Drone Photography & Video.
Aerial stills and 4K aerial video captured with a DJI Mavic 3 Cinema. We fly to SACAA Part 101 hobby rules — daylight only, line of sight, away from controlled airspace — and route around Cape Town International, Lanseria and Rand Airport CTRs by default.
Aerial photography changed what a property listing looks like. The plate that shows the boundary line, the driveway, the pool and the neighbouring lots in one frame does more to justify an asking price than any number of interior shots. Done in South Africa, drone work also has to respect SACAA Part 101 airspace rules, private-property consent, and the very real limits of coastal wind — which is what separates a considered aerial package from a Mavic Mini flown by the seller's nephew.
TimeSake Media flies a DJI Mavic 3 Cinema with the Hasselblad 4/3 CMOS sensor and Apple ProRes internal recording — the same body used on broadcast property inserts. Every flight is planned the night before against a live SACAA NOTAM check and the current CTR (controlled traffic region) status for the nearest airport. Flights are conducted under Part 101 conditions: daylight only, visual line of sight, below 400ft AGL, and clear of the 10km ring around Cape Town International, Lanseria, Rand Airport, Grand Central and Wonderboom.
Airspace and legality in South Africa
Commercial-for-hire flights in South Africa formally require a SACAA Remote Operator Certificate (ROC) plus an individual Remote Pilot Licence (RPL). Property media shoots for the property owner or their appointed marketing party operate under the Part 101 hobby-rules exemption when they meet every one of the following conditions: daylight, line of sight, below 400 feet, at least 50m from people not participating, at least 50m from private property outside the shoot boundary, and outside any 10km airport ring. Every flight is logged with GPS coordinates, launch time, battery serial and pilot ID. If a shoot needs a controlled-airspace flight, we book it through a partner operator who holds a current ROC — we do not fly grey and we do not lose an agent's licence for a drone plate.
Coastal and Winelands wind
Cape Town costs drone shoots more days than any other factor. The southeaster typically comes up at 10:00 or 11:00 in summer and pushes wind speed well above the Mavic 3's stable operating envelope by lunchtime. We book Bloubergstrand, Big Bay, Camps Bay, Clifton and Llandudno flights for the first two hours after sunrise, keep a second morning slot as a rain check, and never promise a same-day exterior. Winelands flights around Constantia, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch fare better in the afternoons when the mountain shelters the vineyard from the wind. Hout Bay is a specific coastal microclimate — the wind funnels through the valley and the drone gets grounded quickly.
Highveld thunderstorms and altitude
Johannesburg drone work has the opposite problem: it is calm in the morning and violent in the afternoon. Summer thunderstorms build from the west from about 14:00 and the outflow winds arrive 30 minutes before the rain. We finish all exterior aerials by 13:00 in December through March and shift longer flights to winter months where the Highveld light is cleaner and the storms are absent. Altitude is a real consideration too — the Mavic 3 loses about 15% of its rated flight time at 1700m above sea level, and we plan battery cycles around it so the pilot is never over a property with a red battery warning.
What the aerial plate shows
The core aerial package for a property is three plates: a top-down site plan at about 80m showing the stand size and boundary, a hero establishing shot at about 40m that includes the mountain or sea backdrop, and a low reveal at about 15m that carries the eye from the pool up to the front elevation. Estate homes add a wide plate that shows the security context — perimeter wall, guarded gate, greenbelt — which is a real driver for the family buyer market. Commercial and industrial mandates get a very different set: a top-down that reads the tenant mix, a corner elevation for the leasing brochure, and a parking plate for the yield story.
Data delivery and licensing
Every drone shoot ships eight to fifteen edited stills at 20 megapixels, a 30-second aerial reel where the brief calls for it, and the GPS-logged shot list so the flight is fully documented for the estate manager and the seller. The raw DNGs stay on our archive for two years. Licensing follows the same 24-month paid-media rule as our stills — the agent and the agency can use every plate in listing ads, brochures and social media without extra fees. Where the shoot is on a security estate that requires a written scan of the aerial imagery, we submit the final selection to the estate manager for sign-off before delivery.
Aerial campaign for a golf-front villa collection
BriefA residential estate collection needed a hero aerial reel and an image set that could carry across the estate's website, brochure, and paid social. The brief called for the golf course, clubhouse and hero home to all sit inside a single cinematic arc.
ApproachFlown with a DJI Mavic 3 Cinema over two consecutive mornings. The first pass was dawn-side for the low warm plate over the fairway; the second was a mid-morning circle to catch the clubhouse in even light. Every flight was pre-checked against the closest control zone with a hard 45m ceiling and daylight-only rules.
Outcome20-second cinematic reel plus a 12-image hero still set. The reel is the video header for the estate's landing page; the stills are the top-of-fold on the brochure PDF.
Sunset drone plates over a Camps Bay villa
BriefThe agent needed the signature Camps Bay frame — sunset over the Twelve Apostles with the villa lit inside — as a hero image for a R60m+ mandate.
ApproachOne 40-minute window before civil twilight. We waited for the interior lamps to click on and flew a low arc from the sea in toward the villa, catching the ridge silhouette in the mid-ground and the Atlantic in reflection.
OutcomeTwo hero stills and a 12-second cinematic clip. Both went onto the listing header the same night and to the agent's Instagram grid.