biologe

Blog and online journal with editorial content about science, art and nature.

Tag: fields

Januar 18, 2020

Aerial photography

It’s a new approach to photography for a photohrapher, when using a drone. Before starting for the flight, the photographer should at least have an idea about the possible perspectives, from which his copter shall capture the photos. This requires the ability of a three dimensional imagination. Unlike in the regular photography, the drone pilot does not see the scenery with his own eyes. Only a stepwise experience allows him to guess, how a forest and meadow landscape might look in a bird perspective at a level of 50 or even 100 m.

But despite of all three dimensional imagination abilities and experiences, much photography or videography is based on spontaneous shooting reactions, based on the transmitted live picture.

Edited landscape Drone photography, Berlin 2020, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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If full automatic camera modi shall be avoided, manual presettings can already be made before starting the flight according to the general light conditions, finer adjustments can then follow in each specific case, when the drone is in the air.

An aerial photographer needs to resist to the danger of perceiving the environment in top-down view after some time with the drone camera only. The German laws define that a drone is only allowed to be flown in a distance of a direct visual contact. One reason is that one otherwise losses the feeling for a safe controllable space limit.

Before drones as flying cameras became commercially available for everybody, aerial photos or videos needed to be captured under more risky and also more costly conditions. Smaller planes, manned helicopters or cameras on balloons needed to take over the same function.

Being able to fly like a bird under remote control conditions is freedom for the spirit and at the same time freedom for an incredible creative flexibility.

Landscape

All aspects of our world deserve being considered as drone photography motifs (respecting laws of course) . Whether a settling, a city, a street construction, people, architecture or nature sceneries, the drone technology enables new options and aesthetic experiences. I made experiences in different photo object types (the respectation of laws has always a priority). But for my own projects I prefer landscape, weather, season and art photography.

Drone photography mostly in Northern Berlin and adjacent regions in Brandenburg, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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Flying in more or less remote areas with natural landscapes reduces the probability that a drone accident might harm people or architecture. But it is of course additionally important to bring no animals or plants in danger.

Landscape photos are the more interesting the more complex their composition is. But a forest with adjacent meadows is per se no guarantor for an impressive photographic piece of art.

Drone photography mostly in Northern Berlin and adjacent regions in Brandenburg, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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Only the contrasts of colors, shapes and different landscape elements can under optimal conditions create complexity and a fulfilling picture composition. More or less sharp edges between for example forest areas and adjacent meadows might built up an impressive and even seemingly abstract pattern, making the shot to a fascinating piece of art.

Drone photography mostly in Northern Berlin and adjacent regions in Brandenburg, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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Season

City structures, such as architecture, streets or walkways, seem not to underlay bigger seasonal changes (in times withoug snow or rain) . Is that true? It of course is not, the seasonal different light conditions always cause different photographic or videovraphic looks of the same location. The lack of intense green or colorful vegetation spots in between creates additionally sceneries with very different moods.

Of course the effect of different seasons is especially distinct in the nature photography. Even in case that black and white photos would be preferred, leafless trees of a winter forest usually look remarkably more interesting than an amorphic mass of grey leaves. In the colored drone photography, nobody would doubt that the diversity of autumn colors allows a much more impressive composition of structures, shapes and lights.

But also in summer or spring, when only slightly differing green nuances dominate the sceneries, eye catching drone photography can be performed.

Drone photography mostly in Northern Berlin and adjacent regions in Brandenburg, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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In case the greenish landscape sculpture itself does not allow a photographic highlight, then a dynamic sky can prevent the whole photo from getting lost in a boring piece of sadness.

One needs to keep in mind that a positioning of the drone camera with being for a longer time straightly directed into the sun might harm the camera sensor. Against the light photography can look stirring, but it’s often of advantage to avoid the sun body itself completely. Against the light photos usually lead to dark landscape elements in the foreground, almost consisting of silhouettes only. To receive more details on the photo it is recommended to record a higher amount of information. Raw files can be the best choice in this context, as they allow to develop details during editing, which were not visible before.

Drone photography mostly in Northern Berlin and adjacent regions in Brandenburg, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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Editing

To become able for an improving editing of a photo, a minimum resolution of details should be available. A resolution of 20 megapixles or more offers enough buffer for art filters or manual changes of light, color, contrast etc. The Mavic 2 Zoom for example unlike its sibling brother Mavic 2 pro with a high quality 20 megapixles camera, offers different panorama modes. One of them is created as composition of several 12 megapixle photos, which the camera automatically puts together to a 45 megapixle piece. In case drone cameras allow a raw mode and additionally a high resolution, both of these options should be chosen.

Drone photography mostly in Northern Berlin and adjacent regions in Brandenburg, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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Editing can have different functions combined with different intentions of the photographer. An almost perfect photo sometimes needs being only slightly digitally improved. Alternatively the entire photo might need to be stronger modified for aestethic and creative reasons to create the planned piece of art. The creativity of the photographer and editor at this has no limits, but it should be tried to avoid the ‚killing‘ of too much picture information.

Not every editing tool has a modern high quality level. Lightroom, Photoshop, pixlr and similar software of other developers must be recommended.

Drone pilot and service offering

I have more than three years of experience in the fields of drone photography and drone videography. I herewith offer my videographic dronepilot service for documentary projects, smaller movie projects, such as film – students- projects, image movie purposes or the videographic documentation of important private events, such as marriages.

I additionally offer my drone photography abilities for all kinds of fields and purposes. Preferably in and around Berlin. Please contact me via Instagram or Facebook ‚Stefan F. Wirth‘. I fly a Mavic 2 Zoom. Flying license (Kenntnisnachweis) and insurance for commercial Drone flights existant.

Ich biete mich als freiberuflicher Dienstleister der Drohnen- Videographie und Drohnen-Fotografie in allen Bereichen wie Dokumentarfilmproduktionen, kleineren Spielfilmproduktionen, zum Beispiel Studenten-Filmprjekten, Image-Filmen und Ähnlichem an. Kontaktaufnahme bitte via Facebook oder Instagram unter ‚Stefan F. Wirth‘. Ich fliege eine Mavic 2 Zoom. Kenntnisnachweis und Haftpflichtversicherung zur kommerziellen Nutzung vorhanden.

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Some photo examples in higher resolution. Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

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Berlin January 2020, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

November 14, 2019

Drone flights: Worth seeing nature around the fields of Berlin

The metropolis Berlin is the capital of Germany and much more than that. It represents an unusual green city. When using elevated viewpoints to watch the cityshape, then at least in summer visitors of Berlin can receive the impression of being in the midst of a greening huge landscapes with several villages in between.

 

Green areas in Berlin

 

 

Indeed related to other metropolitan cities of the world, Berlin is still partly not very densely populated and covered by remarkable huge natural countryside instead. The area of landing and runway strips of the former airport Tempelhof for example up to date represents the largest coherent green area inside a city worldwide. The so called Tempelhofer Feld was after the termination of the air traffic exposed to renaturation and is currently a very popular recreational park. It’s located in the South of the city.

Also the West and South-West partly represent nature reserve areas and are covered by the big urban forest Grunewald.

 

Meadows and wetlands in the North of Berlin as nature refuges

 

I am since two years discovering the Northern parts of Berlin, which according to my random observations (in comparison with other Berlin areas, such as Tempehofer Feld, Teufelsberg (Grunewald) and some urban parks in the center of the city; examples of species will be visible on my corresponding blog article) bears the greatest biodiversity in bloom visiting insects.

 

 

 

Mosaic of different landscape types close to each other

 

 

 

 

 

This is seemingly due to the complexity of different meadow-, field-, wetland- and bog-habitats, being originally shaped by the Weichselian-glaciers. I regularly visited the stream valley of the so called Tegeler Fließ with the lake Köppchensee. It’s a hilly area with different gradients of sunny slopes with partly Mediterranean climatic conditions, surrounded by different kinds of wetlands. This area is well known for its great biodiversity.

 

Between the villages Rosenthal, Lübars and Blankenfelde

 

But my drone flights present vast tracts in the South of that stream valley, consisting of fields, green meadows and wetlands. It is the area between the Berlin villages Rosenthal, Lübars and Blankenfelde. Inner urban agriculture is rare in metropolian cities worldwide, in Berlin there is only a small agriculture area in the South (Dahlem Dorf) and the fields between the named villages in the North.

 

Drone flights and bloom visiting insects

 

 

Fields and meadows with adjacent forests and wetlands in the North of Berlin, September 2019, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth. Please give my video also your like on Youtube.

 

Most part of the footage in my film represents the fields adjacent to the village Rosenthal. I newly discovered the partly quite tiny meadows between and adjacent to agricultural fields around Rosenthal this summer and discovered an impressive and steadily visible diversity of bloom visiting insects there. Fields as monoculture habitats usually bear a smaller biodiversity related to wild-growing nature zones. But due to the connection of the edges of fields with complex nature refuge zones around, I could observe a quite great number of species on closely adjacent meadows and even the natural border zones of these agricultural areas.

 

Videographic details

 

The footage was captured in 4K and D-cinelike quality using a Mavic 2 Zoom drone between September and October 2019.

 

 

Berlin, September/ October 2019, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

 

Ein Kommentar
Juni 20, 2019

Countryside of Berlin: urban green in a drone view (4K)

Many tourists from overseas use to visit European cities in a much too short time. For this reason they often miss an entire picture of for example the city Berlin, when inserting an only short interstop here. Especially winter tourists can experience the German capital as a sad a grey urban being with some architectural major sites and a remarkable party life only.

 

Climate and landscape types in Berlin

 

Berlin has a continental climate and shows a completely other face in summer. It’s a very green face. Not only is the center of the city then colorfully greened by numerous urban parks, which partly lay almost adjacent to each other, but also the outskirts, in major parts covered by forests and grasslands or fields, appear like green oases.

 

 

Countryside of Berlin as aerial videography, Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, Berlin June 2019. Please give my video on youtube a like, in case you like it.

 

 

Lübarser Felder and surrounding

 

Lübarser Felder is an area of agriculture, being under the management of inhabitants of the adjacent village Lübars, which represents the only Berlin village that still practices agriculture. The village has a long history and still has architectural monuments, dating back to the 19th century. Lübarser Felder lay adjacent to a nature refuge area more in the north, consisting of different kinds of wetlands, such as bog meadows or lowland fens. Lake Köppcensee as part of that nature refuge area is visible from a bigger distance in one scene of my video.

 

Püttberge and surrounding

 

The sanddune-mounts Püttberge are located in the east of Berlin and belong to the nature refuge area Wilhelmshagen-Woltersdorfer Dünenzug. The area consists of sandy mounts, some of them reaching a height of up to 68 meters. They are part of the glacial valley of Berlin, which dates back to the Weichselian glaciation, which happend between 115,000 and 11,700 years ago and covered almost the whole Northern Europe. The dune elevations of Püttberge were formed due to windblown sand inside the glacial valley. My footage shows the Wilhelmshagen-Woltersdorfer Dünenzug in a greater distance seen from the edge of the whole area. Ecologically the Püttberge are characterized by numerous plants and animals, being typical for sanddune environments.

 

Lieper Bucht at river Havel

 

Lieper Bucht is a bathing beach area at river Havel, belonging to the Berlin city district Nikolassee in the South-West of Berlin. The adjacent forest area is the huge urban forest Grunewald. The riverside of Havel in Berlin is geologically charactrized as sandy with a tendency to the formation of dunes, being like Püttberge a relict of the Weichselian glaciation. Flora and fauna are correspondingly composed. Pine trees for example are typical representatives. The nearby Havel islands Lindwerder and Schwanenwerder are visibe in my footage.

 

Berlin, June 2019

Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

7 Kommentare
März 16, 2019

Agriculture, natural countryside and stream pasture landscape north of Berlin

Berlin as a green city

 

 

Berlin is an unusually green metropolis. Besides numerous urban park landscapes and the huge forest area Grunewald, there is a unique countryside north of Berlin, including the area of the old village Lübars, being surrounded by numerous fields (Lübarser Felder) and a stream pasture landscape, named Tegeler Fließ, with bog meadows.

 

 

Nature sites Lübarser Felder, Arkenberge, Schönerlinder Teiche in 4K, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth. Please also like my video on Youtube.

 

Mounts Arkenberge and pondlandscape Schönerlinder Teiche

 

In the northeast, around the urban village Blankenfelde, the currently highest elevation of Berlin can be found, the Arkenberge. Originally, they represented a chain of smaller mounts as natural remnants of the Weichselian glacier. One of these mounts is especially conspicuous and is acually prepared to become accessible for people and forms with a height of 122 m over NHN the highest mountain of Berlin. It represents despite of its natural origin a rubble landfill site, which was formed beginning in 1984.
Adjacent to the Arkenberge, several wetland areas attract nature enthusiasts for hiking tours: the pond landscape „Schönerlinder Teiche“ (Brandenburg) and the lake Kiessee Arkenberge.

 

Lowland area of the stream Tegeler Fließ as remnants of the Weichselian glacier and adjacent calcareous tufa area

 

The stream Tegeler Fließ is a wetland nature site with a high biodiversity of plants and animals. It is surrounded by different types of bog meadows. The Tegeler Fließ lowland is also a result of the last glacier period.

The stream lowland is additionally adjacent to a calcareous tufa area, which is well visible from top of the Arkenberge. Calcareous springs and calcareous tufas created here calcareous rush- marshes with an interesting biodiversity of for example species of mosses and snails.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuZUYu3FVJK/

Video footage

 

The footage was captured from localities around the village Lübars in the area of Lübarser Felder and additionally around Arkenberge. Some above mentioned nature sites are only visible in a distance.

 

Berlin, March 2019, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth.

 

2 Kommentare