Frequently Asked Questions
Service Area
Flying Turtle Lab services all areas of the Sunshine Coast region and Noosa, as far south as the Glass House Mountains. If your drone project is in this area you can book online using our prepaid packages. This includes major centres like Maroochydore, Mooloolaba, Caloundra, Nambour, Buderim and the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. If your project needs are outside of this (e.g. Brisbane or further afield), please get in touch to arrange a quote, our flying turtles are happy to travel.
What services do you offer?
Please check out our Services page for a full list of our standard packages and most popular bookings. However, as a small owner-run business, we are happy to tailor a package to suit your needs, just head to our Contact page to get in touch.
How will I receive my content?
Digitally of course! We will email you a secure link to your files which will remain active for 2 weeks (for security). Please download your content at your earliest convenience.
Do I own the footage?
Flying Turtle Lab retains copyright ownership of all material. As a paying customer you gain lifetime usage rights to the content, with the limitation that you may not re-sell or otherwise license the content without our express written consent. You are free to use and re-use the footage you purchase for any other purposes.
Will you also use the footage?
As a small and growing business, we are proud to share some of our work on our website and social media. This helps our flying turtles keep on flying! We will never share specific address details or other sensitive material when we do this, and we only show a small selection of images and videos. We understand that some projects require more privacy, especially building sites where you are collecting data for internal company review only, so please let us know if this is the case. In some situations, you may prefer to buy the copyright to the footage so that you become the exclusive rights holder - please contact us to discuss a quote.
How do the 3D interactive models work?
We leverage a process known as photogrammetry to turn 2D photographs/video into 3D models. There are many tools to do this, and at the moment we use a platform from Luma AI that creates amazing interactive models that are hosted online and easy to share without needing any special software. Please be aware that what you see is what you get with this process - we cannot edit the 3D model at this time, so everything that our drones see is recreated in the model. We are investigating some other tools that will allow us to offer fully edited models, or models that can be brought into CAD software for verification and 3D modelling purposes - please stay tuned or get in touch if you're keen to know where we are up to with this R&D.
Size and Resolution
Unless otherwise stated or requested, all photos and videos will be in landscape orientation. Photos will be a minimum of 12MP (4032x2268) and up to 48MP, and videos will be a minimum of 4K resolution at 30fps. We can record video up to 60fps if requested. If you require anything specific, please note this at the time you order or contact us to discuss.
Do you offer general photography or video services?
At this stage Flying Turtle Lab is focussed exclusively on drone services - we believe this specialisation allows us to keep our costs low and pass savings on to our customers. However, we are always happy to collaborate with local photographers to add an extra pair of hands to a photo or video shoot, and may expand to offer a full range of services ourselves in the future.
Authority
By making a booking you are granting us authority to fly drones over and around your property, business, or event. Please notify your owners, renters, site managers or other parties likely to be on-site at the time we are there so that no-one is surprised to see a flying turtle overhead!
When will your flying turtles capture footage?
When you make an online booking we ask for your deadline and will fit the job into our schedule. Unlike interior photography, our drones can visit most sites anytime without disturbing the people who live there, or the activities taking place. So, rather than organising a specific time to visit, we group jobs as they come in, which saves you time and money.
Cancellation or Rescheduling
Because we group jobs to save customers money, we are unable to offer a refund if you cancel a job after we have been on site to capture footage. However, if you contact us and we have not yet been on site, we are happy to offer a full refund or reschedule for not cost. Please contact us ASAP if you need to cancel or reschedule a job.
Can I upgrade a package later?
Yes! We know that plans change and sometimes that social media filter just doesn't give you expected. We are happy to take any "Hatchling" package and provide the editing described in our "Sea Turtle" packages, contact us for an express invoice to pay the difference.
Express Jobs
If you urgently require footage in less than 48 hours, please do not book online - please phone to discuss our availability and book the job with a fast quote and invoice.
Payment
We simplify the process of booking drone services with pre-paid online packages. You can use PayPal or pay directly with most credit cards or bank accounts using our secure system. We also accept these payment methods for our personalised invoices. Payment is required before your footage is sent to you.
Weather and Time
Please see our Safety page for some of the limitations on drone flight in Australia. Unless specified in your booking, we will capture footage at a time that is suitable for our schedule and safe for drone flight. If you require sunset imagery or similar, we will do our best to accommodate this within your timeline, but please be aware that we cannot control the weather on the day that we are on site and will make the most of any situation to capture the best photos, videos and/or 3D scan data.
