Mattia Bicchi Photography

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TOP 10 MUST-HAVE APPS FOR TIMELAPSE

What's up guys, welcome back to another Blog Post! I hope you are doing well during these difficult times!  

If you are like me and you need an app for everything, then you will love this post! 

I remember when I first start shooting Timelapse, I was looking for the perfect apps everywhere, YouTube, blog, forums you name it! But I couldn't find a proper article or video that showed me what apps to use specifics for timelapse.

So here we are! I put together a list of the best app I use the most in the past years, for my shoots and planning! 

I think all of these apps are available on Apple and Android, some are free and some are not.

  • So first of all, Google Maps! This one was expected! For me it's essential for planning and scouting new places, I use it a lot to remember locations with the 'Save' option! My maps are filled with stars and hearts! :) 

Here you can see all the top location around Madrid and here are the one for my upcoming trip to Tenerife. 

  • The Apps I use a lot, are the weather Apps, in particular, Wunderground and Windy.com, these two apps are very good for checking the forecast and what kind of clouds are in the area. 

They give you pretty much the same data, but it's good to cross-check to have a more precise forecast. 

If you are in the US or in the UK, you need to have DarkSky, it's a fantastic weather app that gives you an hour forecast; it's so precise, that it will send you a notification five minutes before it starts to rain.

It's insane! I wish it could work here in Spain, I miss that feature! 

  • A must App that you have to download is PhotoPills, I am not going deep on this one because I could stay here talking about it for days.

This app is essential for planning, Sunset, Sunrise, MilkyWay and Moonrise! 

Every time I plan a shoot, this is my app of choice to check where the sun it will be and what time is the best to shoot at a location. 

If you want to see an in-depth tutorial, make sure to check their YouTube channel here!

  • Now, what if I tell you that there is an app that can tell you how colourful the sunset will be? 

This app is called SkyFire!! Well, technically is not an app per se, 

it's a subscription-based feature that you can find in The Photographer Ephemeris app, which is similar to PhotoPill, but with less functionality. 

I love SkyFire, is very reliable and give me the confidence to go out a shoot sunsets that if you were looking outside your window a few hours before, you wouldn’t give that sunset penny! 

So here you can see the different areas, the red one is where the probability of a colourful sunset is the highest, then you have the orange, the yellow, green and blue, which is tells you that the probability of a good sunset is pretty low.

This feature, unfortunately, is not free, but there is a free app you can also check, which is called MySunset, is not as precise, but it works pretty well! 

  • Next is an app called Timelapse Helper, and as the name says, it helps shooting timelapse.

Specifically, it calculates the duration of the shoot, the interval and the number of pictures you need to take, You don't really need this app if you are good at math, but I am not, so I found it a lifesaver lots of time!

  • The next app is specific for shooting Astro Timelapse, it's called ScopeNight

It's so good to predict clear sky, you can set what the best conditions for you are, and the app will tell you when it's good to shoot! I love it! 

  • Here's an extra for you, this app is called TPE 3D, and what it does is pretty awesome! 

It shows you a 3D map of the terrain, so you can visualise the behaviour of the movement of the light,

so, for example, if you want to capture a Timelapse of the sun lighting up a mountains side or a valley. With this app, you can plan precisely where is the best spot and time of the day to get the perfect Timelapse of that shadow moving through the scene!  

And that’s it, I really hope this was helpful. 

If you want to, check out my Patreon page where I do monthly Q&A and show you my Timelapse post-processing more in details. 

Of Course, if you have any question regarding the filters, feel free to ask me by leaving a comment below or through my social media.

Don't forget to say hi on my Instagram Account and subscribe to my YouTube channel!       

I'll see you in the next post! 

Thanks for reading!