The first decision is where.
Explore viewpoints and photo hotspots. Save a spot, set its viewing direction and start with a place that means something to you.
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Landscape photography weather app · iOS
Be there when
the light happens.
Know the sky. Find your frame.
Weather intelligence for the photographs
you haven’t taken yet.
14 days free · then $4.99 / year
A different way to read the weather
THE MOMENTS BETWEENFirst light. High clouds. Still water.
Built around the photograph01 / THE POSSIBILITY
Some forecasts tell you
to bring an umbrella.
Ours help you bring
the right lens.
Fog settling into a valley. The last glow after sunset. A moon rising exactly where you imagined it.
Inverza brings weather, terrain and celestial paths together, so you can recognise a promising moment and plan a way to be there.
Discover what’s possible ↗16Photographic conditions
450kmFar-path cloud probes
5Languages. One clear picture.
Yours.Your spots, saved on your device.
Learn to see it coming
All 16 condition guides ↗A sky worth waiting for.
How It Works
From forecast to photograph in three steps
1
Find Your Spot
Browse OSM viewpoints, Flickr hotspots, or save your own favorite locations on the interactive map.
2
Check Conditions
Condition badges instantly show when golden hour, fog, or dramatic skies are forecast. Tap any badge for details.
3
Ask the AI
Chat with the AI about your specific spot. It considers weather, viewing direction, and time to give tailored advice.
A reason to set the alarm.
See the photographic conditions forecast for your location, with a time window and the reason behind the prediction.
Explore the app ↗Meet the light before it arrives.
Explore the terrain in 3D, find a sun or moon alignment and save the view as a shooting plan. Load it later to pick up where you left off.
Explore the app ↗Now you can see it.
Use AR Sky on location to preview the sun, moon and Milky Way against the actual landscape. Scrub time and find your frame.
Explore the app ↗
New in the 3D DioramaFIND / LOAD / SAVE
Picture the alignment.
Find the moment.
A full moon beside a church tower. The sun over a distant ridge. Start with the photograph you have in mind, then find a time and save the setup.
Find your alignment
Dial in the sun or moon’s direction and height, set the date range and adjust the photographer and subject heights. Or describe your photograph in Find with AI, review its settings and let Inverza calculate the dates on your device.
Save the whole plan
Keep the locations, date and time, marker heights, viewing angle, field of view, Find settings and your notes together. Your shooting plans stay on your device.
Load it when you need it
Return to the saved spot and camera view, refine the composition or save a new version. The Diorama’s moon shows the illuminated phase for the selected date and time.
Try Find with AI“When can I align the next full moon with the church tower at my subject pin?”
Find returns geometric matches. Check the weather, sightline and access as part of your shoot planning.
Open your chosen moment in 3D.
A closer look
Made for the way you see.
Explore every view. Select a screenshot to see the details.
01
AR Sky
Point your phone and see the sun, moon, and Milky Way core on the real sky. Scrub time to watch them arc across the horizon.
02
Photo Alerts
Get notified about afterglow, golden clouds, ground fog, aurora, and more.
03
Condition Badges
Golden hour, fog, dramatic skies, aurora - see at a glance what's forecast for your spot.
04
AI Weather Chat
Ask about conditions in plain language. The AI considers your spot, direction, and timing.
05
Photo Map
Discover viewpoints, save your own spots, open the Diorama or AI Chat, and create a photo-condition or raw-weather alert with the spot already selected.
06
Terrain Shadow Map
See exactly where mountain shadows fall at any time. Scrub from now to 30 hours ahead to plan your shoot around the light.
07
Building Shadows
Zoom into a city and the shadow map draws real building shadows from OpenStreetMap footprints - street by street, for any date and time.
08
Horizon Paths
The real terrain horizon of any spot with sun and moon arcs across it - read off the minute the moon clears a ridge, weeks ahead.
09
Horizon Paths 3D
Explore real terrain, buildings and coastlines in 3D. Find sun and moon alignments, save the complete shooting plan and load it when you are ready to return.
10
Find Alignments
Search for Sun or Moon alignments by azimuth, elevation, date range, moon phase and adjustable photographer/subject heights. Use the controls or describe your photograph in Find with AI, review the settings, then calculate matching dates on your device.
11
Settings
Choose your AI provider, enable notifications, and connect Flickr.
12
Horizon Paths 3D with buildings
Explore New York City in 3D, with buildings that help you plan sun and moon alignments around the skyline.
12 views. One complete photography companion. Drag, swipe or use the arrows ↔
Features
Everything you need to chase the light
Inverza combines weather data, maps, and AI into one purpose-built tool for landscape photography.
Photo Conditions Explained
AI Weather Chat
Ask an AI assistant about shooting conditions in plain language. The built-in AI (Google's newest Gemini model) is included - try free for 14 days, then $4.99/year. Or bring your own key for Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT.
Directional Cloud Analysis
The AI analyzes wind direction and cloud movement to predict where the most dramatic skies will form relative to your position.
Multi-Source Weather
Auto-selects the best regional model for your location (HRRR, ICON-D2/EU, ECMWF, GFS) and layers METAR ground truth, marine SST, water-temp history, and run-to-run stability on top - then translates it all into actionable photo conditions.
Condition Badges
At-a-glance badges tell you when golden hour, dramatic skies, fog, storm light, or clear-sky astro conditions are forecast - so you never miss an opportunity.
Shadow Map: Terrain & Buildings
Visualize where mountain shadows fall at any time, and at city zoom toggle on building shadows from OpenStreetMap outlines. Scrub from now to 30 hours ahead with quick jumps to sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset. No other photography planner we know of draws building shadows on the map.
Sun & Moon Direction Lines
Select any pin on the map to see sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset direction lines with exact times. With the shadow map active, two extra dotted lines track the current sun and moon position live as you scrub the time slider, so you can see exactly where light will be coming from at any moment.
Interactive Photo Map
Discover photography spots from OpenStreetMap viewpoints, save your own curated locations, and explore Flickr photography hotspots - all on one map.
Photo Hotspots
Flickr photo density scores every viewpoint - popular spots glow dark green. Hidden clusters of landscape photos appear as camera icons on the map.
Viewing Direction & Compass
Set which direction a spot faces - point your phone to capture the heading. The AI knows whether sunrise or sunset will be in your field of view.
AR Sky
Hold up your phone and see the sun, moon, Milky Way core, and the North Star drawn onto the live view, exactly where they sit in the real sky. Scrub time to watch them arc across the horizon, and switch between your lenses by focal length to preview the exact frame before the event. A red Night Mode keeps your eyes dark-adapted for astro work.
Horizon Paths & Photo Subjects
See the real 360° terrain horizon of any saved spot with sun and moon arcs across it - read off the minute the moon clears a specific ridge, weeks ahead, from anywhere. Pair a spot with a subject up to 50 km away and flip the whole chart to the subject's vantage. Or tap Diorama for Horizon Paths 3D: the spot as an orbitable model with real terrain, buildings, trees, and coastlines, shadows that follow the time slider, and a NASA-grade eclipse percentage whenever sun and moon overlap - built in for every solar eclipse through 2030.
Raw Weather Data & Charts
Every raw forecast value behind the predictions, in one panel. Tap any value to explore it as an interactive 7-day chart with pinch zoom, weather condition markers, and day, golden-hour, and night shading tied to the real sunset geometry of the location.
Raw Data Alerts
Build custom alerts on the exact values you care about - cloud base below the summit, wind under 10 km/h, fresh snow above 5 cm. Notifications are time-sensitive, so a dawn alert reaches you even during Sleep Focus.
Flickr & Wikimedia Photos
See real photos of any spot from Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. Flickr works out of the box - or bring your own Pro key.
Share Individual Spots
Share any spot via Messages, email, or any app. Includes an Apple Maps link and a one-tap import deep link.
Condition History
Track which photo conditions appear most often at each location, broken down by season. The AI uses this data for smarter recommendations.
Multi-Language Support
Use Inverza in English, German, French, Spanish, or Italian. Switch languages instantly in Settings.
Diagnostics & Offline Mode
Built-in diagnostic screen shows background check status, cache usage, and network health. Cached data keeps the app usable offline.
Weather Engine
A forecast with a reason behind it.
Apps like Windy give you a model picker - flip through ECMWF, GFS, ICON, HRRR and read the raw output yourself. Inverza takes the opposite approach: the right regional model is consulted automatically, and a stack of additional non-model sources is layered on top before anything reaches your screen as photographic guidance.
Auto-selected regional models
Inverza taps Open-Meteo's best-match selection so your forecast is built from the right model for your latitude: HRRR (3 km, hourly) in North America, ICON-D2 (2.2 km) and ICON-EU (7 km) in Europe, ECMWF IFS (~9 km) for medium-range globally, GFS (13 km) as a global fallback. No manual model switching - the right one runs for where you are.
METAR ground truth
Real-time observations from the nearest airport weather station (NOAA AWC) cross-check the model. When the METAR confirms what the forecast predicted, the badge gets upgraded to a Live tier - "this isn't a forecast anymore, it's happening right now." When METAR contradicts the model, scoring is penalised accordingly.
Marine & water-body data
Sea-surface temperatures from Open-Meteo Marine drive coastal advection-fog detection (warm humid air over cooler seas - SF Bay, the UK coast, the Pacific Northwest). For inland lakes and rivers, water temperature is estimated from the last few days of air temperature history, powering steam-fog detection on calm autumn dawns.
Run-to-run stability
Open-Meteo's previous-runs API lets Inverza compare today's forecast for a given hour with what yesterday's run predicted for that same hour. When the cloud forecast has shifted by more than 25 percentage points between runs, the detection score is gently penalised and the reason string flags the drift - so you can see when the atmosphere hasn't quite settled on what it's doing yet.
Aerosols, dust & air quality
Hourly aerosol optical depth, PM10, and Saharan dust readings (Open-Meteo Air Quality) feed the Soft Light detector - the dreamy, particle-softened golden hour that photographers love only forms when there's enough fine material in the atmosphere to diffuse the sun without smothering it.
Pressure-level winds & terrain
700 and 500 hPa winds, temperatures and humidities feed lenticular-cloud detection, combined with a real-time ridge analysis of NASA SRTM elevation data near your spot. Mountain-wave clouds need strong winds nearly perpendicular to a prominent ridge and a stable lapse rate - all three are checked before a Lenticular badge surfaces.
The result: instead of a wall of model layers you have to read like a meteorologist, you get one answer per condition - Ground Fog: Likely (steam-fog pattern); Lenticular: Very Likely (NW wind perpendicular to ridge, 65 km/h at 700 hPa); Milky Way: Live (METAR clear sky, no moon). The underlying models are the same ones Windy lets you browse - they just feed an interpretation layer instead of being shown raw.
Read the landscape, tooThe sky is only
The sky is only
half the story.
Terrain changes where light lands.
Plan for the place you will actually stand.
Privacy
Your saved plans stay on your device
Inverza has no app-operated backend or user accounts. Weather, maps and optional AI chat contact the providers described below. The AI permission and Gemini age-confirmation controls described here are introduced in v1.7.
Information the App Uses
- Location: Sent directly to Open-Meteo (weather) and Overpass API (map data) to fetch forecasts and nearby spots. Never stored on any server we operate.
- Compass heading: Read locally when using the viewing direction feature. Never leaves your device.
- Camera: AR Sky processes the live camera feed on your device to show celestial overlays. Inverza does not upload the AR camera feed.
- API keys: The app includes a built-in AI model and Flickr key. If you bring your own, keys are stored in iOS Keychain and sent only to the provider. We never see them.
- AI chat messages: With your permission, your question, relevant conversation and memories, location coordinates, weather and planning context go directly to the selected provider. Permission can be withdrawn in Settings. Gemini chat requires an explicit 18+ confirmation.
Data Storage
Saved spots, history and preferences are stored locally; your API keys use iOS Keychain. Remove keys in Settings before uninstalling to delete those credentials. Provider-held records and device backups are separate. Paid built-in Gemini does not use prompts to improve Google's products, but allows limited safety retention. Your own key uses your provider's applicable terms and settings.
Third-Party Services
- Open-Meteo - Weather forecasts (receives coordinates)
- Overpass API - OpenStreetMap data (receives map region)
- Open-Meteo Elevation API - Terrain elevation grid (receives coordinates)
- NASA SRTM - High-resolution elevation tiles (receives tile coordinates)
- Flickr - Photos and hotspots (receives coordinates)
- Wikimedia Commons - Spot photos (receives coordinates)
- AI providers - Chat responses (receives your question + weather context)
Analytics & Tracking
No in-app ads, IDFA access or cross-app tracking SDK. Apple's SKAdNetwork reports coarse app-install conversion milestones. Apple may provide aggregated store, subscription and diagnostic reports. Local verdicts and chat history are not uploaded to a developer-operated analytics service.
Your Rights (GDPR)
If you are in the EU/EEA, you have the right to access, correct, delete, and port your data. Use the Export/Import feature for data portability.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need an API key to use the app? ▼
No API key is needed. The AI chat works out of the box with a built-in AI model: Google's newest Gemini generation (currently Gemini 3.8 Flash). Flickr photos also work with a built-in key. If you want more powerful AI models (Claude, Gemini Pro, or ChatGPT), switch to "Bring Your Own Key" in Settings.
How do I get an API key? ▼
If you choose "Bring Your Own Key" in Settings, each provider offers API keys through their developer platforms. Links are provided directly in the app. Most providers offer a free tier that is sufficient for personal use. If you prefer not to set up an API key, the built-in fast AI model works without any configuration.
Is my data sent to a server? ▼
Inverza has no backend server. Your location goes directly to the services that power each feature: Open-Meteo (weather), the Overpass API (OpenStreetMap data), NOAA's aviation weather service (nearest airport observations), and Flickr and Wikimedia Commons (spot photos). AI messages go directly to the provider. Your API keys and saved spots stay on your device. Details are in the privacy policy.
What does the compass / viewing direction do? ▼
When you save a spot, you can set the direction it faces. The AI then knows whether sunrise or sunset will be in your field of view and gives more specific advice.
Where does the weather data come from? ▼
Inverza is an interpretation engine, not a model browser. It uses Open-Meteo's automatic best-match selection so the right regional model is consulted for your location:
- HRRR (3 km, hourly) in North America
- ICON-D2 (2.2 km) and ICON-EU (7 km) in Europe
- ECMWF IFS (~9 km) for medium-range globally
- GFS (13 km) as a global fallback
On top of those numerical models, Inverza layers METAR ground observations from the nearest airport, Open-Meteo Marine sea-surface temperatures for coastal advection-fog detection, inland water-temperature estimates from recent air-temperature history for steam-fog detection, aerosol and air-quality data (PM10, AOD, Saharan dust) for soft-light scoring, and previous-run model stability analysis that compares consecutive forecast runs to penalise predictions that have drifted significantly.
Apps like Windy let you browse the raw output of every model and interpret it yourself - invaluable for meteorologists and pilots. Inverza takes the same models, blends them with all the non-NWP sources above, and translates the result into 16 photographically meaningful conditions with confidence tiers (Possible → Likely → Very Likely → Live).
Which photography conditions can Inverza predict? ▼
Sixteen: colorful dawn, afterglow sunset, golden clouds, ground fog, cloud inversion, hoarfrost, fresh snow with clear skies, dramatic storm clouds, aurora borealis, Milky Way visibility, Belt of Venus, reflecting waters, soft light, full moon silhouette, Brocken spectre, and lenticular clouds. Each detector has its own physics - cloud layers, humidity, terrain, aerosols, sea temperatures, geomagnetic activity - and every detection comes with a confidence tier, a predicted time window, and a plain-language reason. The condition guides explain each one in detail.
What is the best weather app for landscape photography? ▼
The best weather app for landscape photography is one that predicts photographic conditions, not just rain and temperature. Inverza was built specifically for this: it forecasts 16 conditions photographers actually chase - ground fog, cloud inversions, colorful dawns, aurora, Milky Way visibility - by blending high-resolution weather models (HRRR in North America, ICON-D2 and ICON-EU in Europe) with live airport observations, terrain data, and an AI chat that explains whether tomorrow is worth the alarm.
Can Inverza predict ground fog and cloud inversions? ▼
Yes, these are two of the core detectors. Ground fog forecasts combine humidity, dew point spread, wind, terrain, and water-body data to catch radiation fog, coastal advection fog (via sea-surface temperatures), and steam fog over lakes. Cloud inversion forecasts look for the temperature inversions that trap cloud in valleys, so you can stand above the sea of clouds at sunrise - the condition the app is named after.
Can I plan the sun and moon without actually being on location? ▼
Yes. Save any spot on the map and open Horizon Paths: Inverza computes the real terrain horizon for that exact point from elevation data and draws the sun's and moon's arcs across it, so you can read off the minute the moon clears a specific ridge from your sofa, weeks ahead. Once you are on location, the AR Sky view takes over: scrub to the planned minute and see exactly where the sun, moon, or Milky Way will stand in the real scene before it happens.
How does the Terrain Shadow Map work? ▼
The app downloads NASA SRTM elevation data and uses ray marching to calculate which areas are blocked from sunlight by surrounding mountains. Zoomed into a city, building shadows from OpenStreetMap outlines appear by default (a toggle can switch the layer off), so you can see which streets and squares catch light, hour by hour. Scrub from now up to 30 hours ahead, with quick jumps to sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset. With a pin selected, two extra dotted direction lines (one for the sun, one for the moon when above the horizon) track the slider time live alongside the static sunrise/sunset lines, so you can see where light is coming from at any moment.
How do the building shadows work? ▼
Zoom into a city on the shadow map and the buildings appear on their own (the layer is on by default; a toggle switches it off): Inverza fetches building outlines from OpenStreetMap, reads their tagged heights or storey counts (with a sensible default for untagged buildings), and casts each one's shadow for the selected time, street by street, along the same 30-hour slider as the terrain shadows. Fetched buildings are cached on your device, so areas you have viewed once render instantly and offline afterwards; you can inspect and clear that cache per continent under Settings. Accuracy follows OpenStreetMap coverage: in well-mapped cities the shadows are remarkably faithful, and complex roofs are simplified to their outlines. To our knowledge, no other photography planning app draws building shadows on the map.
What is Horizon Paths 3D? ▼
Tap the Diorama button in Horizon Paths and the spot opens as an interactive 3D model: the real surrounding terrain out to the distant peaks, OpenStreetMap buildings, trees and forests, lakes and rivers, real coastlines with the ocean filled to sea level, and the sun's and moon's path circles drawn in the sky above your pin, in the same colours as the AR view. Building and mountain shadows, golden-hour tones, and moonlight scaled by the lunar phase all follow the same time slider, so you can scrub through the next 30 hours and watch the light move through the scene. The moon is drawn at its true apparent size for the date, and when it overlaps the sun an eclipse percentage appears, powered by NASA/GSFC predictions for every solar eclipse through 2030. Drag to orbit around the photographer's or the subject's pin and pinch to zoom. The terrain reuses elevation tiles the app already has, so the view opens immediately and the buildings, water, and trees stream in.
Can Inverza plan solar eclipses? ▼
Yes. Every central solar eclipse through 2030 is built in with official NASA/GSFC eclipse geometry (eclipse predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA's GSFC). Save a spot anywhere on Earth, open the 3D Diorama, and scrub to the eclipse date: the sun and moon travel their real arcs over the real terrain, both drawn at their true apparent size for that day, and the moment their discs overlap an exact eclipse percentage appears. It reads 100% only inside the genuine path of totality, accurate to the kilometre at the path edges, so you can slide along a coastline from your sofa and find exactly where totality meets a foreground worth photographing. The Diorama also shows the sun's altitude and compass direction at that minute, and once you are on location the AR Sky view draws the same overlap onto the live camera so you can fine-tune the tripod position. The upcoming ones: totality from southern Spain to Egypt in August 2027, a sunset ring of fire over southern Spain in January 2028, and totality over Sydney in July 2028. A full spot guide with coordinates and times is in our eclipse guide on the blog.
How does the AR Sky view help compose a photo? ▼
Point your phone at the scene and Inverza draws the sun, moon, and Milky Way onto the live camera, anchored with ARKit. Drag the time scrubber and the sky runs forward: you see exactly where the moon will hang at the planned minute, walk until it sits over your subject, and switch between your phone's lenses by focal length to preview the crop before anything happens in the sky. Compact readouts above the time controls always show how many degrees the sun, the moon, and the Milky Way core stand above or below the horizon. Frame, focus while there is light, and wait for the sky to catch up.
How accurate is the AR Sky view? ▼
The celestial positions themselves are computed astronomically and are exact. The overlay's anchoring uses ARKit plus the phone's compass, and phone magnetometers can drift a few degrees near cars, tripod heads, or iron-rich rock. AR Sky is built for planning compositions, not for polar-aligning a mount: read it as "the moon will track through this gap." If the markers look slightly rotated, a Calibrate control lets you nudge the overlay until the compass marks sit where north really is.
Is Inverza a replacement for PhotoPills or The Photographer's Ephemeris? ▼
They are complementary, and many photographers run both. PhotoPills and The Photographer's Ephemeris are geometry planners: where the sun, moon, or Milky Way will be. Inverza answers whether the sky will be worth photographing - conditions, light quality, confidence scores - and adds its own planning tools: an AR Sky view with sun, moon, and Milky Way paths on the live camera, Horizon Paths terrain charts, and 3D shadow mapping of both terrain and buildings, which no other photography planner we know of offers on the map. Our blog has an honest ranked comparison of the apps we actually use.
How much does Inverza cost? ▼
Inverza is free to try for 14 days with full access to every feature. After the trial, it's $4.99/year (less than a cup of good coffee). Your subscription covers the built-in AI model, the Flickr API, and ongoing maintenance. All features included in one subscription. Cancel anytime.
Can I back up or share my saved spots? ▼
Yes. Share a single spot from the map (includes Apple Maps link + one-tap import), or go to Settings → Export / Import Spots for bulk backup.
How do I delete my data? ▼
All data is stored locally on your device. Deleting the app removes everything.
Can Inverza find dates for a sun or moon alignment?
Yes. Open Find in the 3D Diorama and choose the Sun or Moon, azimuth, elevation, date range and tolerances. You can use your photographer and subject pins, adjust their heights and filter by moon phase. Find with AI can turn a description of your photograph into editable settings; Inverza calculates the matching dates on your device. Choose a result to show it in the Diorama. These are geometric matches: check weather, visibility and access before shooting.
Can I save and load a Diorama shooting plan?
Yes. Save keeps the photographer and subject locations, marker heights, date and time, camera view, field of view, Find settings and your notes on your device. Load restores the setup so you can return to a planned moon alignment, sunrise composition or eclipse view. Plans can be updated, saved as a new plan or deleted.
Independent by designBuilt by a photographer.
Built by a photographer.
For people who notice the light.
Inverza is created by Marcel Strelow. A small, independent app with a simple purpose: helping you make more of the time you spend outdoors.
The story, press kit & media resources ↗
Ready to chase the light?
Start planning your next landscape shoot today. Try free for 14 days, then just $4.99/year. Rated 5.0 on the App Store.
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