I live in Chester. Close enough!

Hi @duringthemeanwhilst, okay, that's easy to predict in that case 😆 Maybe interesting for you: especially for areas with lots of rain I also considered that the amount of rain is not too high for weather phenomena when rain is in general no problem for the phenomenon. So, I considered to have no rain for fog (to get a higher chance for fog), but just subtle rain for atmospheric softness, for instance. The reason therefor is that I personally have no problem with photographing in the rain, but it should stay in a comfortable intensity. I really tried to think about everything 😊 Thank you for your comment, my friend! Enjoy your Sunday, Christian

Hi Geoff, thanks a lot for your kind comment! I'm sure Photrus will find some amazing weather phenomena for you and your friends 😉 Nice greetings, Christian

Hi Gary, thank you so much for using Photrus, my friend! And also for your kind feedback 😊 The standard plan is a fantastic choice especially when it comes down to photographing smaller landscapes as it is in woodland, for instance. I hope you'll like it 😉 Nice greetings, Christian

Hi David, thank you so much for your suggestions. It is a bit more complicated, I have to admit. The different weather phenomena need a different amount of weather data (different area sizes have to be scanned) and by that also a different amount of server power to be processed. The premium package would need to be more expensive, actually, to be cost-covering. I tried to avoid that and ultimately a mix calculation was the solution then. I put really a lot of effort into packaging the plans to get them to work with keeping the prices down as much as possible 😊 If we would do it as you have suggested, we would need to consider different prices for the different phenomena, which would be difficult to explain then why phenomenon A is 4 times more expensive then phenomenon B, for instance, etc. But I anyway made a notice about your wish, of course. It's always good to reflect and to know how the user thinks, as I'm sure you know as a retired software engineer yourself 🙂 Thanks a lot and have a great Sunday Christian

Hi Adrian, thank you so much, buddy! I think that nails it. At least for me there really came a dream true, I have to say. I started with simple weather several predictions, but as soon as I considered all the complex weather phenomena, that's really a game changer for me today. Time saving on the one hand, but I have also more photography options by all the suggestions I get with the alert email every day 😊 Enjoy your Sunday evening, Christian

Hi Chris, vielen lieben Dank! Um ehrlich zu sein, als ich vor ein paar Jahren mit der Entwicklung begann (anfangs ja nur rudimentär für mich selbst), hätte ich mir auch nie erträumen lassen was das Tool letzendlich dann alles berücksichtigen wird. War viel Arbeit, hat aber doch auch Spaß gemacht. Aber jetzt bin ich dann langsam trotzdem wieder froh, wenn ich wieder raus kann zum Fotografieren 😊 Ein schönes Wochenende auch! Liebe Grüße, Christian

Hi Erik, thank you so much for your kind words, my friend 😊 So cool to have you on board! I hope you'll like it 😉 Enjoy your weekend, Christian

Hi Tim, thank you so much for your kind words! Really fantastic to have you on board, my friend! I hope you and your friends will like it 😊 Have a great weekend, Christian

Hi Pall, first of all: thank you so much for helping me out in the test phase as an experienced photographer from Iceland. I hope Photrus will support you and your workshop business in the best possible way 😊 Interesting what you said about "polar stratosphere clouds". I'm not sure if we are talking about the same here, but I was going to implement an algorithm for something like "frozen clouds". They appear in the mesophere (~50-80km) and the frozen particles start to glow in the night as the sun hits them. Is that what you meant? Stratosphere would be lower at ~10-50km. But I guess, these particles are mostly at around 50km, so technically spoken, stratosphere would also be right, I think. I was going to implement that, as I have heard from weather hobbyists that they saw frozen night clouds (or however they are called) even from Belgium (as they are that high they are very far to see), which would make it interesting for many photographers as well. I would have everything here to predict them, except by an OSWIN mesophere radar (to detect the frozen particles). I didn't find a provider therefore that offers global values, just some universities, but that just for smaller goegraphical areas, which is not enough for a world-wide weather alert system like Photrus. Do you maybe have any sources or even weather providers therefore? If yes, feel free to send me a dm on Instagram. If it is possible to implement that globally, I would really like to add that phenomenon, of course. Interesting by the way is that I've never heard photographers talking about that weather phenomenon, just weather hobbyists. You are the first photographer I've heard talking about it. Cool 😉 Enjoy your Sunday, Christian

Hi Darren, thank you so much, buddy! Means a lot 😊 I also thought about this word combination, but just secundarily. The origin of the name is a different one, which is revealed on the Photrus website 😉 Thanks a lot for watching and nice greetings, Christian

Hi @adragon3210, thank you for your insights, my friend 😊 Enjoy your Sunday, Christian

Hi J. Randall, thank you so much, my friend! I have to admit, I knew that there are different types of thousand separators, though I was not clear about that it would be read as "1" with the point. Definitely, "1" doesn't sound as spectacular as "1,000" 😊 I removed the "." now completely (1000), as also the "," might be a problem in other areas. We use the "," as comma here, for instance 😆 Have a great Sunday, Christian

Hi Michael, thank you for your honest comment, my friend. I really do appreciate that! But no: Photrus is super easy to use. You don't have to read weather maps at all! You just create your locations, tick the wished weather phenomena, and lean back to wait. All the complex map reading work is done by Photrus then. You just get an email from Photrus with the information that there is red sky tomorrow, or whatever. So all you need to do then is to take your camera, go there, and take the shot. Easy 🙂 In my latest video you see using me Photrus: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bM2HYKV_2J_PhYE.html No need for weather planning the weather anymore, actually, you know, the slogan is: wheater planning was yesterday 😉 Nice greetings, Christian

Hi Stefano, thank you so much, my friend 😊 Light and weather have a huge impact on a photograph, but of course, also composition is definitely a very important ingredient. So, there will definitely come more videos about that on my channel in future. By the way, I have to say, also enjoy to go out for photography independent of the weather from time to time. But on the other hand I got the strongest photos when I put a lot of effort into weather planning. I think, I'm in love with both: planned and unplanned 🙂 Have a great Sunday, Christian

Hi Berny, that would sound amazing as a slogan 😊 Thank you and nice Sunday, Christian

Hi Mark, thank you my friend 😊 The thing is: the further a prediction is in future, the more inaccurate it gets. Just to give you some insights: there exist different weather models with different raster sizes. Global weather models are calculated with e.g. 80 to 80 kilometer quadrants and can predict e.g. 14-16 days into the future. We use different weather models for Photrus with raster sizes between 4 to 4 kilometers down to even !!!1 to 1!!! kilometers. I think I don't need to explain that the latter one is much much more accurate than the first one, but due to the crazy amount of data, models like that can't predict further than ~48 hours into the future. So, when we break it down: predictions within 8 hours are very, very likely. We can completely trust them. Predictions within 24 hours are very likely, we still can trust them. I personally see everything above that just as a tendency, which needs to be observed with the next run. We also considered that in the alert emails: the more likely the more prominent an alert appears there. There are ways to make long-term predictions. But not for that clear weather phenomena like red sky, golden clouds, rainbows, etc. Photrus will tell you that there will come April weather (sun/rain) tomorrow 16 o'clock, for instance. It is possible to predict the likelyhood for sun erruptions (which is needed for Aurora) over the next months, for instance. But the magnetic field changes every day and can't be predicted long in front. We also don't know how the clouds will affect the visibility of the Aurora when we are talking about a prediction that is too far in future. So, it doesn't make sense to send an alert therefore today for what could happen in 2 months, as no one knows today when there will be an Aurora visible in 2 months from now. But we definitely know that the day before. There is still the risk that the magnetic field will collapse so that the prediction gets anyway wrong. But it is something we can work with as photographers. By the way, we considered groups in Photrus. That means, you have one group for your local area, and one for every travel destination, Dolomites for instance. Then you just turn on/off the groups that are relevant for you right now. So, you can observe the weather phenomena in the Dolomites while you are at home and go there 2 days before the milkyway will be visible, for instance. But also when you are in the Dolomites at a fix time, Photrus will send you alerts for your dream locations and you can go always there where you get the best possible weather phenomena. I hope this answers your question 😊 Nice greetings, Christian

Hallo Erich, vielen lieben Dank! Naja, um ehrlich zu sein, ich wollte IT und Fotografie immer getrennt halten, da ich einerseits die Fotografen nicht mit Software, Servern und Co langweilen wollte und andererseits auch meine IT-Businesskunden nicht mit der Fotografie, wenn die das vielleicht nicht so leidenschaftlich sehen wie man selbst 😊 Das habe ich erst nach ein paar Jahren Entwicklung gesehen, dass es tatsächlich Sinn macht, diesen Wetteralarmservice als Produkt anzubieten, eben damit auch andere Landschaftsfotografen all die Vorteile nutzen können. Ich hatte den ursprünglich tatsächlich nur für mich selbst entwickelt, zur Arbeitserleichterung, weil ich einfach viel zu viel arbeite. Und ja, da steckt wirklich extrem viel Arbeit drin. Sehr viel Mathematik in den Algorithmen. Aber ich muss zugeben, das hat auch sehr viel Spaß gemacht, auch wenn besonders die vergangenen Monate der heissen Endphase sehr anstrengend waren und ich noch immer um Energie ringe 😆 Zu deinen technischen Fragen: Das Grundgerüst ist in PHP entwickelt, bei den komplexeren Algorithmen wird aus Performancegründen C eingesetzt. Hab einen schönen Sonntag, Christian

Hi Graham, thank you for your idea, my friend! To be honest, we though about a free trial plan, but we didn't consider it in the end, as we want the users really to take their time and think which phenomena they would like to consider for which of their locations, because that leads simply to much better results. In our test phases we saw that users didn't do that in their quick tests and just created 1-3 test locations with very unlikely weather phenomena for those places. As you rate Photrus after the relevance of the results you get, we saw a free test phase contraproductive. The best results come when you use Photrus really productive, which means: 10-15 locations around you and just those weather phenomena you could really use for your photography there. Not only red sky and golden clouds for 1-3 test locations. You could have luck to get these special phenomena within these 30 days, but it is very likely that they will not come within this short time span within this small number of locations. Photrus is a really useful tool. But you will maybe not see that in a testphase of 30 days where you don't make the effort to feed the system with your real locations and real weather phenomena. We rather have just a smaller number of users in, who really get the best possible out of Photrus, rather than having a big number of users in who are not satisfied and stop using it, just because they didn't use it in the right way. By the way, I can highly recommend the video in the control panel about how to use Photrus more efficiently. There are more really useful tips inside to get the best possible results out in the end 😊 But thank you for your thoughts, I'm really grateful for every feedback and we will definitely think about every single one. Enjoy your Sunday, Christian

@@christian.irmler I watched the how-to video right after I signed up and found it very useful. What I did to test was to add some locations that are remote to me which also have live webcams. When I got a notification about a particular phenomenon I viewed the webcam to compare. While this is not the same as being there, I found this worked well for me. By doing this I got a pretty good idea about the usefulness of the tool in just a few days and so far I am impressed. I have since upgraded to the Premium plan to test further.

Hi Marcus, great to hear that your weather apps fail just 33% of the time. In my personal experience the fails are even much higher 😊 Maybe it is random, but whenever I'm out with others they are surprised that their apps were wrong, but my predictions over weather maps (and meanwhile over Photrus) were right. When I started using weather maps back then, even my family didn't believe me when we were out for hiking, for instance. They trusted the apps more than me, because my word was against that what was written in their apps. But today they come also to me when they need an accurate prediction, when they are going to any event, any hike, or whatever. It's really a difference using weather maps. You simply see more and can relativate. Thanks a lot and enjoy your Sunday, Christian