Whole sky camera

Another application is that of hemispherical photography to study plant canopy geometry and to calculate near-ground solar radiation.

Whole sky cameras typically use a fisheye lens that takes in an extremely wide, hemispherical image.

[2] One of the first reported whole sky cameras was based on a series of pictures with lenses inclined to the horizon at an altitude of 45 degrees.

Whole sky cameras may be equipped with a sun tracking device to block sunlight which is too bright for the typical dynamic range of photographs.

There are techniques such as HDR which permit the taking of high dynamic range photographs without a sun tracker.