Photographer and university student Megan Tucker has created a browser-based photography forecast, LightCast Suite, to help other photographers decide whether it’s worth getting out with their camera equipment.
Like many photographers, Tucker loves to get out and shoot. However, it can be tricky to find out when the conditions will be good enough to pack a camera bag and head out,mostmost for photographers who need to drive long distances to get to their favorite spots.
Tucker’s LightCast Suite provides photo quality data in a selected location on a 0-100 scale for golden hour (sunrise and sunset), night sky, and aerial photography. As Tucker’s portfolio shows, the Bentley University marketing student (class of ’26) is an avid drone photographer.
“I think it fills a real gap that has plagued me as a photographer for years: conventional weather tools don’t tell photographers what they need to know before they go out into space,” Tucker says. PetaPixel.
LightCast Suite considers many factors when calculating its data for sunrise and sunset conditions, including cloud cover, high-level cloud fraction, humidity, visibility, low cloud percentage, and precipitation. There are four levels of points: flat light (0 to 34), which should be shot (35 to 54), great levels (55 to 74), and finally, “Epic Light” (75 to 100).
Users can select a date up to a week in advance, however, the weather forecast can change significantly during that time. The sooner the better, at least for sunrise, sunset, and aerial photography situations.
On the other hand, some aspects of night sky photography conditions are relatively easy to predict. Important information, such as the phase of the Moon and the level of light pollution in the selected area, can be predicted. However, cloud cover, visibility, sky visibility and dew coverage vary from day to day. Like sunrise and sunset, StarCast has four grades. In this case, it is: stay inside, you should be shot, see clearly, and clear sky.
StarCast provides detailed information, including moonrises and moonsets, visible planets, and prominent constellations in the sky and their locations.
As with any forecasting method, there is a chance that the predictions will be wrong. A good forecast does not prevent a bad situation, or vice versa. However, time is precious, and it’s always a shame to go out and come home empty-handed. The LightCast Suite is built to help prevent these frustrations, while giving photographers an idea of when the photo conditions might be amazing. Photographers can even sign up for email alerts to be notified when conditions in a selected location exceed a specified threshold.
In addition to the casting tools, the LightCast Suite has a fourth tool: Tricast. This is a “camera toolkit” with six calculators that photographers may need in the field. There are calculators for timelapse and astrophotography camera settings, an ND filter and hyperfocal distance calculator, a photo tool that can be used to fix common photography problems, and a Sunny 16 calculator to find the best starting point.
LightCast Suite is free to use, has no ads and does not require an account.
Image credits: LightCast Suite. Main photo by Jeremy Gray.
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