One of my most recent purchases was an Apple Watch. Since using it for a couple months at this point, I feel confident in saying that it is one of my best purchases for photography that I have made! 

The most impact it has had is encouraging me to get up and do something. This doesn’t always end up being photography, but when I have time on the weekend that I wouldn’t have been motivated to do photography it does help to get me in the field. It is motivational to close the exercise rings every day and walking/hiking to do photography at sunrise helps me do this earlier! Even when I can’t use photography as a means of closing the rings it is helpful to get a bit more fit for those bigger photography excursions!

I have also found that, like many Apple devices, there are a plethora of photography apps baked in and available to download. The watch face I use daily has sunrise and sunset times on display constantly reminding me. There is also an app available that will set reminders of this and golden hour to make sure you don’t miss the best light! 

There are apps on the watch that, similar to the iPhone, track the location of stars for milky way photography. I don’t do much of this, but I can see how it is helpful! I do, however, find the solar dial watch face to be good looking and a brilliant visual of where the sun at in the sky. You can even rotate the crown of the watch to show the progression throughout the day and the timing of things like astronomical twilight. Tracking the celestial bodies is a ton of fun from my wrist!

The last thing I want to touch on is the weather functions on the watch. I use the built-in weather tracking for quickly referencing conditions as of right now, and I have the NOAA weather app for the radar and 12-hour forecast. I find this is a nice combination of speed and depth of information without having to dive into the iPhone. It is great for quickly finding out if the conditions look good in the local area! I also have an app to check on the raw weather data from airports in the region to find out what things may be transitioning to as they have Terminal Area Forecasts available as well!

What this all means is that while the Apple Watch isn’t necessarily a camera, lens, tripod, or other directly photography related gadgets, it can make me better with those tools. I could have gotten along just fine without it on my wrist every day, but I find it helps me in so many different areas making my life easier!