Photography Student Develops Free Forecasting Tool for Outdoor Shooters

Megan Tucker, a marketing student at Bentley University (class of 2026) and an avid photographer, has created LightCast Suite, a browser-based application designed to help photographers assess shooting conditions before venturing out. The tool addresses a gap Tucker identified in standard weather apps, which often fail to provide the specific data photographers need for planning outdoor sessions. LightCast Suite evaluates conditions on a 0-100 scale across three main categories: golden hour (sunrise and sunset), night sky photography, and aerial photography. For golden hour, it analyzes factors like cloud cover, humidity, visibility, and precipitation, categorizing scores into four tiers from 'flat light' to 'Epic Light.' The StarCast component focuses on night sky photography, considering predictable elements such as moon phase and light pollution alongside variable conditions like cloud cover and atmospheric seeing, with grades ranging from 'stay in' to 'pristine sky.' Users can check forecasts up to a week in advance, though accuracy improves closer to the event time. Additionally, the suite includes Tricast, an in-field toolkit with calculators for settings like timelapse, astrophotography, ND filters, hyperfocal distance, and exposure, along with a feedback tool for common photo issues. LightCast Suite is completely free, ad-free, and requires no account, offering email alerts for when conditions exceed user-set thresholds at selected locations. Tucker developed the tool to save photographers time and reduce the disappointment of poor shooting conditions, drawing from her own experiences as a drone photographer. The application is available online, with no specific launch date mentioned beyond its coverage in March 2026.