With mobile phones getting more and more powerful these days, they’re starting to become some pretty useful tools. They’re not just phones anymore. Many of them allow you to install different “apps” that can significantly help you take photos while you’re out on the trail.
For example, here’s a list of some great apps available for the iPhone:
#1 – Photographer’s Ephemeris
I’ve discussed this app before (it also has a free desktop version): it’s the ultimate iPhone app for landscape photographers. It’ll tell you sunrise and sunset times, moon times, azimuth and elevation of the sun/moon at a specific time (useful for planning landscape shots), and tons more stuff.
The app easily lets you switch between dates, so you can see what time of the year the sun will set where you want it to, and all of this is projected on top of a Google map, making it super easy to visualize where things are going to be. Learn more.
#2 – Magic Hour
This app gives you similar information as The Photographer’s Ephemeris: sunrise/sunset times, moon times, azimuth of the setting sun/moon, current phase of the moon, when the moon will be full, and a few more little details that are useful for landscape photographers.
So, why use this app AND Photographer’s Ephemeris? Well, Magic Hour has all this information organized in a more compact manner, so it’s easy to open this app and quickly see where the sun will set today and at what time. With Photographer’s Ephemeris, sometimes you need to switch between screens to find all this information. Both apps are great when used together. Learn more.
#3 – Theodolite Free
This is a free app that takes advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer and tells you the elevation angle of where the iPhone is pointing. Now you no longer have to guess where a specific elevation angle is, you can see exactly by just moving your iPhone above the horizon and watching the elevation angle change in real time. An extremely useful app for seeing EXACTLY where the sun/moon will be at a certain time. Learn more.
Special thanks to Stephen Trainor, creator of Photographer’s Ephemeris, for telling me about this great app!
#4 – The Weather
There are tons of weather apps for the iPhone, and I’ve tried a lot of them, but this one is my current favorite because it simply shows what I’m most interested in: cloud cover. It obtains radar data from Weather Underground and displays that data on top of a Google Map. The app also displays current and forecasted temperatures, wind speed/direction, visibility, and humidity. Learn more.
#5 – PhotoBuddy
This app provides a ton of little calculators useful for photographers. It’ll let you calculate the precise values for depth of field (e.g. near and far focus distances depending on aperture and focal length), diffraction limits, angle of view for a specific focal length and sensor size, and tons more! Learn more.
What did I miss?
If you’ve found another useful iPhone app that helps you with your nature photos, please let us know about it by leaving a comment below!
Also, if you’re familiar with great apps for another smartphone (like the Android) and would like to write an article about some great apps for your phone, please contact me. Thanks!
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About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the beautiful mountains and deserts of Southern California.
Excellent list of apps, Steve. I’ll check out “Magic Hour” and “Theodolite Free” tonight. Thanks for the suggestions. Here are a few more that I use on a regular basis, some of which may not be specific to photography but I’ve found them helpful in my photo travels:
1) The Weather Channel Max – Really like the future animation map which helps figure out which way the clouds are moving over the next few hours.
2) DSLR Toolkit for Dummies – Most of this app is concerned w/ basic information about digital photography and not useful to me. However, the “Shoot Diary” is awesome. I use it when scouting new locations. You can use the iPhone camera to take a pic, save it to the “Shoot Diary”, jot down some notes about it as well as the GPS coordinates/location and keep a running list of locations to photograph at some point in the future. Nice!
3) Park Maps – If you spend as much time in the national parks as I do, you’ll find this one very helpful. Every national park map, in your pocket. Just awesome.
4) Sunrise, Sunset – Another sunrise/sunset time and azimuth calculator. Super simple and accurate.
5) iFotoGuide – Caveat: I created this app so of course I think it’s awesome. Seriously though, it’s a complete guide to photographing various national parks. Currently available: Arches, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon with more on the way. http://www.ifotoguide.com
Interesting list, but I don’t have an iPhone to take advantage of any of them. However, I suspect several of them will available for Windows Phone 7; if not I may write a few myself.
Nice I’ve never seen those apps before. Photographer’s Ephemeris & PhotoBuddy sound interesting. I’ll have to check those out. Thanks for sharing.
1- Photocaddy – it has little hints and tips for everything from nature photography, cityscape photography, to portrait photography.
2- SkyGazer – This is a great star map for those interested in astrophotography
3- MoonPhase – This is a very quick and easy app to see sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times along with the phase of the moon on any given date
4- Gowalla – This is a gps based app that has allowed me to find nearby sites that I might not have known about and lets me go explore
5- AccuTerra – When in the back country taking photographs it’s nice to have a cached set of maps that uses GPS for when you don’t have internet connectin.
6- iBooks – while not a true photography app, I have a bunch of pdf’s stored in this album that are all related to photography for when I need to find a quick article or reference
7- Anything that’s already been posted by other commentators
My favorite weather apps are actually webpages viewed with Safari. The second in particular is a iPhone/iPod specific webapp.
1) National Weather Service – Good weather forecasts from the source.
2) iWeather – Nice animated radar maps.
3) AeroWeather – Current weather conditions and forecasts as reported from airport weather stations.
4) iCSC – The Clear Sky Chart predicts astronomical seeing conditions.
5) Expositor – A Sunny 16 calculator. Determine exposure settings by matching ISO to scene conditions. Currently I only see Expositor Lite in the App Store.
6) DOFMaster – Enter camera, focal length, and focus distance to calculate depth of field. Has presets for various film and digital cameras, or you can enter your chosen CoC.
7) BigStopWatch – A beautiful stopwatch for timing long manual exposures or other events you want to time.
Thanks. I’ll have to check a few of these out, particularly the ones suggested by Tyler. I constantly use The Photographer’s Ephemeris and always, always wish it could somehow be tied to a tide chart. Living along the coast (especially here in Maine where the tides are enormous), the tide stage is incredibly important for any seascape photos. If TPE had tide charts, it would be just about everything I need to quickly plan a shoot.
Rich: Mr. Tides has an Iphone version for that purpose
http://itunes.apple.com/app/ayetides/id287316432?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/sunspot/id914312702?mt=8
We just released an update to Sunspot – a sunrise, sunset countdown and sun position (compass). Available on iPhone and Apple Watch. Its easy to use and has a simple, clean user interface. Less features but a fraction of the price of similar apps available. Would love to know what you guys think and suggestions on what feature you might want added to it.
cheers!
Rhydian