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No spam emails - only the good stuff - that’s our promise!
You tell PhotoWatch what a great shoot looks like. We watch the forecast for you and only buzz your phone when enough of it lines up. Here's exactly how that decision is made, and how to set up your alerts so they work for you.
Choose which of your saved locations this alert should watch. Each one is checked separately.
Add the conditions you want, give each one stars for how much it matters, and put them in order.
Before your shoot, PhotoWatch scores each spot. If one scores 67% or more, you get a notification.
Tides, cloud, wind, fog, rain, swell, moon and more. Only add the things that genuinely make or break the shot.
From 1 star (a nice bonus) to 5 stars (I really need this). Stars do almost all the work in the score.
Drag your conditions so the most important is on top. Order only gives a small nudge: it decides between conditions with the same stars, but never lifts a lower-starred condition above a higher one.
Every condition is worth points: roughly its number of stars, plus a small extra for sitting higher in your list. At check time, PhotoWatch looks at the forecast for your shoot time and asks, for each condition, "is this going to happen?"
Say you shoot rock platforms at sunrise. You need a low tide, calm air helps a lot, and some high cloud to catch the colour would be lovely. So you set:
The dark line on each bar is the 67% mark. Exactly two thirds (66.7%) counts as a pass.
See what happened? Because Low Tide has the most stars, missing it sinks the score, while missing one of the lower-starred extras still gets you an alert. That is exactly how stars let you say what matters.
Most alerts fit one of these patterns. Pick the one that sounds like your shoot.
One thing is essential, two are nice to have.
Two things are essential, one is a small bonus.
Three things matter about the same.
Some conditions can never all happen at once: the tide can't be low and high at the same time. So when you choose more than one from the same family, PhotoWatch reads it as "either is fine". If any one of them lines up, that family counts as met.
A family counts once in the score, with the highest stars you gave any of its members.
All checks use the forecast for your shoot time at each location.
Low, medium and high cloud are each 10% or less.
That cloud layer covers at least 60% of the sky and is the thickest of the three layers.
Wind of 15 km/h or less.
The forecast shows fog over at least 40% of the area.
Rain is forecast for that hour.
Thunder is mentioned in the forecast. An early heads-up, not a promise.
Each day's rise and fall at your spot is split into thirds: bottom third is low, middle is medium, top is high.
Wave height: low is under 1.25 m, medium is 1.25 to 2.5 m, high is 2.5 m or more.
Your chosen phase (new, crescent, half, gibbous or full), within 2 days either side.
The moon is down, for a dark sky and foreground.
The Milky Way core is above the horizon while the sky is fully dark (astronomical night).
One alert can watch several locations. If any of them scores 67% or more you get one notification, with the best spot first.
Your alert's warning time (for example 12 hours before sunrise) is when we look at the forecast for your shoot time. Checks run once an hour.
If you create or change an alert less than about an hour before its warning time, it may not be checked until the next day.
At an inland spot with no tide or swell, those conditions are simply left out of that spot's score, so they never count against it.
If the forecast is missing something we need (for example cloud data), that condition counts as not met. We would rather stay quiet than guess.
For astro alerts we check through the dark hours and only alert when conditions hold for at least 30 minutes.
Keep it short. Two to four conditions work best. Every extra condition is one more thing that has to line up.
Save 5 stars for true must-haves. Give bonuses 1 or 2 stars so they can't sink an otherwise great morning.
Don't pick conditions that fight each other. For example, Rain and Clear Skies will almost never happen together.
Put your favourite on top. When two conditions have the same stars, the one higher in the list counts a little more.
Make one alert per kind of shoot. A sunrise seascape and a Milky Way night want different things, so give each its own alert.
Lower the stars on your bonus conditions, remove one you can live without, or add a second spot to watch.
Add a condition that really matters to you, or raise its stars so it has to be met.
Every care is taken to check conditions, but forecasts can change between an alert and your shoot time.
Questions? Get in touch through the contact page on photowatch.app.
