Never miss another epic shot.

PhotoWatch is your personal conditions-watcher for landscape, seascape and astro photography. You tell it where you love to shoot and what good conditions look like for you: clear skies, a low tide, a new moon, calm winds, and so on. Then it quietly monitors the forecasts around the clock and sends a notification straight to your phone the moment a spot is lining up for a great shoot.

The whole idea is "set and forget." No more refreshing five different weather and tide apps at 4am. Set your alerts once, then just keep your batteries charged and wait for the buzz on your phone.

It works anywhere in the world, because PhotoWatch calculates conditions itself from global weather and astronomy data.

1. Tap the Locations tab at the bottom.
2. Tap + Add location.
3. In the Find a place box, start typing a beach, town or address, and matching places appear as you type. Tap the one you want.
4. Give it a friendly name if you'd like to rename it (e.g. "Turimetta Sunrise Spot").
5. Tap Save in the top-right corner.

Yes. When you're standing on the spot, tap Use my current location in the location editor. PhotoWatch grabs your GPS position and even tries to name the place for you. If it asks for location permission, tap allow.

Your Home Location is the spot shown at a glance on the Home screen. To set one:

1. Open the Locations tab and tap the location you want.
2. Scroll down and tap Set as Home Location.

It takes effect immediately. You'll always have exactly one Home Location, and choosing a new one gently makes the old Home an ordinary saved spot.

Tap any location in the Locations tab to open it. Change its name or re-pin it, then tap Save. To remove it, scroll down and tap Delete location.

On the free plan you get 1 Home Location plus 2 saved locations, three spots in total. PRO

With PhotoWatch Pro that limit disappears entirely: save as many spots as you like, all over the world. If you shoot more than a handful of locations, this alone is worth the upgrade.

Absolutely. In the location editor tap Enter coordinates manually and type the latitude and longitude (for example -33.7011, 151.2971). Most people never need this, since the search box and GPS button cover almost everything, but it's there for a precise, unnamed spot.

It's a quick reminder of how many of your alerts are keeping an eye on that spot. A location is "watched" simply by being included in an alert, so there's no separate on/off switch to worry about. If it says "Not used by any alert yet," add it to an alert in the Alerts tab to start watching it.

1. Tap the Alerts tab, then the + in the top-right (or + New alert).
2. Give it a name (e.g. "Coastal Sunrise").
3. Pick a Shoot type: Sunrise, Sunset, Astro or Custom.
4. Under Locations for this alert, switch on the spots you want it to watch.
5. Under Add conditions, add the conditions you care about.
6. Set the Check frequency and Advance time.
7. Tap Save in the top-right.

It sends a notification straight to your phone. When an alert finds a spot lining up nicely, PhotoWatch pings you with which location scored best and when to be there, so you can grab your gear and go. That's the whole point: you don't have to watch the app, because the app watches for you and taps you on the shoulder at the right moment.

You stay in control of these in Settings (a master Push notifications switch) and with Quiet Hours, so PhotoWatch only buzzes you when you want it to.

It tells PhotoWatch when your shoot happens so it can check conditions for the right moment:

• Sunrise: checks around first light.
• Sunset: checks around golden hour and last light.
• Astro: checks for the dark, middle-of-the-night window.
• Custom: for any other time you have in mind.

Inside the alert, tap the Locations for this alert header to expand it, then flip on each spot you want. The same set of conditions is scored against every location the alert watches, so a single alert can compare all your favourite beaches at once and tell you which one's looking best.

Under Add conditions, tap any condition to add it to your alert: Clear Skies, Minimal Winds, Low Tide, a New Moon, and so on. (See Conditions explained for what each one means.) Conditions marked PRO show a small lock on the free plan.

They let you tell PhotoWatch what matters most to you:

• Stars (1–5) set how important each condition is. Five stars on "Clear Skies" means a clear sky counts heavily toward a good score.
• Drag to rank: press and hold the ⋮⋮ handle and drag a condition up or down. The one on top is your highest priority.
• Tap the ✕ to remove a condition.

Together, these shape the "chance of a great shoot" score you get in your notifications.

How often PhotoWatch re-checks the forecast for this alert: Daily, every 12 hours, or every 6 hours. More frequent checks catch fast-changing forecasts closer to the day.

It's how many hours before your shoot you want the deciding check to run, in other words, how much notice you need to get ready and travel. Set it to 12 hours, for example, and for a 6:00am sunrise PhotoWatch does its check around 6:00pm the evening before, giving you the night to plan.

On the Alerts list, each alert has an on/off switch on the right, so you can flip it off to pause an alert without deleting it. Tap the card ("Tap to edit ›") to open it, make changes and Save, or scroll down inside and tap Delete alert.

Yes, and this is one of the nicest touches. Alerts are unlimited on every plan, so the same beach can have a Sunrise alert wanting clear skies and calm winds, and an Astro alert at the same spot wanting a new moon and the Milky Way up. Each alert judges the spot on its own terms.

The notifications sent to your phone are also kept under "My last 7 notifications" at the bottom of the Alerts tab. Tap one to see the full ranking of which location scored best. Tap Clear to tidy the list. And remember, silence is the point: no news simply means conditions weren't worth heading out for.

These let you ask for the kind of cloud you want. Mostly High Cloud (thin, wispy cloud up high) is the classic recipe for a fiery sunrise or sunset. Mostly Medium and Mostly Low Cloud are there for moodier or more dramatic looks. Pick whichever suits the shot you're chasing.

Asks for a clean, cloud-free sky, ideal for astro work, star trails, or a crisp blue-hour scene.

Calm air, perfect for glassy water reflections, sharp long exposures, and keeping your tripod steady.

For when you want atmosphere: misty forests, fog rolling over headlands, that soft, moody light.

Watches the rain outlook so you can plan around a shower, or chase the drama of a storm and the rainbow that follows.

An early heads-up for storm drama: brooding skies, distant lightning, and the moody light that comes with an approaching front. It's called Potential because thunderstorms are hard to pin down: PhotoWatch flags when thunder is showing in the forecast for your shoot time, not a cast-iron promise one will hit your exact spot. A Pro feature.

Seascape photographers live and die by the tide. These conditions score the water level at your shoot time so you can catch exposed rock shelves at Low Tide, dramatic surge at High Tide, or anything in between. Tide is a Pro feature, powered by a professional global tide model.

Swell is about what the sea looks like: Low Swell for glassy, calm water; High Swell for big, powerful surf; Medium for something in between. Bands are based on actual wave height, so they work anywhere in the world from day one. A Pro feature.

Add the Moon Phase condition and then pick the moon you want for this shoot: New, Crescent, Half, Gibbous or Full. Astro shooters usually want a New Moon for the darkest possible skies; a Full Moon is lovely for lighting a landscape at night. PhotoWatch counts your target as "met" when the shoot falls within a couple of days of that phase.

The bright, photogenic heart of the Milky Way (in Sagittarius) is only shootable when it's above the horizon and the sky is truly dark. This condition checks exactly that for your spot and time, so your astro alerts only fire when the core is actually up and the night is dark enough to capture it. A Pro feature, and it pairs beautifully with a New Moon target.

The current outlook for your Home Location: a cloud breakdown (high / mid / low), plus wind, temperature, rain and fog, and today's sunrise and sunset times. It's the quick "should I bother?" glance before you dig into your alerts.

Those richer readings, like live tide & swell, moon rise/set and phase, and Galactic Core rise/set, are Pro features. PRO With Pro, they appear on Home grouped into tidy sections.

Yes. Pro members get "Tides Show/Hide" and "Astro Show/Hide" headers on Home, so you can tap either to collapse or expand that group. Not everyone shoots seascapes or the stars, so you can keep Home showing only what matters to you. Your choice is remembered.

Two timers in one. Use the stopwatch to time a long exposure by feel, or set a countdown so you know exactly when to close the shutter on a bulb-mode shot. Set the minutes and seconds with the + / − buttons, then Start.

Meter your shot without a filter, pick the ND (neutral-density) filter you're about to screw on, and PhotoWatch works out the correct new exposure time, since each stop of ND doubles the exposure. Best bit: tap Use as Countdown Timer and it hands the result straight to the Timer, so you can fit a 10-stop filter, hit start, and wait for the buzz.

Point your camera at the scene and fill the on-screen box with your subject. Colour Temp reads the light's colour temperature live, in Kelvin, straight from your camera sensor, and updates on screen as you move. It gives you an accurate field reading to help you match your white balance to the light. A Pro feature. PRO

Use it to match your camera's white balance to the light in front of you, whether that's warm golden-hour light, cool open shade, or a mix of artificial light, so you can get more accurate colour in camera. There's also a built-in white-balance reference table (candlelight ≈ 1900K through to clear blue sky ≈ 10000K): a lower Kelvin looks warmer and more orange, a higher Kelvin looks cooler and more blue.

Plan your time-lapse before you set up. Enter any three of the four numbers (Shoot Duration, Interval (time between shots), Number of Frames and Clip Length) and the calculator works out the fourth automatically. Pick your frame rate (24, 25 or 30 fps) and you'll always know exactly how many shots you need and how long your final clip will be. Perfect for making sure a two-hour storm doesn't turn into a 30-second clip when you wanted a full minute.

Find the longest shutter speed you can use before the stars start to trail. Enter your focal length, aperture, crop factor (e.g. 1.0× full-frame, 1.5× APS-C), sensor megapixels and, optionally, the declination of your subject in the sky. PhotoWatch then shows two results side by side so you can compare:

• 500 Rule: the classic quick estimate, simple and widely known.
• NPF Rule: a more accurate formula by Frédéric Michaud that accounts for your sensor's pixel density. More reliable on high-megapixel cameras where the 500 rule can be too generous.

A short note explains which to trust for your setup. A free tool and no account needed.

An interactive sky dome that shows where the Galactic Core sits across the entire night from any of your saved locations. Drag the slider across the night to see the Milky Way arc across the dome, and watch the core rise and set in real time. Designed to help you plan the best moment to shoot. PRO

• Pick any of your saved locations from a scrollable dropdown.
• Jump to any date with the built-in calendar, or hit Tonight to go straight to the current night.
• Two tiles show the exact Core Rising and Core Setting times so you know when to be there.
• Tap Create Alert to instantly set a Galactic Core alert for that night or as a recurring season watcher.

The dome uses real Milky Way band data and recomputes as you drag, so what you see matches what you'll find at your location.

In the Settings tab you can set your units (Metric / Imperial), wind (km/h / knots), temperature (°C / °F), time format (12h / 24h) and quiet hours, plus flip on Dark Mode.

Settings → Preferences → toggle Dark Mode. The whole app re-colours instantly, and it remembers your choice next time you open it.

A window (for example 10pm–7am) when you'd rather not be disturbed. Set custom hours, or choose Follow iPhone to match your phone's own quiet settings.

Settings → Notifications has the master Push notifications switch. Turn it off to silence every alert on your phone, or leave it on and use the per-alert on/off switches and Quiet Hours for finer control over exactly when PhotoWatch is allowed to buzz you.

Tap any Pro feature or the Upgrade prompt anywhere in the app and the PhotoWatch Pro sheet slides up. Pro is US$12 per year (that's only US$1 a month, billed once a year). That unlocks unlimited locations, tide & swell, moon-phase and Galactic Core conditions, and cloud backup & sync.

Sign in with your email and PhotoWatch safely backs up your Locations and Alerts to your account, so they're never lost, and they sync across your devices. Set things up on your phone, and it's all there on your tablet too. A Pro feature. PRO

Go to Settings → Account, enter your email and a password (at least 6 characters) and tap Create account (or Sign in if you already have one). Once you're in, your data backs up automatically, and you can tap Back up now any time.

Yes. Everything you set up is saved right on your phone and survives closing and reopening the app. Signing in (Pro) simply adds an off-device backup and syncing across your devices, so nothing is lost if you change phones.

Yes. PhotoWatch calculates conditions itself from global weather and astronomy data, so it works for any spot you can pin, whether that's a local beach or a bucket-list location on the other side of the planet.

PhotoWatch takes great care to check conditions, but nature has the final say: forecasts can change between an alert and your shoot time. Treat an alert as a strong "worth heading out" signal rather than a cast-iron guarantee.