One thing I’m always looking for is good light for that great picture. Doing landscape photography usually means early mornings or late evenings to get that magical illumination. Sometimes it takes more than just the right time, but also the right day as to when the sunlight will shine its best on the area you are taking a photo of.

This brings me to two tools I have used to figure out when to take a great landscape photo. The first is a website called SunriseSunset.com. This website will let you create a month-long calendar for a specific location you want to take a photograph of and will include the times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and also the various times of twilight. This calendar creation tool I utilized when I went to Mono Lake earlier this year to take sunrise photos. It really helped plan out my morning and figuring out what time I had to leave my place of lodging to get to the lake on time.

The second tool is more interactive and can be used on computers or as an app on various portable devices. It’s call the Photographer’s Ephemeris and can be found at www.photoemphemieris.com. This tool not only lets you know all the times of the sun/moon rising and setting, but is also an interactive map that will show you where the line of light will shine on the landscape itself. I’ve been using this tool to plan my next trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains and will hopefully benefit from it greatly. The software for computers is free and is easy to install. There is also a .pdf to download from the website that gives you a quick overview of how to use the software.

If you’re a photographer who does a lot of landscape photography, I really urge you to check out both sites. They make getting up early or staying up late for a great photo much easier.