PhotoPills Friday Ep 19: Easily Plan a SUN or MOON Image Over a Mountain

[@Zuzzt]

Brenda, you make so very very good tutorials. Thank you!

[@Kyotodreamtrips]

That is a pretty-pretty good explanation; I have used photopills for a little more than one year and find it challenging to get the precise date. I live in Kyoto-Japan and I am excited about moon photography.

[@bernym4047]

You are a presentation machine. Thanks.

[@jcquinterobravo]

Terrific material. Just watched 2 seasons of Photopills. Highly impressed with your videos and the explanation in details that for sure has a lot of time in preparation. Keep up the good work, Brenda.

[@natashane2k6]

Awesome series. Really helped

[@paulrea6481]

Thank you Brenda . Brilliant tutorial as always

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

Thanks, Paul! I appreciate that!

[@AngeloTullio]

Thanks Brenda, your explanations about PhotoPills are clear and brilliant!

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

Thanks so much, Angelo! I'm glad you think so.

[@LeeMansfield]

Brilliant Brenda keep up your great work, Lee

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

:) Thanks so much! Glad it was helpful.

[@jimwilliams4170]

Thank you for your Photo Pills videos. I like Photo Pills but I am 70 yrs 0ld with minor loss of hearing. I have trouble understanding the moderator of their videos. You have been a great help! Thank you.

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

You bet - so glad that they are helping you out.

[@christophermjones9853]

I recently bought my first real camera and have been teaching myself photography, in part using these video series. I'm in the Boston area and I spend every moment I can in the Whites, and so I found myself unreasonably excited to see maps of my beloved (yours too!) Franconia ridge and Mt. Lafayette, also one of my favorites. Thank you for your work.

[@ralphwatson7036]

I just got caught up on watching your Photopills series and I must tell you how much I appreciate it. I've had Photopills on my phone for a couple of years but got little benefit from it because I was intimidated by its complexity. But you have revealed its secrets in a way I hadn't found before. My favorite episode was #5 but they are all great. I love trying to align the full moon with various landmarks and that will now be MUCH easier and more accurate. Thank you, thank you!

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

Super! That's so great to hear, Ralph. Thanks for sharing, and have fun with your new knowledge!

[@NickNoblePhotography]

Thanks!

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

You bet!

[@nrlondon7959]

Hi Brenda, another awesome video and tutorial. I am not sure I would agree with you that this feature is "easy-peasy" but you certainly have provided a good tutorial on how to use it. A little practice on my part should help. ;-). Look forward to your Milky Way tutorials. I use Stellarium at the moment. I will be interested to see what PhotoPills can do. As a side note, I have used email notifications to learn when new videos are uploaded to KZbin. To my surprise and disappointment, KZbin has pulled this feature. Consequently, I have missed a lot of videos, including yours, that have been uploaded. Anyway, I will need to regularly check for new videos. Your channel will be at the top of my list. Keep up the good work.

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

Thanks for keeping me on the list! :) I'm not sure why YT decided to do away with that feature. Kind of a bummer!

[@manojgoradia8486]

Nice and very well explained.whole series is wonderful and helpful for photopillars. In this tutorial both pins are on terrain and photopills calculate very well,what if i am shooting from 10 to 20 floor building

[@manojgoradia8486]

??

[@michaelmckeag960]

I’ve been in the habit of using The Photographer’s Ephemeris for planning sun/moon rise/set shots aligned with a landscape feature. While viewing this tutorial I ran PhotoPills forecasts of full moon sets behind Mt Hood in the Cascade Range in Oregon, viewed from a vantage point I’ve often used. As I was working through my iterative procedure in TPE to determine the precise point on the mountain where the moon will set behind the mountain on the morning of 1 October my expectation was that PhotoPills would not be as accurate. As it turned out, TPE and PhotoPills agreed precisely, and PhotoPills achieved the result in one pass. They did differ by about 3 min in timing. The morning of 1 October the moon and the mountain will have their say. But for efficient workflow PhotoPills already has a leg up.

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

That's great info - thanks for sharing it! I haven't used TPE much. I downloaded both apps and just started with PhotoPills, and ended up sticking with it. It's good to know how the apps differ since I imagine one may have strengths that the other doesn't and vice versa. I hope your shoot goes well on Oct 1!

[@michaelmckeag960]

Outdoor Photography School Alas I didn’t learn how accurately PhotoPills or TPE located or timed this morning’s Moonset behind Mt Hood. In the predawn dark, as I turned down the remote, narrow single-track my headlights picked up the red glint of taillight reflectors. Someone was parked in the road (the first pullout is further down). Out of caution (alone, in the dark, I trust wildlife more than people), and courtesy (I don’t wish to intrude upon someone else’s solitude), I backed out and left. This is the first time in countless dawn visits to this site I’ve encountered anyone else. Back home, I set up on the ridge next to our house for a different Moonset. I need more practice shooting “holy grail” timelapse sequences in any case. As a white male I head off alone in the dark to remote places with relative ease. If you are a woman or black it takes greater courage and caution. In addition to all the other skills and techniques of landscape and nightscape photography there is this.

[@marykrigbaum9021]

How easily is it to plan a moon-set like a Crescent Moon set? In the planner is it the moon that's half because it doesn't show a Crescent moon. Of course, that's coming up this week & I'm lost....

[@miket.1933]

Hi Brenda, great tutorial as always. I have one question though. Don't you have to adjust the red pin by the altitude of the observation tower building seen on google earth or does it not matter to Photopills?

[@ralphnetta4563]

I want one of those T-Shirts in XL

[@outdoorphotographyschool7366]

PhotoPills has them for sale on their website. I'm still hoping for a free t-shirt ;).

[@madaboutwork]

Photographing with boring light