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PhotoPills – New App For Planning Landscape Images

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PhotoPills - ScreenshotOne of the great things about being a nature photographer in the digital age is that we have all these wonderful apps to help us plan our shots. And, now with the smartphone we can bring many of these apps along with us in the wilderness.

I’ve already talked about a few of these great apps, such as The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) and Stellarium. But, I just discovered another one that can be extremely useful in planning landscape images: PhotoPills.

PhotoPills actually does a ton of stuff, but there’s one thing it does better than any other app I’ve seen: it can tell you exactly WHEN the sun/moon will rise over a distant mountain (or lake, tree, etc) as viewed from a specific location. [Read more…] about PhotoPills – New App For Planning Landscape Images

How GPS Can Help Your Photography

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GPS DeviceI just recently started hiking with a handheld GPS device to log my hikes and so I could have elevation data wherever I go. But, I’ve also started using it as a tool for photography. Here are a few ways it’s helped me:

#1 – Keep track of good spots for landscape images

This probably happens to you a lot: you’ll be hiking on a trail and come to this amazing vista or perfect rock formation and you realize it would make a great landscape image if the weather or lighting conditions were just a tad bit different. Maybe you just want some of that nice sunset light shining on a mountain peak, or maybe you want a nice puffy cloud to hover over a particular rock.

Well, a GPS device can help you keep track of these spots, simply by adding waypoints. Then, once you get home later, you can write some notes about that particular spot (e.g. “come back in April when there’s more flowers in bloom” or “come back at sunset in winter, when the sun will be at the right angle to shine on this mountain peak”). [Read more…] about How GPS Can Help Your Photography

5 Great iPhone Apps for Nature Photographers

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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

The Photographer's EphemerisI’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. [Read more…] about 5 Great iPhone Apps for Nature Photographers

Photographer’s Ephemeris now available for iPhone!

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The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE)I’ve written about The Photographer’s Ephemeris before: it’s a free desktop application that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

It’s a tool that helps show you the exact position of the sun and moon on a particular time of day, overlaying their azimuths on top of a Google Map.

It’s hard to explain the entire program in one sentence because it does so much. But, it’s a tremendous tool for landscape photographers, because it can help you scout out areas and determine ahead of time if the sun will shine on a particular mountain peak at sunset.

Well, this great tool is now available for the iPhone too! Here’s a list of the app’s great features: [Read more…] about Photographer’s Ephemeris now available for iPhone!

Sometimes the view is better from above

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
Ansel Adams shot a lot of his landscape photos from a platform he built on top of his car. Can you guess why he did this?

He did it to add more depth to his landscapes and create a better overlook of the foreground.

We’re so accustomed to viewing a landscape at eye level, that sometimes when you raise that point of view just a little bit, you’ll get a new perspective and a new emotion. [Read more…] about Sometimes the view is better from above