Historic Aerial Photo Resources

What I would really like from NCAP is the postwar series (i.e. late 1940s) rather than yet more from the 1970s, 1980s etc. As well as wartime ones they have released.

Totally agree. No point showing what Google Earth already shows us for free. The sixties would also be good but ordering them from the OS finding aids is almost impossible and I have failed three times to get the right sortie/frame number due to one finding aid covering multiple sorties without any clarity on the finding aid!

Since 28th Feb NCAP have added nearly 50,000 photos according to the blob on the map that covers the UK on their map page. Assuming most are in the UK and not northern France, that is a lot of frames, however, none appear to be visible which seems to be an odd way of encouraging new subs. There are thousands of placeholders which say "Not Yet Digitised" which seems to be a message rather like a sign that just says "Please do not throw stones at this sign"! Even worse the sorties seem to include frames from the seventies and possibly sixties and therefore of more interest than the Google Earth era ones that seem to have been added recently. The other problem is that none of the recent non-continental coverage has been publicised and I only came across the Luftwaffe coverage by accident and a bit of digging.

A lot of the NARA sourced stuff would be of interest to many people since it fills the gap in Historic England's coverage (ie 1939-1943) but not a peep on progress apart form a bland statement last year. I really don't understand the policy.

This is still the best online source of historic photos but it could be even better.

Some aerial photo sets that appeared on a Landmark website about 8 years ago only to disappear a year or so later are now available to academics only on the site below. Any academic around?

data.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/landmap/data/optical/h_ap/England/

Wales, Scotland and Ireland also have sections.

Peter Kirk BRE (rehab)

NCAP

In the last month the blob over England has increased by 120,000 frames, even if some are of France/Jersey that is a huge number. However it seems they want to tease us even more by not making them view-able. This is proving to be a very frustrating way of doing things as some areas are of great interest especially as some dates are 1960s and 1970s. Why put them on the map if you can't see them???? I assume this is due to licencing issues yet to be resolved but again why put them on the map?

Also the Luftwaffe updates seem to have stopped in favour of loads more coverage from the 90s which you can largely get on Google Earth for free. Baffling.

Following up on my recent moan, NCAP have stated that they have added placeholders for 100,000 frames acquired from Airbus Industries who in turn acquired them from the archives of various aerial survey companies they took over. The place holders will be filled at some point during this year.

A further 200,000 frame place holders will be added later this year for the archives of Simmons Aerofilms. No word on progress with the NARA collections.

Nice to see my £40 subscription allows me to see blank spaces as well

I have used their finding aids in the past for areas of Scotland that aren't covered online - yet. but I order research copies at low resolution just in case I chose the wrong frame. This has saved me a fortune as many do not show what I want. The placeholders are a bit worse as they don't show the area covered.

When I have ordered high resolution scans the quality has been good and in most cases a lot better than online, which I haven't got a problem with. However this is no guarantee that the original is sharp or will blow up to a reasonable quality. My experience with ordering high resolution copies from Historic England shows that some can be perfect for spotting and identifying a 10ft square building (bombing range quadrant shelters) but others are just blobs that may or may not be a tree. Oddly enough some of the high level aerials taken by the Luftwaffe in 1940 show a lot of detail despite covering a large area and that is only the online versions.