Today’s apps help photographers process a photo with quality and, above all, take it correctly. You no longer have to look for a long time for a photo, wait for the right lighting, or frantically calculate camera settings to take a great shot. Your smartphone will do it all.
Planning your shot
Finding the right spot to get the perfect shot is only half the battle, and you also need to prepare to get there at the best possible time.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris
A popular app that is an indispensable assistant for creating outdoor photo shoots. Landscape photographers most often use it. The Photographer’s Ephemeris shows the position of the celestial luminaries – the sun and the moon – at the right time.
With it, you can find out when sunset or sunrise begins, find the right time to take pictures on a moonless night or prepare for a full moon, and learn about upcoming weather changes and dusk times.
In the app, you can select any object on the map and find complete information about when it is best to photograph it. It’s important to remember that TPE doesn’t consider terrain.
Photopills
A great app for planning the positions of the sun and moon, the stars and the Milky Way, and calculating sunrise and sunset times. Its distinctive feature is augmented reality, and the smartphone camera lets you see all the information in real-time – it is superimposed on the actual landscape.
Dark Sky Finder
Because of the night lighting in populated areas, it isn’t easy to take a good photo of the night sky. This app helps you find unlit areas by showing the darkest places on the map.
Setting the Light
Professional photographers never part with equipment that allows them to measure light levels. But a smartphone will do the job if you don’t have one.
Pocket Light Meter
A handy app lets you set the exposure and measure light conditions using your mobile device’s camera. Here you can see how the picture will change as you adjust the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and other essential settings. Professors assure you that the Pocket Light Meter allows you to do without special equipment.
PlanIt! for Photographers
An application used to identify natural light sources. It allows you to calculate the level of optimum illumination for photography, depending on many factors: the landscape, the location of the object, and the device’s photography characteristics. The main screen is a map of the area where you can specify the location and subject of the photo, and it also displays data on the distance to the object and light parameters.
Controlling the camera and setting the shooting parameters
Smartphones can be an indispensable devices for setting up a professional camera.
HyperFocalPro
A handy calculator with a colorful interface allows you to calculate the depth of field and hyperfocal distance. The application will help you find out what diameter of the circle of scattering is used on the selected camera and set this parameter yourself.
NiSi Filters ND Calculator
An intuitive application for calculating exposure allows you to determine the shutter speed with a neutral filter or without it and the exposure time for shooting with the selected filter. The calculator performs necessary calculations for the photographer very quickly.
Using special applications frees the modern photographer from carrying large equipment and allows you to take great pictures on an ordinary walk or a trip.