History of small format aerial photography: A Canadian view

Since the 1920s, Canada has recorded and applied large format aerial photography for basic and thematic mapping. In 1958, the province of Ontario started a new forest inventory program which prescribed a ten-year cycle of large format aerial photography. The photography generated by this program was applied for a wide range of resource management purposes. To update forest and other resource information between photography cycles, the author instituted the use of a motorized 35mm camera in 1967, on behalf of the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests. From that time, as a result of the initiative of interested individuals and in response to economic pressure, a well-regarded supplementary aerial photography (SAP) program has developed. The progress of SAP is traced, and both the current status and the future prospects of the technology are assessed.