Helios Pro

I’ve just started using this and after two days of experimenting I find that the saving the photos option is too slow. It’s a three step process for some reason and when you’re out in the bright light it’s not easy to see all the buttons. That aside the 3 D model in Live view is excellent. If you’re shooting a car commercial this is a must. It’s as accurate as sun seeker which is pretty accurate when using the compass, but not perfect. If you have the sun already out you can calibrate from that and then it is an excellent tool. I just hope they figure out the saving of the photos part, it’s the only thing I’m not crazy about with Artemis view finder too. It’s the only reason I didn’t give it five stars.

The ability to fly a virtual drone with full controls over rendered topography, or 3D building mode during all points of the sun’s path, anytime of the year is indispensable for saving time setting up shots. The light pollution map is also very handy. However, the app is buggy and as of 3/1/19, the “virtual stars” mode is broken and will cause the app to crash on my iPhone X. The app can also crash if I take the virtual drone over mountainous ranges, and then over an urban environment very quickly while planning the camera up or down as the app seems to many times ‘struggle’ to keep loading the GPS tiles. Definitely hope the devs update these frustrating bugs and make it more capable as soon as possible, but if you’re in the market for a power photography app, don’t let these drawbacks dissuade you. Helios Pro has become one of my main go-to apps, even if I’m just shooting off my iPhone.

I used the app to plan a natural light shoot for one of our agency’s largest clients, knowing I’d have little access to the location beforehand, and only a small window to capture content the day of, as we were paying by the hour for the space. With Helios Pro, I was able to time our shoot down to the minute, and plan for the positioning of all our subjects, bounces, and cameras with a scientific degree of accuracy. Needless to say, the lighting in every shot came out perfect, just as planned. Though it’s mainly marketed to cinematographers, I’d recommend this app to anyone hoping to capture consistently beautiful, natural light photography. 5/5 stars would buy again. Side note: the customer service is amazing.

I direct feature films for a living. I have done so for forty five years. Like the camera technicians I work with we all care deeply about how our movies look, and Helios has been helping us make them look their best for years. It just got even better! What a great update and well worth the money. Richard Loncraine

ask user to change the rating

I bought this app to get accurate calculations of sun for my video shoots. I get false reading every time. Not going to use this app ever again. Can’t believe i paid $30 dollars for such a complicated app. The compass is never calibrated and I’ve tried all possible ways to fix it. A free sun seeker app is WAY better than this.