Ranked, and argued for
The ten best window seats on earth.
One camera per idea. There are four on Kilauea and three on the Cinque Terre, and a list that spent three of its ten slots on Hawaii would be a list about our registry rather than about the world. So each of these owns something nothing else here can claim.
Every one was watched before it was ranked. Not the thumbnail, which on this platform is often the operator's poster art and has been caught lying before, but the actual player. One famous mountain lost its place for being invisible in the dark at the moment it was checked, because a list like this cannot rank a camera on reputation.
- 1The sunset
The best single frame anywhere in this app, and it is not close.
SCFelicite, Seychelles
A granite shore in the Seychelles facing open Indian Ocean, with nothing between the lens and the horizon and no operator logo anywhere on it. Almost every camera on this list has a timestamp or a weather widget burned into a corner. This one has the sky and nothing else, and when the light goes it fills the entire frame edge to edge.
When to look
The hour before sunset, local time. There is no season to wait for: it is four degrees south of the equator, so the sun sets near six all year.
Felicite Island·Luxury Island
- 2The animal
The most watched wild animals on the internet, and they have earned it.
USKatmai National Park, Alaska, United States
A waterfall in Alaska with brown bears standing in it catching salmon out of the air. It is the camera that taught a generation of people that a webcam could be appointment viewing, and in the weeks before the bears go to sleep they are so heavy they can barely climb the bank. Nothing else here rewards leaving a tab open the way this does.
When to look
July for the run, and September for the weight. Between those two windows it is a river, and that is honest rather than broken.
Brooks Falls·explore.org
- 3The tropics
The postcard, except it is moving and it is happening right now.
MVNoonu Atoll, Maldives
White sand, palms bending in the trade wind, and water that goes through about six shades of turquoise between the beach and the reef edge. It is the image every airline has been selling for fifty years, and the difference is that this one has weather in it. Watch it in a squall and it is a completely different place.
When to look
Mid morning through afternoon, Maldives time, when the sun is high enough to light the lagoon from above and turn the shallows that colour.
Velaa Lagoon·Luxury Maldives
- 4The mountains
The fjord the cruise ships cannot get into.
NOSunnmore, Norway
The Sunnmore Alps come out of black water at an angle that does not look real, and Hjorundfjorden is narrow and deep enough that the big ships stay out. In June the light never properly leaves, so the golden hour lasts most of the night and the whole wall of rock stays lit in a colour that belongs to one latitude and one month.
When to look
June and July for the midnight sun. September for autumn and much better odds of a sky with something in it.
Hjorundfjorden·Live Norway
- 5The village
Five hundred years of houses stacked on a cliff, lit from within.
ITCinque Terre, Italy
The view from Nessun Dorma over Manarola is the one every photograph of the Cinque Terre is trying to be, and it works best after dark, which is unusual for a landscape camera. The village lights come on one window at a time down the rock, the sea goes flat black underneath, and the whole thing looks like it was built to be looked at from exactly here.
When to look
The blue hour, and the hour after it. This is the rare camera on the list that is better at night than at noon.
Manarola·Paesaggi Digitali
- 6The volcano
A crater that is currently open, steaming, and occasionally erupting.
USKilauea, Hawaii, United States
Halemaumau is a live vent inside a caldera, pointed at by the United States Geological Survey because they need to watch it, which is why the picture is steady and the framing never changes. Most volcano cameras show a mountain that might do something one day. This one is doing something now.
When to look
Any hour. It glows after dark during an eruption, which is the single most worthwhile reason on this list to open a camera at three in the morning.
Halemaumau Crater·USGS
- 7The waterhole
You do not look for the animals. You sit still and they arrive.
NAEtosha National Park, Namibia
Etosha is a salt pan the size of a small country, and in the dry season every living thing in it has to come to water. The waterhole at Okaukuejo is floodlit all night, so rhino, elephant and lion at the same water in one evening is a normal night rather than a lucky one. It is the only camera here where the right way to watch is to do nothing for an hour.
When to look
After dark, Namibian time, in the dry season from May to October. The floodlights are the whole point.
Okaukuejo Waterhole·NamibiaCam
- 8The aurora
The one thing on this list that no amount of planning can promise you.
ISSkagafjordur, Iceland
A dark valley in northern Iceland pointed at the northern horizon, which is the correct way round for this. The aurora is weather on top of weather: the sun has to fire, the field has to line up, and the sky over Skagafjordur has to be clear on the same night. When all three happen the whole frame moves.
When to look
September to March, after midnight, on a clear night with a Kp index of four or better. The Night page here says when that is.
Holar·TokAir Iceland
- 9The stars
Four thousand metres up, above forty percent of the atmosphere.
USMauna Kea, Hawaii, United States
A telescope on Mauna Kea looking west, which means it sits above the cloud deck and above most of the air that blurs everything else. The Milky Way comes up as a structure rather than a smudge, and during a meteor shower this is as close as anybody gets to the view an observatory has without working at one.
When to look
Astronomical dark, Hawaii time, on a new moon. During the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December it is the best seat on the planet.
CFHT, looking west·Asahi Astro LIVE and CFHT
- 10The city
A thousand years of arrivals, still arriving.
ITVenice, Italy
The San Marco basin is where Venice has met the water since it was a republic, and the traffic across it has never stopped: vaporetti, working boats, tenders, gondolas cutting across the lot of them. Every other city camera on this list would be improved by fewer people in it. This one is the opposite.
When to look
First light, before the day boats, when the water is flat and the whole basin is one colour.
San Marco Basin·I Love You Venice
Every camera here belongs to the person or organisation who put it up and pays to keep it running. All ten are free to watch, forever, and that is not a promotion.