Drone filming
on Sylt

On parts of the island yes, on large parts no. Taking off and flying over the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park and over the island's nature reserves is prohibited in principle, regardless of the drone's weight. Over towns and villages, business parks, hotel grounds and private property, flying is permitted if a remote pilot certificate, operator registration, insurance, the landowner's permission and, depending on the location, an official exemption are in place. We check every location before the shoot and attach the documents to our quote.

Yes, that is actually our most common job: one appointment, aerial shots only, video and photos, fully edited. You do not need a script, an interview or a ground camera. If you also want shots on the ground, we take them during the same appointment, but it is not necessary. And if a bigger film is to follow later, the aerial footage will fit in, because we work in the same look.

The binding information comes from the German digital platform for unmanned aviation (Digitale Plattform Unbemannte Luftfahrt) at dipul.de. It shows the geographical UAS zones on a map: nature conservation areas, the national park, airport control zones, federal waterways and other restricted areas. For Sylt you can see straight away that the Wadden Sea, the protected dune areas and the area around Westerland airport are subject to special rules. The map does not replace a permit, it only shows where you need one.

A general permit (Allgemeingenehmigung) is a permission from the aviation authority that is valid over a longer period for recurring standard cases, for example commercial operation in certain scenarios. An individual permit (Einzelgenehmigung) is issued for a specific place, a specific period and a specific purpose; it is subject to a fee and needs lead time. For the nature reserve and the national park on Sylt, an individual permit from the responsible nature conservation authority is always required before a drone may take off at all. In practice, several documents are layered on top of each other for one shoot day, and this is exactly the bundle we organise.

As the client you need nothing at all, that is entirely our responsibility. Anyone who flies needs to be registered as an operator with the Federal Aviation Office (Luftfahrt-Bundesamt) with the e-ID displayed on the drone, the EU proof of competency A1 and A3 obtained through an online test, and for flights closer to uninvolved people the EU remote pilot certificate A2, which requires an exam in person or online at a recognised body. On top of that comes liability insurance that explicitly covers commercial operation. For filming in the national park or in nature reserves a licence alone is never enough; there the nature conservation authority decides.

A compact drone session on Sylt with a fully edited short film usually costs somewhere between the mid hundreds and the low thousands of euros; a full shoot day with ground and aerial footage costs more. On Sylt there are no travel or accommodation costs because we live here, which is why the entry price is low. Permit fees charged by the authorities are passed on at cost and listed separately. You will not get a standard price tag, but a written quote within 48 hours of our first conversation, with every item listed individually.

For areas without protected status usually within a few days, because we are based on the island and do not have to plan any travel. As soon as an official exemption is needed, allow two to six weeks for processing. Weather is the second factor, so we set a backup window rather than forcing a date. We can often still fit in requests at short notice for building handovers or property viewings.

Yes, from the same flight as the video. For property brochures, estate agent portals and websites we deliver high resolution stills from five to twenty metres up, plus the classic overview showing location, plot boundary and surroundings. Height matters: a thatched house in Keitum looks good from twelve metres, from eighty metres it disappears. On request we add plot boundaries and labels to the image.

Video in 4K, on request in higher resolution for reframing, colour corrected and in the same look as our ground footage. Photos as high resolution JPG files, on request also as RAW. We shoot so that one flight can be cut into 16:9 for websites and television, 9:16 for Reels and Stories, and 1:1 and 4:5 for the feed. We fly current professional camera drones, for example the DJI Mavic 4 Pro.

On Sylt that is not an exception but part of the planning. With every booking we set a backup window and decide on the morning of the shoot based on the forecast. If the flight is called off, we move it into this window without charging for a second appointment. This is stated in the quote, so nobody is left stranded by a cancellation.

Flying over crowds of uninvolved people is prohibited, on the beach just as in the pedestrian zone. Flying over individual uninvolved people is only allowed within narrow limits and depends on the drone class and the remote pilot certificate. In practice we work with cordoned off launch sites, shoot at quiet times of day and plan flight paths over water or open ground. Where that is not possible, we replace the aerial shot with a high camera position on the ground.

In the national park and in nature reserves, yes. The 250 gram weight limit relates to the rules of the open category; it does not override the protected status of an area. Anyone launching a small drone over the Wadden Sea risks the same fine as with a large one. The nature conservation authorities justify this with the disturbance of breeding, resting and moulting areas as well as seal resting sites.

You receive comprehensive usage rights to the finished films and photos for the agreed channels, set out in writing in the quote. Raw footage and project files stay archived with us. The practical advantage: if you later need another version, a reframe or an extra still, we go to the archive instead of flying again. For Sylt we also have our own archive of aerial footage that can be licensed.