Looking for a Photographer's Ephemeris Alternative?

Direction Is Only Half the Problem

The Photographer's Ephemeris is a solid, focused tool for one thing: showing you the direction and timing of sunlight, moonlight, and shadow at any location on any date. It answers the geometry of the shot. What it doesn't answer is whether the sky will actually produce good light when you arrive — that's a conditions forecasting problem that requires a different set of data entirely.

LightCast Works Both Ways

Some photographers use TPE for directional planning and LightCast for conditions forecasting — each does its job well. Others find that LightCast's approach of scoring conditions directly replaces the need to manually cross-reference sun timing with a weather app, which is what most TPE users end up doing anyway. The web version is free, so it costs nothing to find out which workflow fits yours better.