Photographer's Ephemeris 3D Customer Service & App Reviews

Photographer's Ephemeris 3D Customer Service
Photographer's Ephemeris 3D App Comments & Reviews (2026)
Photographer's Ephemeris 3D iPhone Images
Photographer's Ephemeris 3D iPad Images

3D Light Visualization for Outdoor & Night Photographers

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 App Comments & Reviews

POSITIVE REVIEWS
NEGATIVE REVIEWS

Photographer's Ephemeris 3D Positive Reviews

Excellent app, with only one real flaw.The app works great for visualization of how the light will fall. Honestly it’s only competitor is Google Earth Pro (desktop only) and this does a better job than that. The controls take a bit getting used to, and I still slide around sometimes, but it’s workable. The *only* reason this doesn’t get 5 stars is the amount of juice this app uses- on my iPhone 7 Plus it absolutely cranks and destroys the battery life; I pretty much can only use it plugged in if I don’t want to lose obscene percentages of battery quickly. However, newer phones may handle this better, I’m not able to test that unfortunately. Even with this issue I still love this app..Robot-DuckVersion: 1.4

Working well on iPad Pro 11” - I use this like crazyGreat app for framing landscape shots and planning for light. Was very helpful on my Iceland trip. I’m unaware of another app that does this. On my iPad Pro, the two search buttons at bottom right bring up a grey screen that I can’t exit out of. I have to force close the app. This makes it so I can’t jump from Iceland back to the sites in the US that I’m shooting. The app is basically broken for me right now. NEW UPDATE: Its not network io. It’s screen orientation. When in portrait mode, the search pane is rendered off the screen. To see it, switch to landscape mode. UPDATE: I waited about five minutes and the saved places screen finally came up. What I may be seeing is the app waiting for data that never comes. When I tap those buttons now, the saved places screen comes up fast now. Suggest adding a spinner or a way to cancel the sync. UPDATE: I was able to verify the developer’s response. Things look good now. Been using the app a lot lately, (helped out a bunch on a trip last weekend to plan a Milky Way shoot). I’m very happy with the app. Thank you for the bug fixes!.BikerJaredVersion: 1.3.5

Really cool!The UI is a little confusing, but this is the photography planning tool I've always wanted; to be able to pre-visualize my shot at any geographic location at any time of day..Colin RobertsonVersion: 1.0.5

Great paired with Ephemeris and TransitI just got back from the Smoky Mountains and used 3D to fully visualize and plan shots down to the lens used and where to set up. Very accurate and just plain fun to use and even did some "arm chair" travel and photo set ups in the hotel at night to pass the time - great app and I love the integration with Ephemeris for smooth work flow. Well done!.Dkrowan1Version: 1.3.3

Needs workLocations are difficult. I have to start at the city level and manually find the location. Seems like an address should be sufficient. Would love to see improvement on this.SntbskamtbfVersion: 1.3.4

Powerful but very difficultA great tool, but also incredibly frustrating to use. Did not recognize Schwanachers Landing in Grand Tetons, and its tough to find spots and get them entered. Once you do its great, but finding your specific spot on the map is excruciating..PaulkammenVersion: 1.3.3

It’s a yesLike being there.MedicmitchVersion: 1.3.4

Great addition to the familyThe 3D sibling is a welcome addition to the family. I have used TPE and it's sibling Photographer's Transit for years to plan photographic opportunities. Still some bugs to work out, but this is/will be a great tool..Dsmgeoman_OKVersion: 1.0.5

Issues when connecting to TPEWhen TPE hands off a location and time to TPE 3D, 3D either opens then crashes, or opens but keeps spinning, never completing the location determination. You have to force quit 3D, relaunch it, then do the handoff from TPE again. Then it works..Amazing SkyVersion: 1.4

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Photographer's Ephemeris 3D Negative Reviews

Buggy and slowTakes awhile to load the map even when on fast WiFi. When pinching to zoom out, once you hit the “flight ceiling” (which isn’t that high) it stops recognizing your pinch and thinks you’re pointing so the map starts moving around. what’s the point of tilt slider on the left if you can’t manually change your tilt? if you tap or press it goes to -25. On a second tap it goes to 0 and every subsequent tap takes you back and forth between these angles. The elevation slider minimizes too quickly when trying to do subtle changes. Say i want to lower my elevation 2 full swipes of the slider. I slide my finger from bottom to top. Then quickly move it to the bottom and begin to slide up again and the bar is in the process of minimizing so i’m moving the map not changing elevation. I have to wait for the bar to finish minimizing before i can begin swiping again. Unless you are frantically flicking your finger the bar minimizes before you get back to the bottom. I also tried using both my index fingers and it would still minimize almost instantaneously after i took 1 finger off my phone. The light tracking is nice and is what the app for. Bottom line: I expect more out of apps I pay for..SetopeteVersion: 1.3.3

Mushy light, doesn’t work as advertisedMy results look nothing like the images in the App Store. Moving from sunrise to noon in the location I selected, an oceanfront bluff, you get a slight sense of shadow on the sand and then the light overall just comes up. In real light, there is absolute shadow on the sand until the sun gets up high enough to light it. Can I get a refund? Thank you.Disappointed84621Version: 1.4

“ 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.Dento96Version: 1.4

Not as useful as I had hoped.I was hoping this app would help me predict light and shadows on a given day and at a given time. To some extent, it does. But not the level of details that I need. A bit disappointed..AZBeaubatonVersion: 1.4

Not a satellite map viewDisappointing that TPE 3D uses a topo rather than a satellite map. Side streets are not named and are only marginally shown. Scaling of pin size doesn’t seem to exist. As you zoom in the pin becomes enormous blocking part of view. Using on iPad Pro..Rfm55555Version: 1.3.5

Needs better maps.On an iPad Pro 9.7, the map detail, even in enhanced mode, is too poor to use for any precision location planning..CanidVersion: 1.4

Not easy to useI like the TPE 2d version, I have been using it for a few years, so I purchased TPE 3D, I am still struggling with this app, it’s so difficult to use, I wish I can return it..DublinJadeVersion: 1.3.2

Ok, but needs a LOT of workI’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..LTSmith13Version: 1.3.3

Cool idea, bad designNone of the locations I've used (one which is a national park) have any useful mapping. Slow and Terribly unresponsive interface.SealereVersion: 1.0.2

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