page_title: Hemispherical photography
hierarchical_section_title: Hemispherical photography
caption_attribution_description: English: Creative Commons attribution "photo by S.B. Weiss". Hemispherical photograph of winter roosting habitat at Monarch Biosphere Reserve, Mexico.
context_page_description: Hemispherical photography, also known as canopy photography, is a technique to estimate solar radiation and characterize plant canopy geometry using photographs taken looking upward through an extreme wide-angle lens or a fisheye lens. Typically, the viewing angle approaches or equals 180-degrees, such that all sky directions are simultaneously visible. The resulting photographs record the geometry of visible sky, or conversely the geometry of sky obstruction by plant canopies or other near-ground features. This geometry can be measured precisely and used to calculate solar radiation transmitted through plant canopies, as well as to estimate aspects of canopy structure such as leaf area index. Detailed treatments of field and analytical methodology have been provided by Paul Rich and Robert Pearcy.
context_section_description: Hemispherical photography, also known as canopy photography, is a technique to estimate solar radiation and characterize plant canopy geometry using photographs taken looking upward through an extreme wide-angle lens or a fisheye lens (Rich 1990).  Typically, the viewing angle approaches or equals 180-degrees, such that all sky directions are simultaneously visible.  The resulting photographs record the geometry of visible sky, or conversely the geometry of sky obstruction by plant canopies or other near-ground features.  This geometry can be measured precisely and used to calculate solar radiation transmitted through (or intercepted by) plant canopies, as well as to estimate aspects of canopy structure such as leaf area index.  Detailed treatments of field and analytical methodology have been provided by Paul Rich (1989, 1990) and Robert Pearcy (1989).
caption: Hemispherical photograph used to study microclimate of winter roosting habitat at the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, Mexico.
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