RPS - Bits & Bobs 1 - TPE and Photopills with Joe Houghton

Okay.

Good morning, everyone. Here we are with our Bits and Bobs. We didn't know what to call it, so that seemed a good name. Joe thought it was quite amusing. So here we are, 4 sessions, 3 on Saturdays, and the final one, which was pre-booked on a Friday. So I will keep reminding you, but we're here with the The one that Steve asked for, which is— remind me, Joe. Understanding PhotoPills and the Photographer's Ephemeris. Yeah, I'm glad you said that. So over to you, Joe. Super. Okay, good morning, everybody. Let me see if I can share my screen now. There we are. So there's the Biletto thing for the series, which you've obviously found already because you're here. So I probably don't need to show you that, but if in case you're just coming to this one and you didn't know about the others, so creative projects with your images. We're going to have a look at some of the new technologies around restoring old photographs and then venturing into the world of video. So, you know, and looking at Even translating stills now into video clips. We have the technology to do all that kind of stuff as well. Now, whether you want, whether you'd want to do that or not is quite another matter, but we can do it. So we will explore these new technologies and see where they take us. So that's that. But as is my wont, I have done a Notion page. Which I will now share with you. So if you have a look in the chat, there is a link that you should be able to click. And what I've tried to do, because today is going to be quite technical in terms of these are not simple necessarily applications, there, there's a learning curve to them. Okay, so you know if you are if you are technically challenged, this this might be a bit kind of you know tricky. I must admit I I find these aren't the easiest tools to use, but they do have a use and they do you know a few things quite well. So I think they're a worthy addition to a photographer's. kind of kit bag, and, you know, you should— you need to know about them, and then you can choose whether you're going to use them or not. So the talk came out of a request from Steve, who actually can't be here today, but hi Steve on the recording, good to see you, and thank you for the suggestion on this. So what we're going to look at today are 2 Are two tools. One is called the Photographer's Ephemeris, and it's typically known as TPE because most people can't remember the Photographer's Ephemeris. And the other one is called PhotoPills, and they are photography planning applications, I suppose. Okay, I would highly recommend that if you do like the look of these, you buy them. And they're like, I think TPE is like €10, €8 or something. It's, you know, they're very low cost, if you like. And it's a once-off, it's not a subscription and stuff like that. So one of them runs on either the browser or you can download it onto your computer, TPE. And the other one, PhotoPills, is a phone app. So I've got Later on, I'll show you. I've got my iPhone mirrored at the moment, so we'll have a look at PhotoPills in a little while. And so that one can kind of travel with you as well.

Okay.

So these are, these are, these are what we're going to do. So I think we'll play with TPE in the first half and then PhotoPills on the second half, if that's okay. Yeah. Does anybody use either of these apps at the moment? Chris and Gordon. Fantastic. Great. So, so I use both. You use both?

I use both.

Right. Fantastic.

And the issue with PhotoPills, as I found out when I went to do a Milky Way shot up in the Galloway Forest last summer, is there's no phone signal in the middle of the Galloway Forest.

Phone doesn't work. So there you are, wandering around, pointing your phone at the sky, seeing where the Milky Way should be, and there's nothing.

Yeah, I've busted up now. Wonderful.

And what about you, Gordon? You're a user, are you? Yeah, I have been for quite a while, particularly on the TPE. I've used that for quite a long time. Good. Okay, well, it's good to have a couple of experts in the room. You can, you can point out when I'm looking for something and can't find it where it is, then good. Feel free to share your knowledge because I've, I've kind of reloaded these up over the last few weeks and been playing in them, but I, I wouldn't really call myself an expert in them. You know, I'm not like Lightroom. I don't even have to think about where things are in Lightroom that, you know, it's just muscle memory. I'm kind of still finding my way with these tools, but then let's have a look. Okay, so what kind of can you do with stuff? So the Photographer's Ephemeris allows you to visualize where the sun and the moon will be at any location and at any time and date. So you can, you know, you've got a kind of Google Maps type interface, you can drop a pin, And then you can move through time, and it shows you where the sun will be, and there's lines to the sun and the moon and all these other things and stuff like that. So it's great for identifying things like golden hour and blue hour, you know, where the light is fading from the sky but it's still that lovely, lovely light or whatever. So this means that you can plan your trip to make sure that you're in place. At the right time. And, you know, if you're looking to be on a particular line, you know, I don't know, if you're going to shoot Glastonbury Tor or something, you know, and there's a particular place where the sun is going to set behind the tor, well then, you know, you draw a line from where the sun's going to set through Glastonbury Tor, and then you can put yourself on that line somewhere else and get the shot. And there's actually quite a community around these types of shot. They're called PhotoPillers. And, you know, they chase these shots of kind of sunrises and sunsets, you know, over buildings and over particular monuments and things like that. So both PhotoPills and TPE allow you to do this. PhotoPills also has a very good visualization where, and it works on the camera, and because the camera knows where you are and it knows which way you're pointing, you can put, you can bring up this view where it kind of shows you where the Milky Way is in the sky or in the land, depending on, you know, the time of day and all the rest of it. So you can move your phone around and see as you move left and right and up and down where the Milky Way will be at any given time. So it's fantastic to kind of again plan night shoots and stuff like that. Now of course you plan the night shoot and you, you know, you pack up and you stay out late and then it's cloudy. Yeah. And you can't get the shot. Yeah. And that's what normally— Mr. Lawrence is here!

This is I have to turn audio off in a moment because I'm actually in a restaurant. It's the only place in this hotel that I can get Wi-Fi and it's taken me half an hour to get connected. So that's why I'm late. So apologies for that. Hope I haven't missed too much.

No.

I'm away in Winchester with some mates and I didn't think I'd be able to join you, but I thought, well, I'll sneak off for a while.

Fabulous.

Can't miss this one. Can't miss this one.

Good to see you, Steve. Good to see you.

And you.

Fantastic.

Lovely. Okay. Turn off audio again.

No problem. No. Yeah, we understand. That's great. All right. So yeah, kind of, you know, if you've arrived at a location to find the lights wrong or missed a moonrise because you got the time wrong or, you know, wondered how to figure out where the Milky Way is. So that's it. So the Photographer's Ephemeris, TPE, if you click on that graphic, it takes you to the website. Yeah, I do try and make it easy for you. Okay, so, and there is, there is the URL further down as well. Okay, and you get into something that looks like this. Okay, now you might need to sign in and create an account and stuff like that. Just, just do that, you know, if you, if you haven't got an account, and then you get into this quite complicated, quite complicated screen. But don't despair because, you know, once you know what you're looking at, it kind of starts to kind of be a little less worrying and stuff. What we've got at the top, I mean, if we— you're probably just going to hit Start Tour, and that's a good place to start because this is going to just walk you through the main bits, okay, of the Of the thing, so you can you can choose a date and it defaults to today's date. But you know if you know that you want to be you know on Valencia Island, you know on the tenth of May because you're going to be visiting for the week or whatever, then you can you can put in a date here and you can you know choose choose any date that you want.

All right.

You can search for a place. You can put in address. You can put in coordinates. You can put in postcodes. You can put in the— what's that 3 words thing? What 3 words is it that locate everywhere on the planet to within a meter or whatever? So you can use that little eyeglass button there next to the 2 to do that.

Okay.

Or you've got the map. So this is just like Google Maps, and you can, you know, zoom in and out of the map, and you can drop and move pins. And the pin is fundamental to the use of the tool, okay? The pin is gonna be— that's gonna be kind of like where you're going to stand. And at that point, all these other lines that then radiate off are telling you where different things are, okay? So, you know, the yellow line is normally the Sun, okay? So, you know, if you're standing at Durdle Door, I think that is, that's being represented on the map at the moment there, then, then, you know, you can see where the sun is at a particular time of day. And it even knows things like how high you are based on where you drop the pin on the map. So, you know, if you put yourself on the beach, you're going to be quite close to sea level. Whereas if you put yourself at the top of the cliffs, you might be You know, 50 meters up or whatever. So it's aware of terrain as well. And this is one of the benefits of using these tools, is that because it's aware of where your— what your height is and what the terrain around you's height is, it will also tell you when your sightlines are kind of occluded, when the sun is behind a mountain.

For instance.

Yeah. So, and that's the kind of thing that you want to know as a photographer, isn't it? You know, you don't want to turn up and kind of think, right, I'm going to get that lovely sunrise there down the valley. But there's a big mountain in the middle that means that that sunrise is going to be half an hour later and the sun will have moved and stuff before you've done it. So this is quite useful. Okay. Let's just carry on going through the tour because it's a good way of just showing you the different things. Okay. So now we've got a timeline, and all these things are movable. You can drag these, and we will be doing that. But you can see it's showing you the key times during the day based on you being at that particular point on that date.

Okay.

Then you've got, you know, the sunrise is 5:54, golden hour, yeah, you know, it's gonna last until 6:40. Then the sun is transiting Kind of, you know, it's at its high point, 13:06. Moonrise comes in at 13:22, and you can track the Sun and the Moon through the sky, and it gives you the lines of where they're going to be. You've got golden hour and sunset, and then, you know, civil end of light and stuff like that. So all these different things. And it, as you can see, as you hover over each of these, Yeah, it's telling you in the little pop-up above what each one means. Okay, so even if you don't know what nautical end means or civil end means, it tells, it tells you above. So there's quite a lot of information being thrown at you from, from this fairly complex, you know, interface, this screen that you, you're seeing, but you need to just spend a little bit of time and go and play and experiment. And kind of get used to where the different things are. It's not ever so intuitive. You've got to play. I don't know, would you agree, Gordon? And who else was it? Chris, wasn't it? Gordon and Chris? Yeah. Did you find that you had to play a little bit?

Yeah, definitely. And I think if you don't use it for several months, yes, you forget. You forget how to use it. Which is why I'm here today.

Oh, well, I might get you a couple of steps along the road there, Chris. We'll see. We'll see.

Super.

All right. So the bottom tab— and you can choose to show or hide all these different bits of the screen, these particularly, because you might not be too bothered about the Sun and the Moon's altitude or whatever. You might be far more interested in direction and stuff like that. But you know, we've we've now got we've we've got a slider here. Yeah, and it's showing you the different lines of where the sun is. So you see, you can see that sun line. You know, it's going to be as high as it'll be in the sky at 1300, and then as you move through time during that day, the sun is going down. So it's giving you the degrees and the how many degrees off the vertical it is as well. So if you take a compass with you, you've got, you know, clear, clear view, clear sightline. And you don't even need to take a compass because if you've got a mobile phone these days, the mobile phone has a compass on it. There's a compass app which most phones come with. You might not use it every day. Yeah, because you probably don't need the compass to get to Lidl. But, you know, when you're out in the wilds of Dartmouth or Dartmoor or somewhere, you might need it. So— Yeah. And the, as far as I know, the Compass app on the iPhone anyway doesn't require mobile phone signal. But you, I may be wrong. I may be wrong. So, so the Galloway Forest might be, might be one that that works. But otherwise, just take a little proper compass.

Yeah.

I have my grandfather's old compass that he used, an old lovely old brass one and stuff like that. And that's in my photography bag, you know, so, so This is, this is good stuff. Okay, so you can move that slider along to change, change the time. And you can see as I'm doing that, look on the screen above, as I— you can see the line of the sun changing.

Yeah.

So, so if I'm, if I'm standing at the end of that promontory there, yeah, then at 1300, yeah, the sun is going to be pretty much straight out to sea. Yeah. And then as you, as you get towards evening, yeah, then you're going to be looking to the west, um, and the sun is going to be setting that way.

Yeah.

So you might think, well, if, if I'm going to be shooting at sunset, maybe I want to be on this promontory. Yeah, I want to be over here looking across the water at the sun with, you know, with whatever is there. So, so you can start to look at a map thinking about what you can see and the terrain and the coastline and whatever, and start to plan, right? Well, maybe I want, you know, maybe rather than there, yeah, I'm going to want to be on that beach.

Okay.

So you just grab that little pin and you pop it on the beach. And now you can see that the sun is going to be setting over this, you know, this, this whatever this thing is here. Yeah, that looks like a car park for something. So that, you know, you might decide, well, that's not going to be the best place for an image of a sunset because I don't really want a car park in the image. But if I put myself, I grab the pin. and I put myself down here on that beach, now I'm shooting the sunset, and I'm going to have these rocks and stuff, and then a bit of seawater and a reflection and stuff like that. Yeah. So this is— I mean, you know, we just have these maps and things at our disposal now. So this is very, very useful. And you can scroll out and see, you know, the whole of the coastline as big as you want. Yeah. So it's, it's an amazing tool. You know, the possibilities for this tool now are just fantastic. Let's carry that tour on. Because I do, I do like the tour. It does show you all the good stuff.

Boom.

Sun and Moon altitude. Yeah, we've done that one. Create a free account. Okay, so that's fine. And if you think you might use this, go and create the account because one of the other things you can do is, you know, you can drop these pins and then you can save those locations. So let's say you go in on holiday or whatever, you know, you might spend an afternoon or two kind of looking around the area and saying, well, oh yeah, that looks like a good area, you know, for an evening shoot or for a morning shoot or whatever. And you can drop the pins and give them a name. But you can only save those if you've got an account. Whereas if you haven't got an account, every time you go in, you're just using the tool, but it's not got your history of information and stuff like that.

Okay.

Okay. So that I think is the end of that little tour. Okay. So let's go back to Notion for a minute. And see, because I've— what I thought I would do, because these are quite complicated, is kind of showing you how to do stuff. So I've tried to give you step by step, yeah, on it. So method 1, search by name. Okay, so you find the search box, and let's type in— so that's the search box, isn't it? There we are. Yeah, so let's type in Durdle Door. Okay, so it brings up a couple of things, and they're not quite the same. Look, if you look at the, the, the map reference there. Yeah, so that these are obviously probably in the same area, but you're going to be standing at slightly different places. Okay, so if you want to to to go there, you can just go to the map, but also you can save it to the map as well. Save it into your your locations and stuff like that. Okay, so so if I do that, okay, so here we go. Da da da da da. And you can put your own notes in as well. So this is quite useful because you may have checked on the map, and you might see that that's a you know a rocky beach, say. So you might kind of make some notes. Okay, rocky beach, you know, and then maybe you go off and check the tide times and stuff, and, you know, take the wellies because the tide will just be coming in or something like that. Yeah. So having notes to kind of, you know, add to it. So it's all that kind of planning.

Okay.

So you see— Quick question. If you do this On the, on your computer at home, when you go to the location, will it all be on your mobile? If you've got, if you're signed in, yeah, yeah, then the account syncs.

Okay, great.

Yeah, yeah. If you're just using the, the app without any sign-in, then you're not saving any information. And you just have to put in, you know, the location each time. you use it. But, but yeah, once, once you're signed in, then basically you're signing in on the mobile. Now you need phone signal. Yeah, of course. Yeah, for it to sync and stuff like that. So yeah, what I found is if phone signal is likely to be spotty, yeah, it will kind of cache certain things, you know, and just, just hold the map in memory once you've got a signal somewhere. So what I normally do is before I go off on my shoot, Yeah, I will log in on the phone and make sure that it's synced. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when I get there, even if the signal's a bit spotty, I've still got the information kind of to hand. So that's just a little trick. All right, thank you.

So, Joe, sorry, is there just an app for the phone as well? Sorry, an icon that you, an app that you put down? Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, okay. The second half I'm going to show you on the phone. So the first half I'm just showing you on the web version, but that you can download apps for TPE and for PhotoPills on the phone as well.

Okay, brilliant. Great. Thank you.

And I said, I think before you came in, Steve, you know, the app— the apps cost €10 or something. Buy the apps if you're going to use this, buy the apps, because the paid version gives you quite a few more bells and whistles. the free version does. And they're so cheap, and it's not a subscription, it's just a one-off payment, you know. So it is worth, it is worth buying, buying both of them.

Great, that's good advice. Thank you.

Yeah, okay. So if we move the map in, so I'm coming into my saved locations here. Yeah, so I mean, let's say we went to Stonehenge, all right, because we're not at Stonehenge at the moment on the map. So now that's moved me to Stonehenge. Okay, so now here we are on Salisbury Plain, and if we zoom in far enough, we will see that we are at Stonehenge. You can see there, Dehenge. Yeah, so how fabulous is that? Yeah, so now if you know that you're going to be able to access the site You know, at a particular time or whatever, because I mean the access is you know through the Stonehenge Visitor Center and stuff like that. But you can you know you can plan to be here, yeah, or maybe here, yeah, when the sun's setting. So the sun is now going to set behind. The stones, so you want to be putting yourself this side of the stones, so you can plan to be set up here at 1903, you know, or whatever. So when's when sunset sunrise sunset 2019? Okay. So you know ideally you you want to be there kind of before 2019 because 2019 is when the sun hits the horizon.

Yeah.

So maybe you want the sun a little bit higher in the horizon so that you can get the sun above the stones because those stones are, what, 20-foot high, something like that?

Yeah.

So, you know, you might think, right, okay, well then I need to kind of be, be there an hour before sunrise, sunset and stuff like that. So it allows you to plan this kind of thing and be very, very precise. in terms of where you're going to be. And, you know, so, and I think it's PhotoPills has even got the ability to put what lens you're using on, and it shows you your width, your field of view as well. You know, how wide you're going to get a field of view and stuff like that, which is very clever. And you can see at the top there, it's showing what the Moon is gonna be looking like as well. So, you know, if you wanted Moon, the moonrise or whatever, I'm not sure which of the lines is the Moon, but, you know, I don't know, let's say it's that gray one at the top there. Well then, you know, if you want the Moon setting over or the Moon over Stonehenge, then you'd put yourself here because the Moon's over there.

Yeah.

So you've got these these different possibilities.

Okay.

Okay, so, you know, choosing the location, one, search by name, yeah, and 2, you can just drop the pin manually. So you can drag that anywhere on the map, and because that map is fully scrollable, yeah, so this little icon here moves you to your current location. So that's a good one. So, so now that's moved us to Dublin. Yeah. And there's my green that I run the dog on. And there's number 9. That's where I'm sitting. Yeah. And I'm sitting just there in the kitchen towards the back of the house. So now you know where to send the ICBM to nuke me when I, when I lead you astray. Okay.

For complete clarity, Joe, you were saying, you were saying sunset over the henge. I think it's true that you were showing where the sun was going to be at 19:03, because that's where you are on the thing at the bottom.

Yes.

Not, not when sunset—

No, no, sunset, sunset was at 20:44. So what you'd need to do would be move this to 20:44. Okay, so now I've moved that to 20:44, and now you can see that at this location, yeah, sunset is straight over the green from the front of our house.

Thank you.

So, so yeah, so that's, that's how you do that. Full screen just, just, just gives you a little bit more. It just, just hides that top bar, which we can actually do. Mind you, and we are going to come back to these things as well. So there's the pins, and then you've got various options for displaying different stuff here as well. And this starts to give you location and also showing you the light that you can see based on how high the sun is in the sky.

Okay. So, Joe, can I just ask there, you moved from Durdle Door to Stonehenge to Dublin. How did you do that? I missed that.

You, right, that stopped working. Let me just refresh. Yeah, I had a list of saved locations, Steve.

Okay.

And you can get in. Yeah, look, it's died on me. Let's kill that. Try that again.

I see.

Bum bum bum bum bum. Click. Oh, come on, TPE, don't break on me now.

That's already open on another tab as well, I think.

That would just be typical, wouldn't it? Yeah. Let's see. Loading container. What I might do is shut the, shut Edge down, and because it might just be cached. So let's try it now. Let's fire Edge up again.

Already overloading it with the fact you're on Zoom, hopefully.

Shouldn't matter. It's pretty— right, well, plan B, if we can't get to TPE on here, and this talks to Steve's question earlier on, I have my phone. Okay, so now bring my phone onto center stage here. So I can navigate. So you can see here, I've downloaded on the phone into my photo and video group. There's 2 apps. There's TPE, and there's TPE3D. Okay, Steve. So, yeah. So TPE3D is one, and then TPE, which is the one we've just been basically looking at. Yeah, it gives you this view here. Okay. So now at the bottom on the phone app, in the middle are locations. Okay. So we've got saved locations and stuff. Now, am I logged in as me? I'm not sure that I am. So let's just search for an address or a place. So we can put in Stonehenge. Okay, probably that one, I think, isn't it? Let's have a look. So that— so we'll try that. Let's see. We'll go to the pin. And there we are. We are at Stonehenge. Not quite yet. Well, yeah, near enough. So we can— and now you can, you know, you can move around and you can see where you're at and all the rest of it. Okay, so locations there. Yeah, and if I want to drop that into my saved locations, then I've just saved that.

Yeah.

Okay, so if we want Geocorn, know where that is. Yeah, absolutely. So Geocorn View and Foer Cliffs. Okay, so this is on Valentia Island, which Steve has a, Steve has a place there. So if we go there, Now, I spelt it wrong. Yeah, but there we are. So there's the, there's Gia Côn Mountain and cliffs, and, and it's actually located as straight to the, the car park. And then there's a, there's a little walk, there's a little 5-minute walk up to Phoah Cliffs there.

There is.

An amazing view.

Yeah, yeah.

So you obviously know this well.

I do, I do. I spelt Valencia wrong. That's interesting.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

That's the Spanish way.

All right, okay.

So, but yeah, we can still find it. That's great.

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

Amazing, isn't it? Yeah, right on the map.

Yeah, Valencia Island there is okay.

Correctly on the map.

Valencia. Yeah. So that's fine. So again, you know, like I was showing you before, you see, so now We've got, we can show, we can move around the date. So this is, this is zero. So we're at midnight at the moment. If you look in the very top left-hand corner, yeah, it's saying 00:36. So that's kind of pretty much midnight. Okay. And then so if you want to kind of figure out a dawn, and you can see where the moon is, yeah, it's showing you. But where the moon is, that little arc is, is the moon.

Yeah. Yeah.

So the moon is basically in the south of the island, and it's pretty much a full moon. Yeah, at 4:01. And then we get to transition point, and this looks like sunrise. And now you see it changes from dark to, to, to kind of coming, coming brighter. Yeah, and there's the sun coming up. Yeah, over Glenleam. 6:18, something like that. And then you see the sun now showing on the line, and you can see exactly where the sun is because it's that little yellow ball. Yeah, so if you're, if you're at the top of Geocorn Mountain, you know, you're going to get nice views across to Portmagee at— what time are we there? 2 PM. Okay, so you now get it. You now get a nice shot from Geocorn into the sun looking over to Portmagee, but you've got to wait until, you know, kind of— what time are we there? Quarter past 7 before you're kind of gonna get a nice shot out to sea and then maybe up to the Skelligs, you know, towards—

Yeah.

Yeah, well, no, that's it. That's as far as the sun's going to go, and then it's going to be going down about 9 o'clock. Yeah, the Skelligs are a little bit further north, I think, aren't they, from there?

So they are. Yeah, I'm gonna be using— gonna be using that location a lot.

Is this— this is what you wanted, is it, Steve?

This is absolutely— absolutely. And just for clarity again, because I was able to look at the screen while you were playing, Joe. Yeah, you suggested it was a full moon when you were wandering around. I don't think it is. Looking at the bottom left of your screen there, it says waxing 65%.

65%.

Yeah, I think, I think it shows you the picture.

This is the moon ball rather than what it actually is. Yes. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yes. So if we go back to that moon, that it's just showing you that you see up at about 3 o'clock now. Yeah, there we are. Fair mean east. And then there's the moon on that line. Yeah. So you can see it now. I'll bring it down to 6:00 PM, 6 o'clock. There we are. So that's the Moon. So it's just that's showing the ball of the Moon. That's where the Moon will be in the sky. But it's not showing that it's 3/4 Moon or it's whatever in that representation. But I mean, this is just so useful, isn't it?

Oh my God, yeah. Unbelievable.

You can see exactly where things are gonna be at any given time in the day and the night. You can move, you know, you can move dates and all the rest of it. It's just absolutely fabulous. Yeah. So what else have we got on here? So on the map—

Fantastic.

On the map, you've got this icon with the layers, gives you a number of different maps. So what you can do is you can choose these different layers. Okay, so the bottom one there, yeah, stars overlay. So if I enable that, as we move around, you can see the constellations that you will see in the sky. Okay, so if you know your constellations and stuff, that's showing you where those different constellations will be in the sky. Okay, now I'm not an astronomer and stuff, I don't know the different Things, and it would. Oh, look at that! You can. You just click on it. Look at that. So I just I just tapped on it, and it tells you what it is. How cool is that? Yeah. So you know, you click on that one. That's the that's the Great Bear, isn't it? Ursa Majoris Majoris or whatever, and and stuff. So look at that. There's Vega, and Vega is a very bright star in the sky. So that, that, that left-hand bit of that triangle is, is Vega. And that's, that's quite an easy one to pick up in the sky, particularly when you can see, you know, right, if I'm standing here, I've just got to look behind me over there, and Vega should be there at that time of night and stuff.

Yeah.

Now it won't be because the clouds will have rolled in, as I said earlier on. But, you know, at least you know where Vega should be.

Yeah.

Or have a vague idea anyway. Sorry, no pun intended there.

Okay.

All right. What else can I show you on here? This one is light pollution. Okay. Now, one of the things about Valentia Island is it's one of the few places in Ireland that is actually a dark sky area. So there are a few places in the UK, you know, relatively few, that are generally not affected too much by light pollution, which is the uplift of light from cities and from towns and, you know, streetlights and stuff like that. Yeah. So if you can get far enough away from human habitation, you get places that are called dark sky areas, where there is very little effect of that uplight from lights at night, which can, you know, improve your astrophotography because you're not having to cut through haze, basically. Because light bouncing up onto the bottom clouds or onto the atmosphere introduces a haze which makes astrophotography, you know, much— you get much better shots straight out of camera if there's no light pollution. So finding these places, these dark sky places, and I mean, that's easy enough to do. You just Google dark skies and it'll tell you. But Gia Côn Mountain and Valencia Island are brilliant for that because there's very, very little light pollution on there. So that will show you a little bit about light pollution, that little road with the streetlight showing over it. And then this top one, if I go back to the map, that top one, the cloud icon, that gets you into a paid subscription for something called Skyfire.

Yeah.

Which will give you very, very precise micro weather forecasting. Which can be quite useful if you are, you know, a serious landscape photographer or whatever, and you're going to get up and drive, you know, a couple of hours in the middle of the night for that sunrise or whatever. One of the— if you take a Skyfire subscription out, it will give you, you know, to within a mile or so, kind of very up-to-date, very focused weather predictions on things like cloud and stuff like that. So, you know, it depends. If you're just an occasional user of this, it's probably not going to be something that you want to do. But if you're gonna, if you're gonna, you know, really take this stuff seriously and you want to maximize your chances of not driving 2 hours to find the cloudy day kind of thing, then this, this is worth doing. So, so that's, that's what that service is. Okay. Is this all making sense? Is this giving you a sense of what this stuff is about and what it's doing?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Good. Right. Let's come back in.

Fantastic.

Let's come back into Notion a minute. Joe, that Skyfire thing. Yeah. Can you do that in advance? You know, could you— you're going on holiday next week.

Yeah.

Skyfire. Yeah. So, so, you know, I mean, now the further advance you go, the prediction models obviously get a little bit more fuzzy. But, you know, typically, so with Skyfire, what you're typically gonna do is the night before.

Yeah.

You're gonna say, what's the weather gonna be like at Durdle Door tomorrow at 5 AM? Yeah, because you've got a 2-hour drive down to Durdle Door, you know. So like, do I get up at 3 or not? It'd be like, and Skyfire will basically say, forget it. Yeah, it's gonna be completely clouded over at 5 AM tomorrow. Don't even bother, you know, or there's gonna be a storm coming in, in which case you hop in the car and go, you know, because you could get that lovely storm over the sea or whatever it is. So, so, so it's typically something that you're gonna use in short, quite a short time window, because even now, the, the prediction modeling for weather is, you know, it's getting better and better and better. And I mean, with all the new AI advances, it's getting exponentially better. than it was a couple of years ago. And Skyfire is one of those services that taps into those new advanced weather prediction models. That brings me on to another question. How does TPE compare to something you could ask AI? I don't know, because I haven't done it enough. I feel like— I don't know, Gordon, Chris, any thoughts on that? Have you been Googling and TPEing and comparing and stuff?

I haven't. The app I use, which is free, um, but it's only— you can do it up to a week before for the weather, right? Particularly cloud cover if you're doing astro. Yeah, that's called Clear Outside.

Clear Outside, right.

Clear Outside, which is free, and it tells you the total cloud, low, medium, high cloud, The visibility, and basically if it's— you want 8% or less if you're going out for astro, 8% or less cloud, shall we say.

Yeah, it's also very good for fog.

Yeah, it is. It's for a free app, it's fantastic. Clear outside.

There we are. So that's the web version. We'll add that into the Notion document for everybody as well then. So, free weather app, clear outside. Boom.

It works well on the mobile, but having experienced the no signal thing last year, what I now do, which I'd recommend, at least people to think about, Is I do all my augmented reality shots and everything based on the time I'm going to be there. Yeah. And I take a screenshot on my iPhone.

That's a great idea.

I can look at the photograph when I'm there if I have no signal. Yeah.

So let's, yeah. So let's, so let's say that was your plan there.

Yeah.

So then what you do is you go—

Right.

So there we are. I've just taken a screenshot.

That'll save to your photos.

Yeah. So if I take that screenshot, you see, then you can tap on it. Yeah. And you can, you can add it and you can make notes and you can edit on it and all kinds of stuff. You know, you can draw, you can even draw on it and stuff. Yeah. You see, look, I could, I could say, you know, that's, that's where I want to be or whatever. And then you just save that to your photos. And now if I go to my photos, There it is. So even if I lose phone signal, I've got the information. Yeah, that's a great tip, Chris.

Yeah.

Super. Okay. All right. And if you refresh your web browser page now and scroll down, you should now see that link to the free weather app is on the web page. I do love Notion. It's so good for this kind of stuff, just updating things like that. It's really, really good. Okay. Now, AR. Okay. Initializing. Right. So what this is doing now is this is now looking through my camera. So if I pick my phone up now, Oh, come back. There we go. Hello, everybody. That's you on the screen behind me. Okay. Now, what this is doing is this is giving me an augmented reality track.

So we can't see the same as you're seeing.

Oh, you're not seeing that? Let me go to here. There we are. There we are. Okay, so on screen you're seeing what I'm seeing. So look, there's Willow the dog, not looking very happy. But as I move up, yeah, you can see— we can see where the moon is at the moment.

Yeah.

Through the blind, because I've got the blind closed and stuff like that. But you can see, you can track where the moon is based on, you know, where I am right now. Yeah, and you can even see slightly some of the, the, the where the, the stars are as well. Okay, those are those little bright dots and stuff like that. And, and if you turn the lights out, it kind of, it really does bring it up a bit more. And I can now move through time. So you see, look, there's the sun.

Yeah.

So I can, I can point it, I can, I can, and I can, as I move around, I can see where the sun is. So what time is it now? It is Sunday, Saturday the 26th. No, I'm on Sunday. Let's go back to Saturday.

Yeah.

And what time is it now? It is 10:55. Yeah, 9:50. There we are, 9:47, 9:53, right? So let's see. See, north, south, east, and west, something like that. Because the sun should be around there, I think, but it's not showing up. So there's north. And then I can move around my kitchen and stuff. And you— we can see the sun movement here.

That's There we are.

Okay, so there's the sun is coming around. You can see, you can see these different, different intersection points as, as we're going to move through the day. Okay, so it's, it's lots of, lots of weird and wonderful stuff. Now, can I show you 8 times? Um, I want to show you the I think it's maybe— no, it's PhotoPills that does that. We'll do that after the break. So that kind of AR gives a really good visualization of where the Milky Way is, but that's PhotoPills does that better. So I'm going to hold that as an exciting thing to look forward to after you're gone.

Okay.

See whether you come back for that. All right. Okay, so it is 5 to 10. Let's take a 10 or 12-minute break until 5 past 11. Let me stop my share and pause the recording. Resume. Are we all back? Let's have a look. Oh no, Dot's still out and about. Mel, you're back. Yeah. I'm back. Steve's still got his camera. That's fine. Okay, right. Let us continue. Have I shared my screen yet? Okay, I've reorganized my screen during the break. So I've scrolled down a little bit. Do do do do do. to— well, if you— if we— if we come over to here, you can see the first part 1 is the Photographer's Ephemeris, and then go down to part 2, PhotoPills. Okay, so here we are in PhotoPills, and on my phone I have opened PhotoPills. And if you— that's the icon for the PhotoPills app. Okay, so this one is the one, and PhotoPills is— is kind of mobile app. You download it on your phone, and it's designed to go out with you into the wild, if you like. Okay, so that's what I'm using here. They've updated it not too long ago, so now it's got these nice big buttons. It makes it a lot simpler. It used to be a very, very complicated user interface, but they've tried to simplify it. And I would start with PhotoPills in the Academy. Okay, so, you know, again, PhotoPills, there are lots of, lots of little things that you can do with PhotoPills. So come into the Academy and just go through some of the video tutorials, and it will take you off to the PhotoPills website. I don't want that. There we are. And they've got lots and lots of very good videos and stuff on how to use it. Okay, the time bar and whatever. Yeah. And people showing, you know, how to get different sunsets and sunrises and all the rest of it. Okay, so the user guide and the how-to articles as well. Okay, if you prefer to read, then there's lots of articles there about, you know, how and when to put yourself into the right position for different things, whatever. Look, Astronomical Events 2026, The Definitive Photography Guide. Yeah, so there we are. You've got, you've got a link to lots of different stuff here. Of what might be happening. I don't know. I should I should share that with everybody. That's a really good article. Let's let's see if I can copy that link. Copy. Let's pop that in here. Photo events. Can I paste that? Oh, let's see whether I can copy that link for you. Astronomical Events Guide. Copy. And that should let me paste it now. No, right. Well, I'll try and, I'll try and go back to that later and find that for you.

Okay.

But it's under, it's under how-to articles in there. Now, so the main part of PhotoPills is that center thing, pills. And pills are just like what they, what they call each of their spaces, if you like, for, for doing stuff. So we have a planner, we have the sun where the sun is going to be in the sky and the moon is going to be in the sky and whatever. So, so if we have a look at planner, Okay, we get into what we saw before in TPE. We get into a very similar kind of map option for TPE. And if I zoom in here, we're on Valentia Island again. So if we, if we want to go into, you know, the Foher Cliffs, for instance, we can, we can come in here and we can move, move our pin to a specific location. Yeah, I find it's a little bit kind of tricky. You've got to kind of zoom this, zoom in a bit more and whatever. But there we are. I can, I can eventually get myself down to that, that particular point where you, you get out to the cliffs. And there's this amazing, there's amazing little viewpoint with a, with a fence around you so you don't fall into the sea.

Yeah. Lovely view to the Blaskets, of course.

Absolutely fantastic view. Yeah. So that's good. So now what you've got, just like we had before, is you can see kind of where, what's going to be happening and, you know, where. So we've, as you move through time, okay, you can see where the Sun is going to be and where the moon is going to be. Those lines show you the— so there's sunrise, I think. Yeah, 5, kind of 5, 6 AM. And now the sun is climbing in the sky, and it's gonna come over Chapel Town. So you'd be looking south for the sun.

Yeah.

And then the sun's moving across the sky, and it's gonna get pretty much up to the Skelligs before sunset. And there's sunset, you can see. Boom. Okay, so that's, that's it. Now, if you were down here, if you were—

Sorry, Joe, which is, which is sunset there? Is it the—

You can see, you can see as I just move into there, you can see as I just move in, move that, that bar at the bottom. I'm just scrolling along the bottom bar. And yeah, you can see as I, as I move into that, like that red zone there, that's, that's sunset. So you can see it's just darkening off. And then you've got blue hour and you've got whatever. Okay, so, so there we go. And you can see—

The line is the red line, is it? The line is the red line.

It's that line there, isn't it? That was the— that's the sun line. The one that's coming up from the west to 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock.

Yeah, yeah, that one.

But the map is showing you kind of— and then there's the moon behind it, coming, coming behind it.

If, if, Joe, if you wanted to find— so standing at the vantage point, if you're looking out where that rock line is, which is a great view towards the basket.

Yeah.

How would you find when is the time to go that the sun would then fall on the— behind the Blaskets on that line of those rocks? Right.

So there we are. I zoom out. Okay. Yeah, like that. Now on today's date, yeah, okay, sun is just gonna have set before we hit the Blaskets.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what we're going to have to do now is we're going to have to go forward in time. Okay.

Yeah.

So at the moment, that's saying the 24th of the 6th. So we've got to move through time.

Yeah.

And now we're almost there, aren't we? Look at that. So it's getting— so that's the 8th of May. So if we go to say the 18th of May.

Yeah. Now we're kind of So you just keep moving around until you find the right day, really.

Yeah, that's right. So now there we are. We kind of— sun's just going to be setting just before the— so we're probably into June, aren't we? We're probably into kind of mid-June or whatever. Let's have a look. Mid-June.

Maybe even a bit later because the line where your vantage point— you can't see it on there because it's— you're too closed in. But when you showed that shot earlier, it shows the line of the rocks, which is fantastic. Yeah, you pick the rocks up really well. And I'm just kind of thinking, as you look out on that line, yeah, it's trying to— it's probably a bit later, maybe it's July or something, but that's great. That's how you do it.

So that's how you do it. Yeah, yeah. So it allows you to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

And who's the photographer down in, in, um, Barrenaskeleg? Um, and he shot the moon over the Skelligs, um, a couple of years ago, and he'd been trying to get this shot for a number of years. Uh, oh, it might be Portmagee he's based in, but I mean, you know, if we drop that, if we drop—

Might be Patsy Lynch, maybe.

No, it's not Patsy Lynch. Um, his name will come to me. But look, so if we put ourselves on the, on the kind of headland there, Yeah. Those are the Skelligs, aren't they, there? Yeah. So if you kind of went up to the north end of the island, somewhere like that, and popped yourself on there, and you're shooting out to the Skelligs here. So now you can see, right, well, sunset would be behind the Skelligs on the 11th of June. Yeah. It's not 14:46. Well, the sun would be over the Skelligs at 14:46. Yeah. So you're gonna have to shoot probably in November or something to get over the sky.

Yeah, that's fine. It's— yeah. And they're the shots you want, aren't they?

And they're the shots.

So that of work and being able to move your timescale, your time, your day is obviously, as you've just demonstrated, the way you can do that.

That's great.

That's fantastic.

We've got lots of different ways of showing the map. Okay, so there's the Google hybrid map that I'm showing, but if you want terrain as a map, I've changed that to terrain. Okay, and now look, you can see the terrain as well. Okay, so that's pretty useful. So this was— what did I click on? This was— you see the— I can't show you on this— this icon here. It's the map layers icon, the one on the bottom right with the 2 little squares above each other. Okay, so that icon there gets you into map settings, and there's lots of options here. So you can have depth of field view, you can have sun and moon view, and you can show the sun size. You can change the size of the sun. You can show light direction. So let's try the sunlight direction. Yeah. Now, as we move through the day now, you can see the direction of the light. So the lines are, if you like, and you can see where the sun is there. Yeah. So the sun's down south, Ballinaskeaghs. Now you can see that sun line. So you can see the line of the sunlight. So that'll give you an idea of where shadows are going to fall, for instance. and stuff like that very, very clearly. And then later on in the day, you know, the sun's moved, and you can see. So, so that's, that's really, really useful.

Wow.

Fantastic. So that's sun direction. And then let's— we can't— why can't we turn on Milky Way? Right. So let's go to night AR. This is fun, right? So this is, this is one of the reasons why most people want to use PhotoPills. Okay, so I'm going to pick up my phone again and let's take— let's bring it back to today. So where are we? We are on— how do I get that back to now? Right, there we are, 25th of the 4th, 2026 at 11:17. Now you can see my kitchen, but you can also see Where the Milky Way is. Yeah, yeah. And as I move around, okay, you can see, right? So there's there's the moon. Okay.

Who would have thought you'd have that in your kitchen?

Yeah, the moon is in my garden behind that behind behind that blind. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? And now, as I as I swipe my finger, you see at the top of the screen it says twenty fifth of the fourth ten thirteen. So let's, let's move forward. 11, 12, 13. So I'm just swiping left on my screen and basically I'm moving forward in time. So now we're up to 20 past 5 this evening. And as we keep going, so if I point my camera into my back garden at 9 o'clock, yeah, that's what I would kind of see if it was dark enough. That's where the Milky Way would be.

Yeah.

So it would, you know, I'd be getting a little bit of the Milky Way going up into the sky there. But most of the Milky Way at this time of year is kind of down here. Yeah. Which is, you know, I'm shooting down into the floor.

Yeah.

But if I can move the date, how do I move the date? Let's see whether I can move move forward in the date.

Do do do do do.

And this is what I'm not. There's an easier way of doing it than than you know just scrolling through like this. You can get to dates. Can't remember. Can any? Can either of you that use PhotoPills remember how we move directly to a date? Date range, right? Okay, there we are. Okay, so if I want to move to it to— let's go to November. Okay, there we go. Okay, start date. I've got to choose a date, obviously. No, let me choose my birthday, November the 11th. There we are.

Yep.

And then to, let's say, December the 11th. So I'll have, I'll have a month. Okay, so now we're on that date range, and if we come into the AR now at that, at that date range, find Planner. Night AR. Now we're still on today's date settings date. Okay, so I can—

Need to cross off current date and time. Thank you.

That's it. Yeah, right. Okay, there we are. So now I can move forward in time and say, what, where's, where's it going to be on my birthday? Yeah, at you know, at say 9 o'clock, 9:20.

Boom.

Okay, so now where's, where's the Milky Way going to be?

There.

Milky Way is going to be there now. So, you know, it's, it's kind of on today's date, it was, it was kind of here. And now it's going to be around there in the sky and stuff like that. So you can move the date and the time to any date, and time that you want and then see what you're gonna see in terms of the Milky Way. And there's the same for meteor showers, okay? So you can, again, you've got date at the top, okay? You've got the major shower peaks and active meteor showers and stuff like that. You see, and it's telling you. So 23rd of April, the Lyrids, okay? And 6th of May, Yeah, there's, there's going to be more stuff coming, coming through from the Eta Aquarids and whatever. Okay.

Oh my God.

So you can come in here and it'll give you these. And I mean, you know, for you, Steve, you know, if you're, if you're in Kerry, um, in the dark skies area, that's when you head up to Giacon, isn't it? Because, you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, you've got 360-degree views, you're gonna get something.

Yeah, it's incredible because it's, it's a gold tier Dark sky. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a nonsense in some way. I mean, it is. I mean, it's supposed to be the only one in the northern hemisphere. Now, clearly, if you're in the Arctic, yeah, there's not a lot of light pollution, and so it's just they haven't asked for it. No, but Kerry, it's only part of a country. It's incredible, really.

Yeah, it's amazing.

But no, as you say, it's great. What I love about that too is that. You can say, let's suppose you've got half a dozen locations, you can pick, I'm going to be in a certain location on a date.

That's right.

At least you can pick the best one.

Go have a look.

You know, pick one of your 6.

Yeah.

To be able to get the best shot, you know, whereas obviously not all 6 will be right, but you'll get something.

You'll get something. Yeah. So it's just giving you that, that kind of— it's giving the ability to kind of move through time. At whatever point in the planet you want, you can plant your pin. You can say, right, I'm going to be there in 2 months' time. Now, where's the Milky Way going to be in the sky? Yeah. And then maybe you decide, well, if the Milky Way is over there, yeah, I actually need— I want to find something between me and the Milky Way. I want to find the village church or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that I can line the spire up with with the Milky Way or whatever. And then you go out that evening and you plant yourself the right side of the church so that when the Milky Way comes up, the church spire is aligned with it and stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely fabulous.

Fantastic.

Yeah, so very, very good. So yeah, Sun is just kind of telling you for any given day what The the what's happening with the sun? Okay, so you can put in again. You can put in your date. Yeah. So today we've got what was it? Nautical twilight. So blue hour five twenty-five, and then yeah, sunrise was six o four this morning. Okay. Didn't see that. Thank goodness.

Yeah.

And then we can see sunset is quarter to 9. Yeah, blue hour, you know, is gonna start around 8 minutes past 9 and run for, you know, for— well, that's golden hour. Blue hour ends. Yeah, golden hour ends and then blue hour starts. And then we've got nautical twilight is the end of blue hour. So at the moment today, blue hour is only 16 minutes long. Yeah, from 21:08 to 21:24. Yeah, so if you were, if you were out there wanting to shoot blue hour, you know, and get those, those lovely deep blues in the sky, you've got a very limited window today, whereas other parts of the year it might actually extend out to a whole hour, you know, or even longer. But you— this is the information, it's all in the app, if you like. This kind of information. So that's the sun information. We've got moon information as well. Okay, so here we are. So at 2:05 AM, yeah, that's when the galactic center visibility starts. So that's when basically the Milky Way rises above the horizon. Yeah, and you can see it. Yeah. And then it stops being visible at 3:33. So you've only got an hour to shoot the Milky Way from the location that we're at now, tonight, this morning, if you like. And then we've got, look, we've got moonset, sunrise, moonrise, and all the rest of it. And then further as we scroll down, you can see there the different phases of the moon. So the 9th of May, we're going to have a half moon. The 16th of May is the next full moon. So you want a full moon shot, it's the 16th of May, or you've got to wait until the 15th of June. Yeah, just wonderful, isn't it?

Or if you want a really dark sky, 31st of May is the time.

Well, that's right. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So then, then the moon will be kind of completely Unlit, or is is is that full moon, or is that yeah? So that's the full moon. Okay. Yeah. So there we are. Look, full moon is is the 29th, and then fully occluded moon is the 10th of is the 10th of the 10th. Okay. Yeah. Wonderful. And you can go through day by day and look. You can see what the moon is going to look like. As you move through the date. So cool. Yeah. Field of view. You can put in your camera. So you can choose from any camera, put, put your model of camera in, you can put in your lens.

Okay.

So 35mm equivalent, or, you know, the real lens. Yeah. So, you know, if I'm putting in another on a non-APS-C kind of lens, it'll, it'll do the calculation for me. Okay. How far you are away from the subject. Okay. And are you shooting landscape or portrait? And it'll tell you things like your field of view. And stuff like that. So it's technical information, but it just gives you an idea with that particular lens, what's your angle of view and stuff like that. So that's cool. And if you come in and you set that up, that field of view, yeah, then when you come back to the maps, yeah, depending on which map View you are showing. Field of view. You see the map tools there. So if you want to see field of view now, that's my field of view if I'm pointing off towards Dunshoyn and whatever. Yeah, with the lens that I just put on my put in. Okay, so if I'm just using my the lens that I just put in, that's what I would get in the field of view of the lens. You can see it there, that triangle.

Yeah.

So you could say, you know, well, if I put my wide-angle lens on, am I going to get the sunrise on the left and the baskets on the right? Yeah, with that lens, and it would show you that stuff. So again, for planning purposes, Really, really clever. Yeah. And that means you don't have to take your whole kit bag with you just in case. Yeah, you know, all 14 lenses that you own just in case you needed one of them, because you can actually figure out, well, actually, I only need that lens. That'll get me the shot that I want.

Yeah.

You can, you can lose so many days planning shoots, can't you? Gordon, you're nodding furiously here. Is this something you've done? Have you lost large parts of your life to these apps? Yeah, you start thinking about it, you start to work through the days. I've got a particular shot I'm trying to do with a bridge and get the sun underneath the bridge with the shadows using the drone.

So you spend so much time saying, when's the best time?

Well, that house will be brightened up by that. Don't do it then, leave it a bit later, you know, you spend ages at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the people who've created these apps must be absolute nerds, mustn't they? You know, to have put all this math in and all these calculations and stuff and whatever and made it available on a phone. I mean, it's just incredible, isn't it? What we've got available to us now on these things. So they didn't like hitting the gym for the weightlifting training. No, that's one of the reasons I moved away from Nikon to Fuji, because now I just take maximum of 2 lenses with me, normally a couple of primes and my little camera. And I've got a little bag that's, you know, smaller than a laptop. And a couple of inches thick, and everything goes in that. None of these big backpacks anymore. No, it's wonderful. Okay, what else have we got?

AR.

That is just showing you, I think, yeah, where the sun is. So the AR view. So at the moment, I could, I could point up here and the sun's over there. Okay. And so you can see my kitchen. And if I point up there, the sun is outside over there. Okay. And then as I move around, you can see at this particular time of day. Yeah, well, now that's 14:59. But this— and I've got a 13mm lens on as my focal length. If I set that to 25, you can see it's narrowed my field of view down again. As well. So we've got, we've got the ability to see, you know, that's, that's directly north, that's directly south, and you can see these things in the, in the field of view. So it's just, just giving you different, different options to visualize things. I don't think there's anything else major in here. I mean, depth of field tables, Okay, so you know, if you know what camera you've got, you know the focal length of your lens and stuff like that, it'll, it'll give you the depth of field at the different f numbers, the nearest and the furthest point that will be in focus at, you know, f/5.6. So your focal point, your hyperfocal point is, you know, normally about a third of the way into the scene. So if that's a meter away, a meter away here, and we're shooting at, say, f/16, then you can read across a meter at f/16 with this particular lens. Yeah, I'm— everything will be in focus from 0.8 meters in front of me to 1.3 meters in front of me.

That's really helpful. My goodness, a number of times, a number of times I've tried to take somebody's face at f/2.8 or whatever and find their ears are out of focus.

Because by the time you've, you've pulled out PhotoPills, found this, figured that out, and said you need to step back 3, you know, half a meter.

Yeah, but you could, but you could do that beforehand.

Well, that's right. I mean, yeah, absolutely. This is great for for kind of macro work and, and yeah, you know, staging, uh, setting up a shoot and stuff like that. Yeah, you can figure all this stuff out, you know, beforehand, um, and whatever. If you want to find particular stars, you've got those in there, um, and you can, you know, you can figure that out. You've got, um, I mean, just, just a timer, you know, you just, you've just got it. They've just built all these things in.

Time-lapse.

Okay. How long will it take me to shoot a time-lapse? Okay. So what's my shooting interval between shots? How many shots am I going to take? And then how long, you know, how long is that going to be? So there we are. Yeah. Yeah. So at 25 frames a second. Yeah. So that's, that's your normal video playing time.

So I need a tripod.

That's gonna, that's gonna give me a 30-second video. Yeah, a 30-second video playing at 25 frames a second. I need to shoot 750 photos.

Wow.

Yeah, as, as time-lapse. So yes, you'd be on a tripod, and that would be probably an all-nighter, wouldn't it? Well, 2.4 seconds times 750. Yeah, gives you the number of seconds that that would need, would take to shoot. But again, there's your planning. So now, you know, if that's going to be— is that— if that's a 2-hour shoot, I don't know what it is, I haven't done the math, but let's say that that would take 2 and a half hours, that time-lapse.

Yeah, 30 seconds, you've already told us you're doing 25 frames a second, so it's quite quick really.

No, but that's the video playing time. But to shoot those as a time-lapse sequence, where you're taking one shot every 2.5 seconds, that's 2.5 times 750 seconds, isn't it? Which would— might be several hours. Oh, my word. But then you look at the sunrise times and things. So you say, right, well, for this time-lapse to work, I want to start in pitch black, and then I want the sun to rise over that mountain, During my time lapse, and, you know, it'll come to an end when the sun's halfway up the sky or whatever. Yeah. That's actually showing you how long it will take.

It's about 30 minutes, Joe, because it's 750 times 2.40.

Is that what it is? Is that what 30 minutes is? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the event duration, is it?

Right.

Okay. Fantastic. So if we change, if we change that, the interval time, The 25 frames a second is slightly confusing and unnecessary. Yes. Yeah.

Okay.

There we are. Shooting interval, clip length, event duration. All right. Okay. So you can, you can set it into, into different ways. So that's your shooting interval there. Right. So if I wanted to take one every 5 seconds.

Yeah.

Okay. There we go. Right. So the event duration is now an hour and 2 minutes. Yeah.

Yes.

So it's doing all the calculations for you. So now you can, now you can go to your map and you can say, right, so I've got this hour. So I want to start half an hour before sunset or 15 minutes before sunset or whatever. And then, you know, set up your timings and stuff like that. So there's so much information in here for doing this stuff. Subject distance, look at this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To get, to get, to get stuff. So amazing. Let me, let me come out of that a minute. Come back to Notion. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because I want to go back as well to something. So again, I've gone through and I've given you a kind of step-by-step through of figuring out how to, you know, place this, the sunset and all the rest of it. Okay. So that's, that's all there. Now, somebody asked earlier on, and there's just for Steve. Yeah, I even did you another one, another page which you can get to there.

Very good.

So there we are planning a sunset shoot over the Skelligs.

All right.

Oh, brilliant. All the stuff that you need.

I might read that one.

Yeah, for the skeptics. So that's that one. So let me go back to my original. There we are. And go back to the bottom. Other things to try. That's where we were at, wasn't it? ChatGPT is very good. Okay, so let's put this into the chat. Okay, if I want to shoot the sunset falling over the Skelligs from the western end of Valentia Island tonight, where do I need to set up, assuming I'm driving, and what time will sunset occur? Okay, now I put, I put exactly that into ChatGPT yesterday. And let's see what it gave me. Open in browser.

There we are.

If you go into ChatGPT now and you want to do something reasonably complicated like this, make sure you've got thinking turned on. Yeah, and go into configure. And make sure that you're using 5.5. This was updated this week. And 5.5 is like hiring a college professor rather than a 4-year-old. It's, I mean, it's a huge leap up in capabilities. Okay, but it's, you have to go and turn it on at the moment. It's not become the default yet. Okay, it will be at some point. So just go up to ChatGPT, turn on thinking and go into configure and just select 5.5. Okay. Now, here we go. So let's see, let's see what we got. So I'll check the geometry as well as the clock time, because sunset over the Skelligs depends on the sunset azimuth, not just where you stand. Okay. Right. So here we are. And it says straight away, yeah, sunset at Valentia Island's about 9 o'clock. Okay. But sorry, you're not going to get the sun setting behind the Skelligs from the western end of Valencia tonight.

Okay?

Because the sun sets over there and the Skelligs are over there. So you're going to— so it tells you that straight away. Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, I said western end of Valencia. Yeah. But I said I'm driving.

Yeah.

Okay. So it's now given me where to go. Yeah, it's told me it's the Braehead car park. Okay, there we are. So that's the western end, and then I've got to walk up to the tower and stuff like that. Now, that walk is good.

1.25 kilometers.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, again, you can't drive.

You have to park.

You've got to walk it. Yeah, that's right. So again, you need to kind of understand that. But look at this. So arrive and park at 7:30. It's a 20 to 40 minute walk up to the viewpoint. Yeah, that means you're going to get your warm light at quarter past 8, sunsets there, and you're going to get the afterglow kind of until about half 9. I mean, how good is this?

That's incredible.

As a set of, you know, instructions, not only where to park, but the time to get to different parts of the location and stuff like that. Okay, so Brae Head is going to be— but don't plan the frame as the sun setting behind the Skelligs. It's going to be Skelligs in late side backlight and the sunset colors off to the northwest. So it's almost telling you that. And then it's given you references as well to, you know, to where— to things that can be kind of used for that. So I mean, the—

Extraordinary.

Yeah, the AIs are getting so good now. at doing this stuff. They are allowing you to plan shoots. And, you know, it's like, it's like you're talking to an experienced photography guide, isn't it?

This stuff.

Yeah.

So do you think when you've done that, Joe, of course, that's not really telling you whether there's cloud or whether there's terrain or whatever.

No.

So it's not as clever yet. Or maybe it's a different question, but it's not going to replace Photo Ephemeris or PhotoPills at this point, I guess. But it's very, very helpful if you already know some of those things, I suppose. But maybe at some point in time it, it may well replace them, I would, I would think.

Well, let's, let's see. Is it going to be cloudy at Brae Head tonight? Okay, okay, let's see. So now it's easy, and because I've turned on 5.4 and thinking, it's It takes a little while to to kind of have a thing. Yeah, but that's fine. Okay, right. So I'll treat tonight as the 25th of April. Check the closest practical forecast. So now it's going off and it's kind of looking for weather widgets and things like that. Okay, here we go. Look at this.

Dear God!

Okay, da da dum. Extraordinary. There's the MetEoron one. So bring a long lens. Yeah, watch the northwestern sky because that's where the color will be. Yeah, and I always ask it to give me a reliability rating in terms of its recommendations and things. So it's just given me that recommendation. So, so yeah, so maybe not tonight, but you know.

Maybe not tonight. Yeah, avoids all those early mornings where you go out wanting a sunrise or whatever and But it doesn't work.

So give me the next date that looks like it will be clear for a sunset shoot as previously described. So now what it should do is go off and check. Yeah, so look, it's checking the short-range forecast.

Yeah.

You see, it's, it's doing all this stuff in the background now, kind of going off and checking tools. And, you know, this is agentic AI working. Here we are. So AccuWeather, it's now looking at stuff. Okay, so Carcaveen, Valentia Island's the nearest useful forecast point. Okay, because Braehead doesn't resolve in, in the, the weather widget apps because that's not a weather station. Probably got us into the nearest weather station or whatever.

It is. Yeah.

Right. So here we are. So AccuWeather, it's querying now. So look at this. So now today we've got pretty much full cloud. Sunday's looking better though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And Tuesday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Look at this.

Oh.

So night Sunday, night cloud 27%. It's just rain risk 3%. Verdict, go. Brilliant.

If you go back, if you go back about a paragraph, I think it said, oops, I just realized I needed to take something into account, and then did it differently.

Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, the thinking process now is really, really good. So here we are. The broad signal is good for Sunday evening, low rain risk and much clearer night conditions. you know, local Atlantic edge cloud around Braehead can be awkward and differ from Knightstown. So it knows, you know, and Knightstown's only what, 3 or 4 miles from Braehead, if that. So yeah.

Yeah, it is. It is almost exactly about 3 miles, actually. Yeah. 0.76, that's in reliability. Is 1 the perfect answer? Yeah.

Yeah, 0 to 1 is my reliability score rating there. Yeah.

And you use ChatGPT there. Is that better than say Gemini or now? Is it kind of leapt up the scale or would Gemini do the same thing?

Gemini, well, let's do exactly that same thing in Gemini and let's see. And then you can compare. But they're both pretty good. ChatGPT, it's I know is very good right now because it's got that new model.

Yeah.

Here we are, look at this. So it's going off to Google Maps. Okay. Yeah, Braehead Castle as well. There we go. Okay, Geocorn Mountains is the highest point on the island. If you don't want to hike with heavy gear, Fower Cliffs, Telegraph Field. Okay, so it's giving you all these options.

Okay, very good.

But it's not saying don't do it. No, no. But that was where do I need to set up, wasn't it? Yeah. So now if I ask what else did we ask ChatGPT? So that was the first one. And then we said, is it going to be cloudy tonight at Bray Head? So let's see. Okay, so the forecast tonight is looking very promising. Conditions are expected to be mostly clear around the time of sunset. So we're getting slightly, slightly different, different viewpoint here.

But yes.

You know, and it's giving you—

ChatGPT said Sunday, didn't it? Yeah.

So be aware of, you know, it's gonna be 10 degrees or 11, but wind exposure, it'll be colder. So gear up accordingly.

It kind of instinctively from that feels like ChatGPT was more on the button, as it were, than this one.

Yeah. But, you know, good to know. The nice thing is you can, you can put the same questions into 2 or 3, and then you've got kind of different answers and confuse yourself entirely. But I mean, look at this, given the clear and sunny signals here, horizontal visibility across the Atlantic should be high, allowing the jagged profiles of Skellig Michael and Little Skellig to stand out sharply. I mean, just amazing. How would perplexity compare to this? Because that's usually quite good with complex Calculations. I don't want to be in computer. I want just to be in— yeah, that's fine. That's just regular, isn't it? So you see, this is checking all this stuff in the background. Yeah, they all do this now. They all, they all go off and try and look for different things. I mean, look at this. It's looking, looked at all those different things in just a second or two. Yeah, and now it's, now it's cogitating. Come on, come on. You see, I, I have them all on thinking mode because they give, they give you better So here we are, head up to Brave.

Joe, do you have to set each of those other 2, Gemini and Perplexity, do you have to set them up for thinking as well? Do they do it automatically?

It depends. I mean, down at the bottom here, I've got this on Claude Sonnet and I've got it on, it's on select the best available model at the moment. So this one's chosen itself automatically.

Yeah. Okay.

Perplexity, you can actually choose to use, you know, a lot of different models. And I've got, think, you see, I've got thinking turned on there. So it just thinks a little bit more. So, but here we are, look at this, getting there by car, bridge from Portmagee. Yeah, drive to the car park. It's £2 in coins. You got €2 in coins. Remember to take your €2 up there.

True.

It's a 45-minute walk uphill, 2-kilometer walk. So then it's giving, look, it's giving you the timings and stuff. Yeah, bring sturdy footwear as the path is uneven. Yeah, it is. And it will be breezy up top, been up there. Yeah.

So look at that.

Fantastic.

But ChatGPT was the only one who said, don't do it tonight. Wait till June.

Yeah. Because ChatGPT was saying it looks like it's gonna be cloudy.

No, it was saying the sunset is not gonna be in the right direction.

Oh, is it not in the right place? Yes.

Right.

Yeah. So at the moment, ChatGPT probably gets the win.

It's the winner. Yeah.

Yeah. But okay, very good. There we go. So yeah, if you don't want to go, you know, into the fancy apps, Even these days, the AIs will do a pretty good job for you. So yeah, so there we go.

Right. Hours of endless fun.

And then I've given you links at the bottom there to some more of the videos and stuff and written tutorials and stuff. There's some more guides on night sky planning and whatever. There's a couple of videos that I found on YouTube that are quite good as well. And then a load of other links to learning about PhotoPills. There's the official academy, pre— get download these articles as PDFs. And they're always useful because you can store a PDF on your phone, you know, so then you've got them with you.

Yes.

And then there's some, there's some books on Amazon there. As well. So fantastic. Yeah. So there's quite a bit of material in that, in that little handout for you all.

Yeah, I think so.

Some gentle reading for you this afternoon. Yeah.

If you're interested.

Super.

Well, then thank you.

Thank you for that suggestion, Steve.

That's, that's wonderful. That's hopefully that will save an awful lot of messing about, turning up and finding, oh my God, I picked the wrong day. And when you get up at 3 in the morning or something, it's not fun.

That's it. Yeah, great. So next time we have, um, what was next time?

Was old photographs.

Yeah, that's right. So yeah, so I'm not sure where that is now, but, um, yeah, old photographs next time. So, so no joke, no No, what is it? It's using the image, our images. Oh, creative, creative use of it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we'll go on. And then it's the photographs.

And then it's photographs. Oh, that's number 3. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

Sorry. And those will be on a Saturday morning at 10 o'clock, Steve, apart from the last one on a Friday.

Yeah, I'll try not to be in a hotel in a restaurant next time because it's not Fun.

You have far too many friends. That's the problem.

Well, is it? I don't know about that, but it's a pain in the backside when you try to get on the Wi-Fi and it won't work. I said, oh, it should be all right, sir.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okie dokie.

Very good.

Right. Well, enjoy the rest of your day. I've got to go and mow the lawn now. Prepare for a braai. So we're going to have a first. First barbecue of the season today, so yeah.

Oh, fantastic! Thanks everyone. Okay. Thanks Joe.

Bye.

Bye. Excellent.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Bye bye.

Bye.