A toolkit for photographers, without the faff
If you photograph, you know the moment. You are on location, the light changes faster than you expected, and you wonder whether that six stop ND filter is enough for the long shutter speed you had in mind. Or you are at home preparing a quote and you are not quite sure what a fair price is for what you are about to do. Or you have just started and the exposure triangle still feels like a puzzle whose pieces keep swapping places.
For all those moments I built apps.michielheijmans.com (or, for short, Fotoapps.nl). A collection of tools I use myself during shoots, in preparation and in the business side of being a photographer. No download, no installation, and no account for most of it. You open the site on your phone, tablet or laptop and get going.
Why I built these tools
Over the past few years I kept getting the same questions. During workshops, in conversations in the street, by email. How do you calculate depth of field? What exactly does an ND filter do? When is the golden hour on this date, at this location? How much may I charge for half a day of photography? And the quietest question of all, often unasked: how do I keep an overview of all those small decisions floating around a shoot?
There are apps for this sort of thing, of course. But they are often scattered across different subscriptions, you have to download them, they want your data, and if you are honest you use only one or two functions from each app. I wanted one place where it all comes together. Built by someone who photographs, for people who photograph. With a calm explanation where needed.
There are now 35 tools online. The bulk of them, 26, are entirely free and work straight away without an account. For 9 premium tools, mostly for planning and running a business, an account is needed. That costs €2.99 a month, with 30 days to try everything at your leisure.
For those just starting out
Say you have just got a camera, and you feel you can get more out of it than the automatic setting. Then you start with the exposure triangle. You move aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and you see immediately what happens to your photo. No long texts, no complicated theory. Just seeing what it does.
After that the depth of field calculator. You enter which camera you have, which focal length, which aperture, how far away your subject is, and you see how much of your photo is sharp. With hyperfocal distance for those who want to go further. Things like that click after playing a few times, and then you suddenly understand why one of your portraits worked so well and another did not.
For beginners I made a separate entrance on the site. Six core tools that together form the basics. You work through them at your own pace, and you do not have to get through a chapter of theory first. You learn by doing, and the explanation appears where you need it.
For those who want to go further
If you have been working with your camera for a while, other tools are relevant. The ND filter calculator, for instance, for long shutter speeds with cloud formations or softly flowing water. The flash guide number calculator, for the right flash power at the right distance. The crop factor calculator, to compare equivalent focal lengths on different sensors.
One of my own favourites is the EXIF visualiser. Drag a photo into it and you see not only the camera, lens and settings, but the histogram and the colour palette as well. Handy for analysing your own work, or for understanding photos that inspire you. What did that photographer do with white balance? Which aperture did they choose? It is all there.
The golden hour and blue hour tool I use weekly. I often plan portrait shoots in the last two hours before sunset, and with a couple of clicks I see when the golden hour starts at the planned location. It also works for landscape photographers preparing a long trip, or for street photographers who know that one particular square looks magical at a specific moment.
For those who do it for a living
Here it gets interesting for anyone who photographs for money. Because alongside every shoot sits a pile of small tasks. Writing a quote. Getting a model release signed. Making a call sheet so that everyone knows where they have to be and when. Recording the mileage afterwards for the tax office. Drawing up an artist statement for your website or an application.
The price calculator helps you set a fair hourly rate and project price based on what you actually need, not on what other people charge. The model release generator produces a legally sound statement you can download as a PDF straight away. The call sheet maker writes a professional document with participants, timeline, looks and location details, ready to send on. The mileage register keeps track of your business journeys and exports them in the right format for your tax return.
These are the tools that save me the most time myself. They sit in the premium section, but you can try them free for 30 days. After that it is €2.99 a month. That is less than a coffee at the market, and you will probably use them more often.
By your specialism
The tools are also arranged by kind of photography. If you are a portrait photographer, you find the 15 tools most relevant to you on one page. The same goes for family photographers, wedding photographers, street photographers and landscape photographers. There are now 18 specialisms on the site, and if your niche is not there yet, I would like to hear about it.
For street photographers, a field close to my heart, I built a separate tool with daily assignments. A new assignment every day to keep your eye sharp, or simply to send you out when you do not quite know what to photograph. Addictive, I often hear back.
Works anywhere, including on your phone
Everything runs in your browser. That sounds simple, but it is deliberate. No app store, no updates, no permissions for your location or camera that you cannot undo afterwards. You open the site, you use the tool, done.
On your smartphone it works just as smoothly as on your laptop. Handy during a shoot, when you want to check or look something up quickly. Most tools even work offline, because they do not need to load anything extra after the first time. Only tools with maps or weather data need the internet.
What you get from me
I built these tools from the same idea I try to bring back into all my work: calm, honesty, and pleasure in the basics of the craft. No sales pitches, no aggressive banners, no third party tracking. Functional cookies for statistics and settings, and that is all.
If you find a mistake, or have an idea for a tool that is missing, email me. I build it myself, so I can respond quickly. That is exactly why I started this project: a short distance between what I run into and what I can build.
Meanwhile I keep writing on the blog about practical themes. Which social media formats apply in 2026, how to organise the edges around a shoot better, and why a tool takes you to a certain point but after that you really have to learn further from someone beside you, in the street or in the studio.
Getting started
Whether you were given a camera for your birthday and are taking your first steps, or you have worked as a professional photographer for years and are looking for a handy place for the business side, there is something waiting for you. The threshold is low. You do not have to install anything, you do not have to buy anything to use most of the tools, and you can try the premium tools for a month with no obligation.
Go to apps.michielheijmans.com, pick a tool that suits what you are doing today, and see what it gives you. If one tool comes in useful just once, the project has already proved its worth.
And if after that you want to make the photo that is really right, you know where to find me.