4 Essential iPad Apps for Landscape Photographers

There has been much written about essential iPad apps, even essential apps for photographers, but I wanted to approach the subject of what specifically there exists for the photographer who specializes in Landscapes. My criteria included apps which helped take the picture-not those which manipulate the photos later.  So without further adieu, here are my top four Landscape Photographer iPad Apps, in no particular order.

1. Depth of Field Calculator from Essence Computing $ 0.99

This app allows you to select Subject Distance, Focal Length Aperture, Camera Make and model . It returns a diagram showing you near and far focus range as well as Hyperfocal distance. Common settings can be saved for future recall.

2. Golden Hour from Mindsizzlers $ 4.99

Photographers seek out the Golden Hour for the best light. This app tells you when the next golden hour will occur at your location or any location you choose to select. Know exactly how long you have until the magic light.

3. LightTrac from Rivolu Pte LTD $ 9.99

This app is cool. It finds your location and shows you the current orientation of the sun as well as the sun at sunrise and sunset. It also shows you a time line of Sun and Moon rise and set as well as the sun’s angle, direction of north etc.  Very handy for planning when light will hit where today, or in the future.

4. PanoCalc from Simon Sherwin $1.99

Landscape photographers frequently shoot panoramas. This app lets you input your focal length of your lens and your sensor size. It then tells you the portrait or landscape details of your shoot including the angle of view, the overlap, the number of shots needed and the degrees move between each shot.  This app is optimized for the iPhone. Hopefully a more iPad appropriate interface is coming soon.

It turns out that no particular order was alphabetic. Who knew?

For the price of a role of film plus processing you can have these apps on your mobile device and make your landscape life much easier.

Rikk Flohr © 2010