Photographer's Ephemeris 3D
Crookneck Consulting LLC
4.2 ★
239 ratings
$11.99
In this 3D visualization app, you can simulate natural light and celestial events for outdoor photography planning. Includes terrain rendering, moon phases, star maps, and event timelines.
AppRecs review analysis
AppRecs rating 4.2. Trustworthiness 83 out of 100. Review manipulation risk 21 out of 100. Based on a review sample analyzed.
★★★★☆
4.2
AppRecs Rating
Ratings breakdown
5 star
67%
4 star
12%
3 star
5%
2 star
5%
1 star
10%
What to know
✓
Low review manipulation risk
21% review manipulation risk
✓
Credible reviews
83% trustworthiness score from analyzed reviews
✓
High user satisfaction
79% of sampled ratings are 4+ stars (4.2★ average)
About Photographer's Ephemeris 3D
See exactly how natural light will fall on the land — day or night, anywhere on Earth. TPE 3D helps outdoor photographers plan their shots with realistic 3D terrain, sunlight, moonlight, and Milky Way simulation. Now with high-resolution map tiles, faster GPU-powered terrain, and improved controls for a smoother experience.
"TPE 3D predicted the light in the distance in the gap just before the right most hill very accurately." - OnLandscape Magazine
"This app has become an indispensable tool in my planning kit, I highly recommend it!" - David Kingham, Exploring Exposure
Watch a sunrise from the future in a rich simulation of sunlight, moonlight and starlight set against the actual topography of your planned shooting location.
Need to see when the arch of the Milky Way will rise between two mountain peaks? Need to see what time in the afternoon the valley will lose direct light in September? Watch the light unfold under clear skies hours, days, weeks or years before you're on location.
Visualize Light
- 3D terrain with realistic Sun, Moon, and Milky Way simulation
- Accurate moon phases rendered in-scene
- Symbolic Milky Way in Flying mode, high-resolution stars in Enhanced mode
- Ambient and overall lighting brightness tuned for clarity
- Night map colors automatically desaturated for legibility
Plan Your Shoot
- Continuous Sun, Moon, and Galactic Centre timeline with rise/set/transit events
- Daily and annual event lists
- Location search, decimal/DMS coordinate entry, and shared database with TPE
- Multiple map pins with saved “at pin” state remembered between sessions
- Tutorials linked directly to our YouTube channel
Control the View
- Fly smoothly around your scene, or zoom to focal-length equivalents
- Enhanced mode with maximum terrain and shadow detail
- Camera pitch, bearing, and direct elevation controls
- Reworked two-finger gestures for more precise navigation
- Higher default zoom near the camera in Enhanced mode (modern devices)
- High-resolution map tiles (512px) when not flying
- GPU-accelerated terrain loading for faster performance
If you like to plan your natural light photography to capture the photo opportunities others miss, TPE 3D is a must-have tool!
Note: TPE 3D is graphics-intensive — newer devices provide the best experience. Terrain resolution ~30m (1 arcsecond). Satellite maps and buildings are not included. Coverage 83°N–83°S. Internet connection required. Eclipse simulations not supported.
Photographer's Ephemeris 3D Screenshots
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Reviews for Photographer's Ephemeris 3D
LTSmith13
Glitchy since latest update
Sept 2025 Update: Since the latest update, I’ve found navigation to be even more glitchy than before. Scrolling around the map in a given area, with a single finger, causes unexpected movements. This makes it difficult to use, teach, or recommend to students and colleagues. ————————- I’ve used this app for planning and teaching night photography since it came out. It helps visualize the scene in terms of alignment of stars and large landscape features, but there are major drawbacks which make this app frustrating to use: 1. No satellite imagery. Regardless of the ‘complexity settings,’ there is no access satellite imagery. This is not only a disappointment, but unrealistic for a navigational/planning app. You can access satellite imagery with TPE, but not TPE-3D. This is a dealbreaker. 2. Navigating is impossible. The app is limited to a ‘zoom-out level’ that does not allow you to scroll to areas far apart. For example, in the original TPE, you can zoom out as far as you want to scroll to different states if need be for quick and easy browsing. This app won’t allow that. The only saving grace, which is by no means a real solution, is to go back to the regular TPE, pin the location, then export to TPE-3D. 3. Your ‘current location’ is not clear. Select ‘my location’ and the app flys to a general vicinity, but there is nothing to represent where you are located. When you pair this with the illegible background map, it’s impossible to know where you are located. 4. Moonlight across the landscape is too dark to notice a difference. Sunrise or sunset light within the app is legible, but I would like to see moonlight represented much brighter. If you’re planning a shot with moonlight and you look at this app outside during the day, it’s impossible to see the change in moonlight across the landscape. With these current design issues, most of my clients try the app once, then never open it again. This app has a lot of potential, but I still prefer using Google Earth’s landscape desktop feature.
dento96
“ locating”………
This app used to be 5 stars. Now I can’t get it to work. So frustrating. The 3D map loads and then nothing just says locating with the spinning icon and NEVER LOADS. I have a brand new iPad Pro with latest updates and still won’t work. Grrrrrrrrrrr
