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How to Scout and Shoot Amazing Astrophotography Photos ✨ + PhotoPills Walkthrough for Beginners
While doing some location scouting for the first time around Seattle, I stumbled on a beautiful scene at sunset which became my favorite photo of 2022!
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- Astrophotography (or star photography) for beginners: How to shoot and edit the stars & Milky Way: https://youtu.be/r0Rzd07gSd0
- HOW TO shoot STARS with a PHONE + Pixel 4a ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY mode review: https://youtu.be/zceHyYOH0lQ
- Tutorial | Star Trails Photography for Beginners: START to FINISH: https://youtu.be/zceHyYOH0lQ
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https://loicbellemarealford.ca
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#photography #locationscouting #lucky
► CHAPTERS
00:00 Sneak Peek
00:10 Introduction
01:25 What is this video about?
02:23 What is location scouting?
03:43 How to find locations to scout?
04:39 How I check if a spot will produce a good phtoo?
05:42 Why not just come at night!?
07:31 Moving location!
08:27 Oops...
08:59 Recommended location: Wow!
11:00 PhotoPills: Walkthrough
12:04 PhotoPills: Layers
12:34 PhotoPills: Map View
13:13 PhotoPills: Sunset/Sunrise Planning
15:17 PhotoPills: Milky Way Planning
15:54 PhotoPills: Night AR planning
16:46 New way of passing time :)
18:05 Taking my favortie photo of 2022!
20:56 Conclusion
21:13 Bonus!
► MY MUSIC
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/iu5gau/
- 0:00 Sneak Peek
- 0:10 Introduction
- 1:25 What is this video about?
- 2:23 What is location scouting?
- 3:43 How to find locations to scout?
- 4:39 How I check if a spot will produce a good phtoo?
- 5:42 Why not just come at night!?
- 7:31 Moving location!
- 8:27 Oops...
- 8:59 Recommended location: Wow!
- 11:00 PhotoPills: Walkthrough
- 12:04 PhotoPills: Layers
- 12:34 PhotoPills: Map View
- 13:13 PhotoPills: Sunset/Sunrise Planning
- 15:17 PhotoPills: Milky Way Planning
- 15:54 PhotoPills: Night AR planning
- 16:46 New way of passing time :)
- 18:05 Taking my favortie photo of 2022!
- 20:56 Conclusion
- 21:13 Bonus!
okay I know I said this trip wasn't about taking some pictures but I think when there's a nice scene you should still take a [Music] [Applause] [Music] shot hello everyone today we're going to talk about something that's quite different and this is actually something that I think is very important for most photographer but I haven't really done it at least not very seriously and this is location scouting so let's get started by Rolling the [Music] intro [Music] for those new to this channel I'm L mford A young photographic and filmaker on a journey to become better at this side so for this weekend of the 4th of July I was planning to do something special and go on a camping trip and take some astrophotography shot but I quickly realized that I had no idea which were the good spots around here it's also quite difficult because most of the most recommended spots are actually inside of the mountains where there's still a lot of snow right now here in Washington so that can be a problem the second problem was that most of the nights there going to be a lot of clouds in the sky so it wasn't really a possibility for me to take some good astrophotography shots so I decided to do something a little bit different and I think actually this is quite important and it's doing some location scouting so that's what I'm be doing this weekend I'm going bringing you along to show you this whole process and we're going to see if it's beneficial in the end or not in my next photo [Music] shoot okay so the first thing we need to talk about is what is location cling so like the name implies it's the fact that you go out and explore location to determine where you're going to be taking pictures when you come back another time this is perfect for a weekend like right now where was supposed to be very cloudy actually was cloudy most of the day uh and we're just probably even going to be some rain or things like that so the conditions are not great to be around and to be taking some pictures so the goal is you going to come out you going to look at the locations here so I'm not listening to podcast or things like that I really want to concentrate on looking at the scenes around to get an idea of where I could take some good pictures and I might take a few shots using my phone just just to remember the exact location with the GPS of where their were so when I come back another time so let's say at Sunrise or sunset this location where we are gold pound Creek is about uh 45 minutes from where I live so I could come here for Sunrise or Sunset and knowing exactly where to come when I get here it's actually going to be very useful because I won't be searching around the lake to try and find a location while the sunset is happening or sunrise or even if I want to come back here and take some astrophotography shot if I know exactly where to come it just makes the whole process a lot easier when I come [Music] back the first step of this process is to find the locations for this I did a simple Google search searching for the best astrophotography spots around where I lived actually didn't give this exact spot it gave something a little bit further away but I added all of the spots I wanted to visit instead of Google Maps there's a Nifty little feature where you can can create list and show them inside of Google Maps and I realized that this location was actually already on one of my lists so when I decided to go see the the location I decided to come and see this one it's very important to create this list and understand where you want to be going to visit because you're never going to really see online how they look like without seeing them in person so being able to be here understand the area really gives me all kinds of shot that I wouldn't have seen on the internet so for example there's a bunch of shot on this side that most people don't show that could be pretty nice especially for astrophotography [Music] if you're wondering what I'm doing with my phone this can work with any phone that you have you don't need a Google pixel 6 Pro or any phone like that to be doing this I'm simply taking some shots I'm using the wide angle lens to simulate what I would do usually during the night I like taking very wide angle lens when I Tak some pictures of the stars I'm trying to see what would be the composition so what would I have in the foreground what I would have for the stars and then I'm using a that that's called photo piles I'm going to talk more about that tomorrow when we're going to go at close to mount reineer that's going to be a super location I'm really excited to go and see that uh but the idea is just to get an idea of where is the sunrise where's the sunset where's the Milky Way and all kinds of information like that so for example here I realized that on the other side of the lake I actually couldn't really see the Milky Way so I had to come on this side so the views def not as nice in the foreground you don't have these nice big mountains we still get a nice view here with some small Mountains and the Milky we would be straight in the center in front of here so it could still be pretty interesting shots but these are the kinds of things that you really need to come in person and need to analyze and take some time to understand where you should be taking a shot when you come back to take the actual photo in the end you might be wondering why not just come here at night and directly start exploring at that point and I would say it's just because I wouldn't be as adventurous if I was coming in the middle of the night because you might have S that when I got here the road wasn't in very good condition but also all these little paths around if I only had a night light on my head uh I wouldn't be exploring as much because I wouldn't really know where to go where are safe uh what are the good spots so overall it's much better to come when there's a lot of light when you have time to explore and really get the best spots and then come back later on to take the actual photos when you know what you're going to be taking [Music] already okay I think this proves my point quite well normally if I came at night I probably wouldn't be walking around the lake too much but I realize at this point right here is actually much better than what I saw up to now because first of all we see the m in the background here much better but what is it even better is that right behind here completely straight around 1:00 a.m. in the morning you get the Milky Way I'm going to try and show it with the screen on my phone but the Milky Way should be coming up right here in the middle around 1:00 a.m. so this is a perfect timing so at 1:00 a.m. it's not too late in the middle of the night and you can get a perfect shot of the milk right here with the water in the front the mountains in the middle and the milk at the top so this could make a really cool shot in the end and without coming here and exploring the area I never would have known this and probably wouldn't even come to this spot for some as photography because it wasn't on the list of the places to visit for as photography close to my house in [Music] Washington I'm not sure it's going to show too well on the video but look how blue this color is it's really incredible the lakes around here with the glacier mountains you get super nice colors inside of the [Applause] [Music] water I think it's time to head back to the car and go to our next location it's actually getting quite late right now and this is because I left quite late this morning because I woke up late went for a run and took it relaxed but that's the cool thing with location scanting is that there's no stress at all you're not here for the good conditions take a picture or anything like that so really just here to enjoy your time look around try and find things so there's no stress at all about doing it so definitely let me know if you're enjoying this video up to now by hitting like button below and also share it with people this really helps the algorithm I don't like saying that but it really [Music] [Music] does I was a little bit too naive right here I was hoping there would still be some places at the campground to stay for the night it's first arrive for serve but it's way too late it's already completely full so I cannot stay here for the night but I found a little spot here to go check out the lake because this is one of the top locations that comes out in multiple lists uh because it's close to Seattle but also really dark and a huge view with mountains around so let's go check it [Music] out okay well I can definitely understand why this is a place that's recommended you have a super nice open view on the lake here with the mountains in the background they're not the biggest mountains there's actually some bigger ones on the other side over there that you can only see from the camground not from here but the Milky Way is actually in the back here so based on my previous research the Milky Way should be coming up in the middle here in the middle of the night H so it could be some really nice views here with the lake the mountains the Milky Way uh so yeah I think I'm going to set up here for my dinner I'm going to go get my stuff to eat H take a look a little bit more with my camera take some shots to get an idea of the composition and also see where is the Milky Way and different things like that for my photos but I definitely understand why this is a lake that's being recommended for astrophotography inside of [Music] Washington [Music] it's definitely not the worst place to have dater and with the nice little wind there's no mosquitoes at all so that's also a benefit of being here so now let's just enjoy the view and wait maybe for the sunset this might be obvious for a lot of people but never leave food outside if you don't want to have animals around you so that's why I brought my food back inside of the car right away and also a very important thing when you come in places like these where it can become pretty cold at night is to bring a second pair of clothes so I have some more clothes right here so I'm going to switch to them so I don't completely freeze while waiting for the sunset now that I'm in my warm clothes let's head back to the water and wait for the sunset okay so while we're waiting for sunet I want to quickly talk about the app I mentioned before so we're going to do a quick walk through this app is called phle pill so let's go inside of my phone right here and open it up I know it's a little bit pricey it's about $15 inside of the Google Play store or the App Store on iPhone uh but it's a really great app especially for styling locations I talked about it inside of my astrop photographic videos it's great for that too but just in general on your sty locations it's very very useful to have so if you open the app right here we're we're going to go back in the main menu here so it's going to open on this page so we're going to go here at the top and we're going to select the planner option so this going to allow us to plan where we are so at the bottom right here we have a little option where we can click and select our current location which is pretty useful so we can right away let us know where we are exactly if you want to have other options you can select different modes on how to uh select where you are so you can do other options here uh but if you go on the bottom right there's also an option here for layers which is very useful I really like this option we can decide what you're going to be showing up on S the map right here so we're going to say map tools field of view this going allow us to see how much our camera is going to see inside of the shot then we're able to see the sun I want to see the moon I want to see the Milky Way uh we could have the eclipse material showers all kinds of things like that Twilight is also shown so there's all kinds of things we can adjust right here so then if we go back to the planel right here if you look at the top of the screen uh we're going to see so if going to show it right here when're going to set the top of the screen right here we have all our different important informations for example uh what time is going to be the sunset at what uh time is going to be the sunrise things like that blue hours all these informations are visible right there we're also going to see at the top right right here so it might be a little bit harder to see right here but we can see how much the moon is going to be out tonight so this is very important as for photographers we're going to see here it's just a small little part of the moon so it shouldn't be too much of a problem then right underneath here if you go we have an option to select which camera we have so I selected my a74 you can select which lens you want to use and all kinds of infer like this and this can be used afterwards to calculate all kind of information they have a bunch of other options I'm not going to go through them but if you look at the option down here uh we can actually see that when when we turn around here we can see what my 1LE lens at 17 mm on my camera is going to look like so you can see here that I should be able to take completely all the mountains here and on both sides also inside of the shot so that's pretty useful information if you want to make sure that your subject is inside of the shot now if you look at the options here what is the most useful at the bottom um it's a bit hard to show but I'm just going to try and show it right here so you can simply take your finger here and you can move this around right here and this will allow to see how things react depending on where you are during the day okay so I zoomed out a little bit on my map right here just to see better what is happening so if you look at this right here we're going to see that the sun is coming down and as we see we can see the Orange Line turning around we see the sun is going to be setting right up from the other side here and it's going to hit the mountains on this side and should hit the ones at the back at the lake right here a little bit too so I hope that for sunet we get a a little bit of the light at the bottom here and in the back here but with the app it's really easy to see where's going to be the sunset and where's going to be the sunrise we can see the sunrise on other side and can see that car if you wanted to get good views of the sunset and sunrise we would be better to go on the other side of the lake there where we could see the sun setting and uh setting on both sides uh of the lake so these are the cams of information that are very useful when you're planning to see where's going to be the sunrise and sunset you definitely want to have a appp like this but the reason why I love this app so much is actually if we start going in the night so we're going to see first of all exact at which time when the color starts changing when the sunet is going to be there so you can see that in the middle of the orange that's going to be the sunet that's the most intense point so that's going to be at 8:56 tonight uh so that's about an hour 40 minutes now actually so then you continue a little bit more right here so if you go inside of the middle here so we see that in the middle here it's going to be at the most intense and if we continue slowly slowly going here we're going to see that slowly we have dots right here so if you look at the image right here we're going to see we have dots that are showing where the milk is going to go so if we go here we're going to see that in the middle of the night right here so we just have to long press again to go back here we're going to see that about around 11:20 uh midnight something like that the uh Sky should be completely dark that's because it's completely blue in the background here so we know that it's completely dark but was more important is actually I'm going to see that the Milky Way is going to be coming out right from that side and should be doing a little bit of an arc like here so that's a pretty good idea of what we have but if want to be sure that what I'm saying right now and what I'm looking is accurate there's actually a mode at the bottom so you can go inside of here inside of KN AR and here you can use augmenting reality and see depending on the time where it's going to be so if you look right here we can see that depending on when we're moving the time so here I'm at about 11 10 p.m. so we can see that the Milky Way should be in the sky oh wow that's going to be pretty nice here so yeah if we had a clear sky the core would be coming out right here it would be going going all around here and getting down here so this would actually be a perfect shot uh to take a nice wide Panorama of all of the Milky Way going from one side to the other so this is the kind of information that you cannot really see easily online and not really see without being on location I did realize that on the right here there might be a little bit too many trees same thing on this side there might be a little bit too many trees uh but the water seems to be really high so another thing I realized by being here is that maybe later on the summer then the water is going to go down a little bit and it would be easier get this uh Panorama of the Milky Way so definitely want to come back here to test this out and try and take a picture of the Milky Way and I hope that you saw how useful photo pills can be it's very very useful to determine all kinds of information when you're trying to plan where to take a shot if you're wondering what I'm going to do while I wait for the sunset I usually sometimes listen to Netflix or listen to some podcast or something like that but actually I bought something that's going to be a great addition to my photography kit it's not just for photography but I'm still going to be using in photography and it's an e-reader which will allow me to read some books while I'm waiting for a scene like that and I think it's a great thing to be listening reading books or something like that because you could be able to enjoy the scene around at the nice weather uh where when I'm listening to Netflix something like that I'm always looking at my screen and it's not as fun as this where here I'm more in the nature more enjoying the moment but still passing my time and not just waiting uh without doing anything which can be sometimes a little boring uh let's be honest I'm setting up a little time lapse right here with my DJI pocket 2 I forgot my indd filter so I'm not going to get this nice water uh smooth water inside of the time laps but at least it should be pretty nice with the sunet coming down so let's start it right away and wait an hour to get the final result I'm pretty excited to see how it's going to turn out it was supposed to be super cloudy rainy and we're probably going to get a super nice sunset with these clouds and the clear sky so yeah super exciting if you don't go out you're never going to know how the condition turn out and today they turned out super great so super happy to be outside and scaling locations uh for photography okay I know I said this trip wasn't about taking some pictures it was all about scouting the locations but I think when there's a nice scene you should still take a shot uh because these types of shots you don't always have a chance to get them so there's a nice Sunset right here there this plant in the middle of the water here which is pretty nice so I'm going to put this 10 stop filter on and hope that I can get some uh good long exposures with the smooth water smooth clouds at the top it could come out as really nice shots so I just got my first test shot right here and at 2 seconds it might not be quite enough so I'm going to have to take a longer one maybe around 10 to even 30 seconds to get perfectly smooth water uh so yeah it's going to be a lot of trial and error to try and get just the right settings for this scene okay so definitely wasn't the nicest Sunset the colors are kind of Disappearing and I don't know if you can see but there's some really great clouds coming in the back right here uh so I might have to leave soon and also one of the problems which is really hard is that the little tree right here actually moves a lot instead of the wind I think you can see it right here moving so that's actually really hard to take inside of the camera because if I go with like 10 15 seconds the water looks really nice and good uh but I had the trees moving at the same time so I might have to try take a sharp one for just the tree and then a long one for the water and merge them together uh but I don't I'm not sure if it's really worth it or not uh so we're going to see once I get back home what I do with [Music] [Music] them I think it's finally time to wrap up this video and I must say I'm really happy with my day of scouting location I found some really nice places to take some pictures I'm definitely going to be coming back here for some pictures uh at night when the sky is going to be clear right now there's clouds coming in so no pictures at night tonight um but I also want to say that I'm really happy to be out making these videos I really miss making these videos outside in the nature uh with not too much stress not having a lot of things to do so it's really nice to be back in making these videos I'm really looking forward to tomorrow uh it's one of the nicest viewes somewhere I've been wanting to go for a while but it just opened the road to get there uh yesterday I think or 2 days ago something like that so it's really recent that you can actually access that point because it's still covered of snow uh but we should have some amazing views from there so I'm really excited to go see that and I hope it's not going to rain too much it was supposed to rain to today too but it didn't so yeah I'm hoping for good conditions so see you tomorrow I've been searching for the sunset all this time but it's actually in the back right here at the other end of the lake so I couldn't see it I think I decided to split this video in two parts so this is going to be the end of the first part so definitely let me know if you enjoy this video by hitting the like button below and also subscribe for the second part of this video but also for more content on photography and film making see you in the next one this was so cool cuz I was coming back and I saw some fireworks stopped by the water and just by the lake there was a ton of boats on the lake and there were super nice fireworks uh for four five we're only two of July but didn't expect this at all nice sweet and [Music] night oh
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What is this video about?
For a long time, I approached photography pretty reactively—I'd show up to a location when conditions seemed right and hope for the best. But this weekend, I decided to do something I'd been neglecting: serious location scouting. What started as a camping trip that hit some logistical snags turned into something way more valuable: a hands-on lesson in finding and evaluating photography spots before the moment you actually need them.
The premise is straightforward but often overlooked. Location scouting means visiting places during good light, when you can explore safely and thoroughly, to figure out where you'll position yourself when you return for sunrise, sunset, or night sky work. I went out without any pressure to capture anything—just to look, to walk around, and to understand the scene. What I found surprised me. Golden Pond had obvious appeal, but by moving around the shoreline, I discovered angles and compositions I never would've guessed from online photos alone. And crucially, I identified a spot where the Milky Way would arc perfectly overhead at around 1 a.m., framed by mountains and water.
The second location I visited was even more impressive, and it's where I eventually took what became my favorite photo of 2022. None of this would've happened if I'd only researched online or tried to navigate in the dark.
For planning these kinds of shots, I've leaned heavily on PhotoPills, an app I've mentioned before but want to walk through properly here. It costs about $15, but it pays for itself instantly if you're serious about positioning yourself relative to the sun, moon, and Milky Way. The app lets you see exactly when and where the Milky Way will be, overlay your camera's field of view, check sunrise and sunset angles, and even use augmented reality to preview the sky at any time from your exact location. I show the full walkthrough in the video—from layers and map view to the AR mode that lets you point your phone at the sky and see what's coming.
One thing I appreciated about scouting in daylight: I could explore confidently. If I'd only shown up at night with a headlamp, I'd have stuck to obvious paths and missed the better vantage points entirely. Daylight also meant I could see water color, foreground textures, and how the landscape actually looked—details that change everything in your final composition.
When the sunset finally came that evening, I did take some long-exposure shots, even though I'd said this was just a scouting trip. Sometimes a scene is too good to pass up. And by the next day, armed with the information I'd gathered and the confidence PhotoPills gave me, I was ready to return and capture the shot that would stick with me for the rest of the year.