Numerous aerial pictures from the picture archive reach back to the beginnings of aerial photography. Ernst Wandersleb, the balloonist and Carl-Zeiss physicist (1879–1963) photographed large parts of Germany from the air between 1905 and 1913. The pictures show structures of settlements and natural landscapes, cloud formations and events centred around balloon travel. Also forming part of the collection are aerial pictures by the Augsburg-based balloon-maker and aerial pioneer August Riedinger (1845–1919), which are similarly of much interest for historians of photography, aviation and geography.

All photographs of the Wandersleb and Riedinger collections can be researched online. The collection of aerial pictures have appeared in two pictorial volumes, produced by Lehmstedt Verlag (publishers): "Mitteldeutschland in frühen Luftbildern" (Central Germany in Early Aerial Pictures) and  "Ritter der Lüfte" (Knights of the Air).

One of the most extensive collections of pictures from the African colonies of the Kaiser’s German Empire comes from the Colonial-Geographic Institute of the University of Leipzig. Most of the ca. 5,000 photos originate from expeditions undertaken by the colonial geographers and researchers of Africa, at the start of the 20th century in the then German colonies of Togo, Cameroon, German East Africa (now Tanzania) and German South-West Africa (now Namibia). These are supplemented by photos from research trips into the colonial areas of the British, French and Belgian overseas empires.

The attractions of the photo collection include the stock of pictures from South America. The oldest of the ca. 10,000 photographs date back to around 1868; known as the "Alphons Stübel Collection", it formed the core element of the archive for travelling researchers after it was founded in 1902. The geologists Alphons Stübel (1835–1904) and  Wilhelm Reiss (1838–1908) had undertaken extensive studies on several research trips in the Andes region. The collections from  Hans Meyer (1858–1929),  Rudolf Hauthal (1854–1928),  Hans Steffen (1865–1936) and Carl Troll (1899–1975) supplement the stock of historical pictures from South America.