Apps for Photography

Weather Underground

You are carrying a mini computer with you all the time, why not put it to use? Check out some of our favorite smartphone apps to get your photography going.

Weather Underground (Free)

Google Play

Apple App Store

I like weather undergrounds info and display and they let you set up smart forecasts that can quickly give you an idea of optimal times for various activities including astrophotography.

WU Storm

STORM by Weather Underground (Free)

Apple App Store

Along with weather underground, I use STORM for real-time radar that can be helpful to know exactly when that rain is going to stop at your location. I find watching the radar and the movement of the precip is more accurate in the short term than any forecasts.

NOAA Weather International

NOAA Weather International (Free, $2.99 Ad Free)

Google Play

Apple App Store

AND I sometimes want to know what the weather nerds are saying about the future and the NOAA app gives me a straightforward look at each day and provides an easy click to read the forecast discussion. You can also click to see the elevation of a location on the map. FREE or pay $2.99 to remove the adds.

Tide Charts Near Me

Tide Charts Near Me (Free, $1.99 Ad Free)

Google Play

Apple App Store

I live near the coast and we regularly run workshops on both coasts - knowing the tide is critical to knowing how much beach or rock will be exposed and if the tide is headed out giving you plenty of time to shoot or the tide is coming in when you need to be very careful about getting stranded, Tides- Charts near me is a simple representation of the tides near you - with automatic updating based on your location. FREE or $1.99 to remove the ads.

Photopills

PhotoPills ($9.99)

Google Play

Apple App Store

This is huge and I was pretty happy when they offered an Android app - First I love the widget - at a glance I know sunrise, sunset, moonrise and even the status of the galactic core for my location! Once you dive into the app your find tons of useful info from the planner to the AR that helps you line up for sunsets, sunrises and star trails. Additional calculators further help your planning- tons of useful info and well worth the $10 - you can find most of these items in other apps for free but I haven’t found any that bring them all together in one app.

Squarespace

Squarespace (Free)

Squarespace

The square space app makes it really easy to update your site with posts, photos and even video - The one way to get people to come back to your site again and again and that is to update the content and offer information behind the photos - Squarespace makes it incredibly easy to build a beautiful website and blog and the app makes it really easy to update on the go. Additional apps from Squarespace allow you to track your analytics, keep notes, update your store and more.

It’s fine to put your best work on Instagram but you should have a website where you control everything and display your work professional in a big beautiful way and Squarespace makes it easy to do that - with beautiful custom templates and 24/7 support along with easy custom domains- Get your own website today at

squarespace.com/photorectv

and save 10% off your purchase.

Snapseed

Snapseed (Free)

Google Play

Apple App Store

Still my favorite editor for quick edits of photos captured with the phone or transferred via wifi

Lightroom CC

Lightroom - Full version (Adobe Creative Cloud Required)

Google Play

Apple App Store

If you are smart about syncing Lightroom mobile can be powerful and recent upgrades have seriously improved the capabilities and stability of the app - almost making it my pick over Snapseed for editing... but go watch my Snapseed secrets it is just so quick and powerful once you know a few tricks. Sound good?

Click here to sign up for Adobe Creative Cloud.

Later.com

Later (Free)

Google Play

Apple App Store

I continue to love

Later

for an easy way to get images and captions to your phone - I hate writing captions and hashtags on my mobile device and recent updates to the paid plan give you the best times to post and suggest hashtags making new posts easy.

Sign up today and get started!

Miops

Miops ($30 Dongle or $125 Remote Required)

Google Play

Apple App Store

I talked about this on my recent Yosemite trip - with a small dongle you can trigger your camera in several different ways - really useful - I will be posting a separate video about this system soon.

Pick up the Dongle or Remote on Amazon

TrackR

TrackR (Free, TrackR Required)

Google Play

Apple App Store

This little Bluetooth tracker lets me ping my camera bag and set an alert if it moves outside of Bluetooth range - I have only started using this - certainly not a full proof way to protect your camera bag but at least gives me a little more piece of mind.

Buy a TrackR Today!

PhotoPills Available as Open Beta on Android Devices

Introduced in 2013, PhotoPills is the swiss army knife of photography tools, with programs and calculators to get all the information you need conveniently in a phone app. For us using Android we've been using The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE) due to the fact PhotoPills was designed for IOS only. While TPE is a good program, and fairly straightforward with a desktop version, PhotoPills has always had a bit of an edge on ease of use and the amount of available features. As a project starting last year they've finally ported PhotoPills to run on Android giving us non-iPhone users the chance to use this nice tool.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lr8-8duawgDesigned virtually the same as the popular IOS app the Android version of PhotoPills gives you the same location scouting with points of interest, timing the moon and sun, depth of field, hyperfocal distance calculator, and more. You even have the option of using augmented reality, with the device's camera, to see what your planning live. PhotoPills even has contests, you can upload your photos online for chances to win prizes.Photopills is $5 more in comparison to TPE but it's a bit easier to use with a few more available tools. That said it is in open beta, at least until the end of the month, so you may run into a few bugs at first. As they've said on their android development page "One year later, we're now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.". If you're an android user this will be a nice addition to your tools, great for learning, and gives you the ability to plan a lot of your photos in advance. 

Instagram Update - Albums Now Available

Instagram Albums, a small but important update is rolling out today giving users access to a simple album feature finally. You'll now have the option to upload up to 10 photos and videos under one post. When you see an album icon on a post it will look somewhat the same as before but you'll now be able to swipe left and right to view other photos and video.The update technically means fewer posts, which means less reach. Important photos you want out should still be separate posts on Instagram to get more eyes on them. If you have a metric ton of photos from a shoot or have a few that go in a set it's a new way to share them out without spamming your feed but we wouldn't suggest this for everyday use. You now have the option to think out of the box for other creative ideas such as before and after editing.Watch the video below for a demo, you simply select the bottom right album symbol in the photo selection. You then have the option to choose multiple photos or videos. The post will have one caption for all the items, unlike Facebook for example, and you're limited to square aspect ratio. For those that use filters, you will have the option to apply one to the whole set or apply different filters to specific photos.https://player.vimeo.com/video/204951185 

Google Photos - Now Free Unlimited Storage & Easy Share

Google Photos was announced today- a NEW, standalone version that is being separated from Google+. https://youtu.be/DctybsuXBlYAlong with the split come several changes -

• Free unlimited photo and video storage, as long as those photos are under 16MP and videos 1080p or smaller. You can store larger, they will just count toward your storage limits.
• New organization system- a blend of automatic google smarts helping you stay organized and find what you want quickly

• Easy share system - public, private and a mix along with sharing to popular apps like Twitter and WhatsApp.

The App will be available now for Android and iOS and your photos will be accessible via the web too.

Adobe Lightroom iPad App - Hands-on

Triggertrap - Use your smart phone to smartly trigger your camera

 The video is long and only covers a few of the functions of the Triggertrap app/system - that's how cool this app is (or how much I like to hear myself talk?)I have one more Triggertrap to give away (given away 4 so far) Like my Facebook page and stay tuned for the last giveaway.Also seen in this video -Hotshoe Tripod Mount: http://goo.gl/FqLFbSmartphone Tripod Adapter: http://goo.gl/pcNcfI love making or creating time lapse movies and although I don’t get to do it nearly as often as  I like I am always on the lookout for gadgets that help. I have talked about the little Neweer intervalometer before, it is only $13 bucks and does a great job of telling your camera to take a picture every X seconds, it can also allow you to control bulb mode on your camera which allows you to set your shutter speed to longer than 30 second exposures.   The Neweer Intervalometer does its job well but doesn’t offer much in the way of options beyond the standard picture every x seconds.We have another option that is lots smarter and it only costs a bit more but does require a smartphone or tablet.  For the last few weeks I have been testing and app from a company called Triggertrap. They make apps for android and iOS and a small dongle that you plug into the headphone jack of your smartphone or tablet.   The benefit of a setup like this over the standard intervalometer is the sky is really the limit – your smartphone is a powerful computer and using that as the brains of the intervalometer allows dozens of creative ways for you to control the shutter of your camera.Some of the functions of the Triggertrap app include

• Bulb Ramping Timelapse enables seamless sunrise/sunset timelapses,
• HDR timelapse lets you combine the power of HDR and timelapses,
• TimeWarp, a feature unique to Triggertrap, uses algorithms developed for animation to create more dynamic and natural-looking timelapses.
• Sensor Controls: Leverages the smart device’s on-board sensors to release the shutter; Sound Sensor Mode uses the microphone to trigger at a set audio level, Seismic Mode fires based on vibrations, bumps or knocks, and Metal & Magnetism Sensor Mode can be used to fire the shutter in their presence
• Facial recognition: Takes a photo once Triggertrap detects the programmed number of faces in the frame
• Multiple HDR Capture Modes: Provides expanded control over bracketed exposures for Long Exposure HDR, or automates Long Exposure HDR Timelapse capture
• DistanceLapse: Unique to Triggertrap, this mode relies on the smart device’s on-board GPS chip to fire the shutter over pre-determined distances
• Motion detection mode: Triggers camera whenever motion is detected in the
• Star trail mode: Allows external cameras to automatically take a series of long exposures in sequence to reduce noise
• Wireless mode: Unique to Triggertrap, this new Wi-Fi triggering technology enables photographers to leverage the range and speed of a Wi-fi network to control the dynamic features of the Triggertrap Mobile app wirelessly

The Sensor controls are missing from the Android app, the devs tell me that they will be added soon, the Android app is also a bit laggy on my rezound, I also tested on the nexus and it was much smoother but still missing the sensor controls found on the iOS version.There are actually three parts to the set up – Your smartphone running the triggertrap app, the dongle and the camera specific cable.  Make sure you get the new v2 dongle (red wire) I bought the original dongle, with a black wire and although it works fine with my iPad refused to do anything when plugged into my android phone – I contacted support and Lucy was awesome, she walked me through a series of tests and even though it seemed it was more of my phone as the problem she sent me the newer red wire dongle free of charge, it arrived just a few days later and works perfectly.  I love working with people that take an extra step to make things right.My phone and my camera go everywhere with me and now I just throw these two little cables in my bag and I have a very smart and versatile trigger system for my camera.   I have added a little hot shoe tripod adapter that I use for some of my microphones and a generic cell phone tripod holder and now I can easily use the facial feature to snap photos.What am I most excited about –The wireless control is pretty niftyOn Black Friday 2011 I picked up a suction cup mount and have tried a few drivelapses (timelapse while driving) Now I can use the GPS to trigger over distance instead of time, this should give a different look and feel more true to the trip)Bulb Ramping Timelapse – Sunset and sunrise is very difficult to capture - you either lose light quickly or you use P mode and the light remains constant through the sunset totally ruining the idea of capturing a lovely sunset.  Did you know that as the sun sets you lose about a stop of light every 10 minutes.  Using the Bramping mode (for bulb ramping) you can pre-adjust for the light lost and really extend the length of time your timelapse will run while actually capturing the decreasing light.