Posted on February 23, 2017 by Admin under Uncategorized
EPC – Floor Plan – Photography
in Herts, Beds & Bucks
for Estate Agents
EPC from £65.00
Floor Plans from £55.00
EPC & Floor Plan from £75.00
EPC , Floor Plan & photography from £120.00
Just call call 07974 159594 / 01442 245555 email – info@skmstudio.co.uk Ask for Steve or Stuart
An EPC is the Energy Performance rating applied to a property it describes the efficiency rating from A to G G being the least efficient. Your certificate is valid for 10 years. You will be able to see how you could make your home more efficient! It is a requirement when you are selling your your home! The reason is that it gives a guide for future buyers or tenants as to how efficient the property is and what the likely running costs will be. It will also provide recommendations how you might improve it’s energy efficiency! As a property marketing company we supply the EPC – Floor Plan – Photography this not only saves your clients time but allows us to be a cost efficient solution to your marketing needs.
Posted on January 4, 2017 by Admin under Uncategorized
SKM have been working from our studio in Hemel Hempstead for over 20 years. Clients can find out about our photography and film services from our website. Property photography has been the fastest growing sector for us. Once upon a time photography was all that was required, but this has changed especially over the last two years.
Our clients began to ask us to provide Floor Plans in addition to Photography, and then EPC’s. It seems favourable both to the estate agents and the vendors that all three can be sourced from the same supplier.
Floor plans have been available since 2014. We looked at many options to accomplish this but chose to use PLANUP. This allows professional looking plans to be done at the vendors property using our iPad Pro’s. The information can then be accessed online whilst we are still at the property. The look of the plan can be made to suit individual requirements, even providing 3D plans.
So in November 2016 we completed the Energy Performance Assessors, training course to enable us to provide EPC’s. This will be available during January 2017
Property Photography – What does it cost?
We now offer Property Photography, Floor Plans and EPC’s all under one roof, and at a competitive price. We are currently offering a package deal of £130.00 + VAT
This includes fully retouched photographs including the addition of Blue Skys when needed.
We also provide photography packages for prestige properties. This is usually in the range of £3,000,000+.
Aerial drone photography and filming, video walk throughs etc are the best way to portray these properties in their best light!
Our staff will answer any queries you may have – 07974 159594
Request a full price list via email to info@skmstudio.co.uk or click the link below to show our prices on our website!
I thought I’d take some time off work! We had had a very busy schedule! I thought I deserved some time off! So we thought – let’s have a Canal Adventure. So along came the opportunity to spend a week aboard a narrow boat heading up to the Coventry Basin. It sounded like a great idea!
All the arrangements were made! We packed a bag with what we thought we needed for the weeks trip! Including a nice bottle of Welsh Whisky!!
There was one thing or a few things I left behind! No cameras, No Camcorders, No Drones! There was no way on this canal adventure was I going to ‘work’!
But you know, with photography, I guess it’s in your blood. So as the trip started to progress I couldn’t resist taking a few pics, then I thought this would be great to video! But no equipment!! All I had was my iPhone 6+
Any way so that’s what I did, took a few scenes on the iPhone and this is the result!
Canal Adventure on board A Narrow Escape!
I hope you agree that this short video conveys the easy pace and relaxing feel you get when you’re on the canals. You can’t hurry, everything has to be done at the pace dictated by what’s going on around you at the time.
It was fascinating to see the difference in the way the boats were handled. I mean the difference between holiday users, maybe doing so for the first time, and boat owners that had coursed the canals for many years.
We came across one or two of the first kind that looked terrified as they crashed into moored boats, much to the chagrin of their occupants.
Any way thanks to our season skipper Chris and his wife Sue, we had a great time. Their boat, A Narrow Escape was a beautifully equipped Narrow Boat designed by Chris!
This is the next aerial filming project we have produced. This one was for Fine & Country in Redbourn. They have a large selection of country properties for sale in the Hertfordshire area around Whipsnade, Studham, and Redbourn.
Our brief when working for estate agents is that the films we make give potential clients a glimpse of the properties they are searching for!
Aerial Filming in Studham
The videos we produce would typically be under 2 mins for this type of video. There will be larger properties with more features to cover which will require slightly longer videos. This will be decided with our clients prior to shooting the project.
The other factor we take into consideration when aerial filming is of course, the weather! The factors that have the most impact is high winds and rain. We can work round most other weather situations. Basically we can capture stills images in winds up to around 20mph, but for video not much more that 15mph.
If the weather is against us, we simply reappoint!
Check out a few of the stills images below
Property Photography by SKM Studio
Property Photography by SKM Studio
Property Photography by SKM Studio
Aerial Filming by SKM Studio
We do keep our clients aware of the need to be fully qualified to fly commercially. We are CAA approved and fully insured by specialist insurance brokers. Amazingly we still hear of ‘man with a drone’ attempting to produce work for clients and companies. Not only is it illegal to fly drones for financial reward without the appropriate CAA permissions, but it is often dangerous.
If you are filming for example you need to have the pilot with his eyes on the drone at all times. This leaves the cameraman to concentrate on the filming and photography. Not only does this fulfill the CAA regulations, it makes for higher quality filming and images.
So if you need to hire an aerial filming company please make sure they have full compliance!
We specialize in making property videos for construction companies and estate agents. The following property video was made for Fine & Country in Kingswood, Surrey.
This was made to show off the properties best features. It includes views of the front and rear of the property. You get varying views of the entrance and gardens.
You can also see how it fits with the surroundings. Especially the proximity to the Kingswood Golf Club which borders the rear garden.
Check out the following video!
This property video also includes a brief look at the inside
We were asked if we could show a brief look at the inside of the property. This is something new that we offer. Part of the brief was that we keep the costs as competitive as possible! So even though this is mainly an aerial property video it can incorporate some internal footage as well.
How can we help promote your property?
Just give us a call! We will discuss the budget, the length of the video and and the content. You may be surprised to learn you can have a video like this one from as little as £195.00 + VAT
Keep checking this blog for future updates. We will be posting many more property video examples over the coming weeks. you can also incorporate more detailed footage in your property video. This can include a full HD internal video. Granted this will cost more as we do not use still images. Our property videos are real films which will show off your property to it’s full potential.
We are fast becoming the fist choice in property video for a great many companies. We have been in business since 1999.
Stills photography
Whenever we produce property videos for you we can, at the same time capture still images. Still images are still a valuable part of your overall marketing strategy!
Posted on June 11, 2015 by Admin under Uncategorized
Flying drones for commercial gain requires a CAA permissions and Insurance to fly legally. We keep hearing of people who say that so long as they are ‘not getting paid’ then it is ok to work for their clients!
I came across this article from Peter Lee who is a ‘Technology and Drone Lawyer – I think you will find it interesting!
Tuesday, 3 June 2014
Aerial work – what is valuable consideration?
The term “Aerial Work” is an important one for UK drone operators. I previously posted that the Air Navigation Order defines aerial work as “any purpose… for which an aircraft is flown if valuable consideration is given or promised in respect of the purpose of the flight”.James Harvey from Hampshire Aerial Photos recently commented on that post “Peter, you know what the next question is now don’t you… What is valuable consideration?”… hmm, good question James!Let’s take a look at consideration in a broad sense and then what it means in relation to aerial work with a drone.
Contract law is based on reciprocity – you generally can’t enforce a promise unless you have given or promised something in exchange for it. The legal term for that “something” is consideration.
The classic definition of consideration is something of value in the eye of the law. This can include payment and/or promises (that’s why you sometimes see “in consideration of the fees for our services the parties agree…” or “in consideration of the mutual promises contained herein…” at the start of a contract). The courts have taken a very wide view of what constitutes consideration; they are not generally concerned with the adequacy of consideration and will not interfere with the bargain between the parties.
So far, so good – but the Air Navigation Order (ANO) and the UK CAA talk about “valuable” consideration – what does that mean?
Well, the ANO defines valuable consideration as “any right, interest, profit or benefit, forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility accruing, given, suffered or undertaken under an agreement, which is of more than a nominal nature“.
Further guidance can be found in the Summary of the Meaning of Commercial Air Transport, Public Transport & Aerial Work (here) that was drafted by the CAA’s Secretary & Legal Adviser’s Office. This document states that valuable consideration “has a very wide meaning, including the provision of goods and services“.
Therefore, it’s clear that if you are a drone operator and you offer flying services for money – that is aerial work. The term “aerial work” is clearly intended to be wider that this though, it’s intended to capture situations where money does not change hands, including the provision of services in return for something else like promises, rights etc.
CAP 722 suggests there could be a bit of wriggle room for some in-house flying – it states that “Flying operations such as research or development flights conducted ‘in house’ may, in some circumstances, not be considered as aerial work provided there is no valuable consideration given or promised in respect of that particular flight” my view is that this should be construed fairly narrowly – basically allowing organisations to conduct some internal research and testing. It’s not a loop hole for large organisations who set up their own in-house drone team to avoid permissions!
The CCA is clear on its website that its permission is not need if the drone will not be flown close to people or properties, and you will not get “valuable consideration” from the flight – which they define on the site as “payment”, but as I’ve explained is likely to be considered wider than just $£ payments.
So, you’ll need a permission to fly your drone from the CAA if you receive anything valuable in return for your flying services (money, promises, rights etc).
It’s worth pointing out that if you don’t receive valuable consideration but fly within a congested area or close to people or property then you also need a CAA permission.
How do you show the full potential of your properties, maybe there’s a tennis court, swimming pool, stables, annex, paddocks! It would be pretty much impossible to show all these effectively using just still images, so a combination of a short video along with some stills images is surely the best way to showcase these properties. It may also have many acres of land, so to show how the property fits into it’s environment will also enhance it’s appeal.
The problems occur when inexperienced companies that don’t have the necessary qualifications to fly drones on a commercial basis. They do their work on the cheap, and incidentally illegally, which in the event of problems the client would also find themselves liable for any issues that may arise!
SKM have been capturing aerial views of properties and events for 10 years now and currently hold a CAA license to fly drones commercially and as such are fully insured giving our clients peace of mind! In fact we were among the first in the country to be awarded the new CAA license when it became obligatory!
