Mobile Phone Apps
This page lists Mobile Applications that Alvin and others have found useful when out and about doing Photography. All are available on iOS, but only some are available on Android. A short description is provided for each and Alvin has also made a few comments based on his experience. If you know of an application that other members might be interested in, please email Alvin on club.tech.tdcc@gmail.com. Some apps are free, some require payment and some are subscription; the prices and terms can change so do your own checks.
Weather Apps
| App | Android? | Summary | Alvin's comments |
|---|
| Rain Today | No | Tells you whether to expect rain the next hour. | Very accurate unless you are on the edge of a rain cloud so check the HD Radar facility to see what the clouds are doing. |
| Yr.no | Yes | Detailed weather forecasting App | Very good for outside the UK; for inside, use the Met Office app |
| Aurora | Yes | Tells you the chances of seeing the Northern Lights where you are. | Runs in the background and when you’ve forgotten all about it, it may alert you to possible sightings. |
| Light Pollution Map | Yes | Tells you about light pollution which is helpful for night photography. | Not used much |
| Clear Outside | No | Lots of useful information about predicted cloud, rain, visibility and so on. | Not used much |
| Windy | Yes | Very nice visual indication of wind direction and strength. | Particularly useful if you plan slow shutter speed shots of nature. |
| Met Office | Yes | UK weather forecasting app | Hour by hour predictions in the near future |
Camera Apps
| App | Android? | Summary | Alvin's comments |
|---|
| Slow Shutter | No | Takes camera photos on the phone with a slow shutter speed. Lots of options. | Not used much, but seems very easy to take multiple exposures. |
| Even Longer | No | Takes camera photos with very long exposure times. | Need to use this on a tripod. |
| Neoshot | No | Advanced stills photograpy with lots of options to give you control. Shows a histogram of your proposed shot. | Hardly used |
| Reeheld | No | Simple long exposure app | I prefer Spectre |
| ReXpose | No | Similar options to Neoshot but no histogram. | Used for bit but ditched as its Subscription - I used ProCam. |
| Spectre | No | Long exposure application which you can manage quite long exposures hand held. | Its possible to use hand held as it shows a stability indicator. You can set the long exposure for a minimum of 3 seconds, but its easy to stop it after, say, 1 second. |
| ProCam | No | Advanced stills photograpy with lots of options and simple histogram. | My preferred app for camera photography |
| Black Magic Cam | No | Video recorder | Tried it a little - I think I'd use it if I wanted to do a lot of videos |
| Double Exposure | No | Recommended by a speaker | I've hardly used it. Peter said he has it. I use Image Blender (next section) |
Image Processing
| App | Android? | Summary | Alvin's comments |
|---|
| Lightroom Mobile | Yes | Simplied version of Lightroom on the mobile. | Not used much; requires Adobe Photography Plan |
| Snapseed | Yes | Great application for editing photos on the mobile | I've often used a few simple facilities in it to send photographs of what I'm doing to the family. |
| Photoshop Express | Yes | Simplified version of Photoshop for mobile | I believe Femke and Una use this; requires Adobe Photography Plan |
| Image Blender | No | Allows you to blend two images from your library | Fun to use, especially if you take a photo and blend it with some background textures you may be saving on your phone. |
Informational
| App | Android? | Summary | Alvin's comments |
|---|
| Photopills | Yes | Great application containg a set of tools such as sun and moon movement during the day, depth of field calulator and exposure calculator. | Very useful |
| Photohound | Yes | Allows to search for locations to get out and do some photography. | Tends to have more images for the tourist locations. Includes worldwide locations. |
| Locationscout | Yes | More sophisticated variation of the above. | Subscription payment - think carefully about whether it is worth it |
| TPE | No | Fantastic app for tracking the sun, moon and stars. | Not used much |
| Golden Hour | Yes | Simple app to tell you about sunrise and sunset in your area. | Doesn't seem to do much more than Photpills |
| Tide Times | Yes | Very useful app to give you tide information, especially forecast high and low tides at any coastal location. | Very useful if you are planning some coastal photography. |
| Smart Bird ID | No | Identifies bird songs using the mobile microphone and gives you information about the bird | Used by Femke |
| SunServeyor | | Fanastic app that shows you where the sun will be in the sky at any time using a clever "VR" type display. | Peter uses this, I've not used it much |
Utilities
| App | Android? | Summary | Alvin's comments |
|---|
| File Transfer | No | Easy to use facility to transfer between iPhone and PC | I've used it a few times to move lots of images and documents. |
| Mirroring | No | Mirrors the iPhone screen on to PC | Very useful for demonstrating iPhone Apps on Zoom, for example. |
| Airdrop | No | Allows easy transfers between Apple devices | Not used |
Info Centre