The Best Apps for Travel Photographers and Filmmakers
Photo by The Mandagies
We live in the age of technology and it’s crazy the things a small phone in your pocket can do. As photographers, it can be an invaluable tool for creation and organization.
Although I don’t use a lot of apps for my photography, I’ve found a few that are invaluable to my day-to-day work. Here are the four that I reach for on a daily basis!
1) PhotoPills
This app is a gold mine for photographers, whether you shoot weddings or plan big mountain adventures, this app is for you.
My most used feature is the sun planner. You can pinpoint your exact shooting location, date, and time and see where the sun and moon will be in the sky. This is HUGE when you’re planning trips far in advance or somewhere far away.
The sun and moon features tell you the day’s golden hours, blue hours, and tons more info. It even has sections for night AR, meteor showers, star trails, and more. This alone makes it a fantastic tool for astrophotography.
If you’re a film photographer, you’ll love the exposure calculator that helps you expose your image perfectly.
These are just a few of the features of PhotoPills and honestly, it’s worth the $XX price tag.
2) Lightroom Mobile
This feels like a “duh” for most photographers but it was worth mentioning. I love how quickly I can edit my photos that I’ve taken on my phone and it’s super intuitive as someone who has used Lightroom CC for years. I’m someone who can tell when a photo was taken on mobile and I love being able to edit my photos so they look timeless.
Although I use Lightroom Classic on my computer for editing shoots, I love having the ability to utilize most of my favorite tools on my phone while having them sync to the Lightroom app on my laptop in case I need to access anything. This is also great for syncing presets you already use!
3) Google Maps
If you do any sort of location scouting, Google Maps is your new best friend. I have HUNDREDS of saved locations that I either want to explore or that I discovered when out. I find it super helpful to save these locations so if someone wants to do a shoot in Rocky Mountain National Park, you can pull up your map of 10+ specific spots.
You can also download maps to use offline which has saved me more than once as I’m constantly in and out of service. This is invaluable if you’re camping and hiking somewhere remote (which is about 90% of my time).
4) Dropbox
I’ve had so many issues in the past with hard drives failing or cloud services being impossible to navigate. Dropbox has been the easiest and most affordable solution for me so far. I love how visual it is so I can immediately see what photos are in each folder. I can back up my Lightroom catalogues as well as RAWS and JPGs so all of my work is safe.
Even with my slow, middle-of-the-mountains internet, it uploads and downloads fairly quickly. It’s great when we’re on the road and I need a photo from earlier this year and it’s not on my SSD. If I have time and internet, I also backup photos to Dropbox to keep them safe until I’m home.
Dropbox isn’t my only method of backing up my work (you need to have at least 2-3 backups!) but it’s my preferred cloud service. Yes, at some point cloud services will also fail just like our hardware but it’s great to have, especially when traveling.
I love finding ways to use technology to make life smoother and easier. I didn’t touch on camera-specific apps as I’ve either not found one I love or they have pros and cons for each photographer. Let me know if you’ve found one you love!
What are your favorite apps to use as a photographer or filmmaker?
