Actually taking photos is only a fraction of your time. The rest goes into planning, researching, informing clients, maintaining your site, thinking about settings and tracking down a checklist you made three months ago.
That is fine. It comes with the job. But it can be done a lot more efficiently.
I started building small tools for myself because I kept looking up the same things or recalculating them over and over. By now they are all on apps.michielheijmans.com, free to use, and they make my week a little better every time.
These are seven tools I cannot do without in 2026.
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1. Never guess when golden hour is again
Shooting outdoors is beautiful, but it depends on timing. A portrait during golden hour always looks good. The same goes for a street shot during blue hour. But when exactly is that, at that location, on that date?
With the Golden hour and blue hour tool you enter a location and date and instantly see sunrise, sunset, golden hour and blue hour. Down to the minute. No calculations, no fussing with apps that ask for five different permissions.
I use it for every outdoor session. And when I visit a location more often, I save the details in the Location log, a handy account tool that keeps your favourite shooting spots within reach.
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2. The right settings, even when you are unsure
You are somewhere you do not shoot often. A dark venue, a sunny terrace, a sports hall with fluorescent lighting. You know how your camera works, but a starting point would be welcome.
The Camera settings advisor asks about your situation and returns a recommended combination of shutter speed, aperture and ISO. No rigid recipes, just a practical starting point that lets you adjust quickly.
This is not a replacement for experience. But it saves mental effort at the moment you would rather focus on your subject than on your menu.
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3. Learn from your own photos
Great photos are not made on feeling alone. You also make them by understanding what you did in the moment things worked out.
The EXIF visualizer shows you all the technical information from a photo in one overview. Camera, lens, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, a histogram and the colour palette of the image. Drag your photo in and within two seconds you see everything that went into that shot.
I use it regularly when evaluating my own work. Which lens combinations work for me? Which ISO values do I use more often than I thought? Which colours keep coming back in the photos I personally like? It is honestly a bit addictive.
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4. Colour that suits your subject
This might sound like something for stylists, but trust me: as a photographer it is worth its weight in gold. Clothing that does not suit someone draws attention on a photo for the wrong reasons. Clothing that does suit them strengthens everything.
The Colour season checker helps you determine which colours work best with your subject's skin tone, hair colour and eyes. Not as fashion advice, but as practical information to prepare your session better.
Useful for portrait sessions, especially when you ask clients what clothing to bring. You can build out the checklist for your subject even further using Session preparation, an account tool that lets you put together a complete brief for your model or client.
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5. Long exposures without a calculator
Waterfall shots, light trails in traffic, a cloudy sky condensed into a single smooth line. That kind of photo requires an ND filter. And an ND filter requires a conversion, because your normal shutter speed suddenly no longer applies.
The ND filter calculator does that calculation in one click. Enter your base shutter speed, choose your filter strength and the tool gives you the new shutter speed. Simple, fast and no studying required.
For photographers who work with long exposures, this is one of those tools where you wonder why you did not know about it sooner.
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6. How does your photography website score?
Beautiful photos on a site nobody finds. That is a shame. Many photographers pay little attention to how discoverable their site is, while it directly affects how many jobs come in.
The Website checker gives you an honest picture of how your site performs on image SEO, loading speed and basic findability. No technical jargon, no endless reports. Just: this works well, this can be better.
For photographers who want to be found through Google, this is a useful starting point. Once you know what is lacking, you can improve it in a targeted way. Or ask someone else to do it.
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7. A daily nudge in the right direction
Street photography is one of the most beautiful forms of photography. It is also one of the hardest. Not because the technique is complicated, but because you do not always know what to look for when you walk out the door.
The Street photography assignments give you a new, concrete assignment every day. Sometimes a colour, sometimes a compositional form, sometimes a situation. Something to watch for, something to search for. You can easily share the assignment, which means it works well in group settings too.
For me it functions as a daily photography workout. Not to prove anything, but to stay sharp.
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More than seven
Beyond these seven there are many more tools on apps.michielheijmans.com. Some free, some available with an account because they store personal data.
The Pricing calculator helps you work out a fair rate for your assignments. The Artist statement generator uses AI to write your personal artist statement, a text that almost every photographer struggles with at some point. And the Expectations guide takes care of everything your client wants to know before the session.
The platform keeps growing. Not because I enjoy building apps, but because I keep running into things in practice that could be handled more smoothly. Got an idea for a tool you are missing? I would love to hear it.
Less hassle, more shooting. That is the idea.