Hi, I live in the California Bay Area. I've been shooting sunsets for a little while now, but today I realized they don't always appear over the beach like I've been lucky with.

My question is, how do you figure out where the sunsets during the year? Right now I have a photoshoot in Santa Cruz california, I went there this weekend to see how it looks before I went off to shoot and there was no sunset. It was also pretty cloudy, and during the sunset hour it got dark. I know the sun might be more north of San Francisco this time of the year, but I was wondering if theres an app or information on location/time of the sunset/sunrise?

 

I've been doing sunsets over the beach in san francisco the past few months but, I don't think I'd  get this same shot in Santa Cruz will I?

 

Sorry dumb question.

I use Sun Seeker on my iPhone.  The Lite version (free) shows where the sun tracks at the current location.  The paid version will tell you the track at any place on earth at any time.  The paid version could be useful when planning a trip, but I get by fine with the free version.  Go to the app store and enter "sun tracker".  Many hits appear.

On my Android (Galaxy Note 5), I use both "LunaSolCal Mobile" and "Stellarium Mobile" and for low light nature shots I use "Light Pollution".  There are a number of apps that do this. Sun Seeker as Steve mentions is also very good. Good luck.

PLANETS for iPhone iPad. Free. Hold up and you can see just where sun / moon will appear even when it's below the horizon. Like looking through the earth itself.

The Photographers Ephemeris is an invaluable application.

I live in San Francisco and use this application for finding the best place, time and shots for moon and sun all over the Bay Area...

Thank you guys! I ended buying the Photographer's Ephemeris, I love it!

Also Photopills for iOS and Planit! Pro for Android offer that and much more!

I just bought Planit! Pro to try out too    Thank you!

I shoot a lot of real estate photography and use Lighttracker on my iPhone. In addition to sunrise and sunset times it shows sun position during the day (and evening) oriented to a specific location,  and includes shadow angles.