly required for body corporate work, government clients, and tier-one builders.

Flying over and adjacent to crowds is a regulated activity in Australia, requiring specific operational authorisations and risk assessment. We hold the appropriate certifications to fly in many crowd scenarios, but each event is individually assessed and we will tell you honestly in advance what is and is not feasible at your venue.

Drone use is restricted or prohibited in many national parks, marine sanctuaries, and reserves in Victoria. Where flights in protected areas are essential to a brief we work through the formal authorisation process with the relevant parks authority, which typically takes six to twelve weeks. We are honest with clients about feasibility and alternatives.

Our core service area is Melbourne’s bayside arc — Elwood, St Kilda, Brighton, Albert Park, Port Melbourne, and the inner-south suburbs that orbit it. We also travel routinely across Greater Melbourne and into regional Victoria; travel is quoted transparently on the brief.

Most shoots can be scheduled within a fortnight of brief acceptance. Real estate work often turns around faster — we can frequently fly within 48 hours, weather permitting. Wedding bookings should be made as soon as you have a date confirmed, particularly for peak season. Larger productions are scoped collaboratively with timelines that suit the campaign.

We monitor weather and wind conditions continuously in the days leading up to a shoot. If conditions are unsafe or unsuitable for capturing the brief, we reschedule to the next suitable window at no charge. We will not fly in conditions that compromise safety or quality, regardless of pressure to deliver.

Yes, for FPV and confined-space work we have specific drone configurations and pilots qualified for indoor and constrained-space flight. These shoots require additional planning around safety and risk and are quoted on the brief.

Our base rate is $100 AUD per hour on site. Editing is added on top depending on the level of finish required, and travel surcharges apply outside our core service area. Specialist work — FPV, multispectral mapping, multi-day brand productions — is quoted on the brief. Use our estimate tool for an indicative figure.

For most engagements we operate on a no-deposit basis, with the full invoice payable on delivery. For larger productions and wedding bookings we typically request a small holding deposit to confirm the date.

We accept bank transfer, credit and debit card payments via secure invoicing, and PayPal where requested. All clients receive a tax invoice; we are GST-registered.

No. We quote inclusive of GST, with travel and editing options stated upfront, and we do not invoice for anything that was not in the original quote without prior written approval. The price you accept is the price you pay.

Real estate work is typically delivered within 24 to 48 hours of the shoot. Standard photography and videography commissions are delivered within one to two weeks. Wedding films are delivered within two weeks. Larger productions are scoped with delivery timelines specific to the project.

Photography is delivered as high-resolution JPEG with RAW available on request. Video is delivered in 4K H.264 or H.265 as standard, with ProRes and other professional codecs available for productions that require them. Vertical and square cuts for social are delivered in addition to the master 16:9 where requested.

Yes. We retain master files for our clients indefinitely and can produce additional formats, edits, or prints from the original capture at any time after the original commission.

Imagery commissioned for commercial use is licensed to you under the terms of the engagement, typically for unrestricted use within your business. We retain copyright in the underlying work and reserve the right to use selected examples in our portfolio with your consent. Boundary, party-wall, and inspection imagery is treated as commercially confidential and not used in any portfolio context.

Yes — most engagements include rights for unrestricted social media use. Where music has been licensed for video content, social platform use is included in our standard licensing.

We fly current-generation cinema drones with one-inch and four-thirds sensors for stills and video, and dedicated FPV drones for high-speed and reveal sequences. Equipment is matched to the brief and we maintain a pre-flight check protocol on every shoot.

Yes. Night flight requires specific CASA authorisation and we hold the appropriate qualifications. Twilight and ‘blue hour’ shoots — particularly popular for hotels and venues — are within standard daylight parameters and frequently recommended for hospitality work.

Yes, for inspection work. Thermal capture is useful for identifying water ingress, electrical hot spots, and insulation defects through temperature differential, and is added to inspection commissions where the brief calls for it.

FPV (first-person view) drones are built for speed, agility, and the kind of single-take immersive sequence that the human eye cannot follow under any other camera — diving through buildings, threading between trees, chasing vehicles. FPV is the right choice when the brief calls for a signature shot that announces itself; it is overkill for most property and event work.

Frequently — most weddings and many property shoots involve multiple crews. We coordinate carefully with your ground-based team on timing, styling, and delivery, and the assets we produce are designed to integrate cleanly into their final edit or album.

Absolutely. Many of our clients arrive with specific shot lists or moodboards and we execute against the brief. For more open commissions we will lead the creative direction in dialogue with you. Either approach works, and we will tell you honestly which we think is the right fit for your project.

Yes, we offer practical mentor-led training for individuals and small teams who already hold (or are pursuing) the formal CASA certification. See our drone training page for details.

Yes. We work routinely as a sub-contracted aerial unit on agency-led productions, taking direction from the agency producer or DOP and delivering footage to spec. We are happy to integrate into existing creative and production workflows.

Yes — particularly for properties where setting, scale, or relationship to surroundings (beach, park, view) is part of the value proposition. Industry data consistently shows higher click-through and faster sales for listings with high-quality aerial imagery, and our agency clients regularly attribute faster sales to the aerial component of campaigns.

Both. Many of our agency clients book us as a flyover add-on to their standard internal photography. We are equally happy to work directly with vendors commissioning their own aerial imagery to take to an agent.

Yes. All major Australian portals (realestate.com.au, Domain) require CASA-compliant operators for aerial imagery, and our work meets that standard. We have never had imagery rejected or pulled by a portal for compliance reasons.