For anyone who shoots outdoor portraits or landscapes the sunset/sunrise and angle of the sun is always something you are looking up. I shoot a lot of outdoor portraits and always find myself going online to find the sunset time. Normally I get the sunset time based on city which always isn’t totally accurate. It also doesn’t take into account if there is a mountain nearby that will block the sun at its lowest angle so if I am not familiar with the location I always have to have a buffer when scheduling shoots.
Now there is a really great app for the iPad called LightTrac for iPad. This handy app will allow you to pull up any location and shows either a map view or satelite view from google maps. There are 3 lines on the map to show you the angle of the sun at sunrise, sunset and the displayed time. The displayed time by default will be the current time but with a slider at the bottom of the screen you can change that to any time and get a preview of what angle the sun will be coming in at any time of the day!
I shoot a lot at a few different local places and saved these location to the app. Now with one tap I can access my favorite locations and see what the current sun angle is.
If you turn the iPad into a portrait view it will also give you some additional information like;
The app ran perfectly I had no issues with it and had only one small request that would make it perfect. I rate things pretty hard but give this app a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars. It does everything it is set out to do and has a simple and clean interface. My only suggestion would be when you move the app around by dragging to a new location for you to have the ability to drop a pin at that location and save that. Other than that it has everything I need and I will be using this app a lot in planning out my shoots.
You can download this app from the app store here
Here is the description from the developer:
LightTrac is a must have tool for any outdoor photographer interested in knowing the best times to shoot their subjects outdoors. Whether you are a landscape photographer or wedding photographer or a nature photographer, use this to find out Sun’s elevation and direction over any outdoor subject at any time of day. Use it to scout for new locations ahead of time. Use this tool to be there at the right spot at the right time. Sun’s azimuth and elevation changes throughout the year depending on which hemisphere you are located, so this is useful even if you think you know your spots well.
This app also displays the different phases of the moon in the month and also the current phase of the moon. Sun, moon event times and position data are all calculated by the app and they are found to be very closer to the chart published by US navy (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php
This post was sponsored by AppEzzy – iPad and iPhone apps for photographers
LightTrac for iPad has disappeared from iTunes App Store. Anybody know why?
I checked and can’t figure out why but it does look like the all apps from this developer are gone and their website and twitter account have been taken down also. Really to bad it was a great app and the developer was a guy from the bay area here that I had tweeted back and forth a few times. Seemed like a good guy who was really trying to create some cool stuff for the iPhone and iPad. Who knows what happened but I wish him the best.
Some new data, Lighttrac has been purchased by another company and the new version is being updated and available soon. Web site http://www.lighttracapp.com. There is another similar ap available for Windows, Mac and Iphone and soon to be available for the Ipad – TPE written by a photographer. Looks good. Check it out at http://www.photoephemeris.com and http://www.stephentrainor.com/tools.
FYI – LightTrac is back on appstore again..