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We want to see the images that still give you chills

Welcome to the October installment of the Critique the Community! This month's critique theme is going to be "Scary," and we want to see your best photographs that scared you in some way.

Is the Sony 20-70mm f/4 G the Do-Everything Zoom for the Mountains?

The Sony FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G and FE 20-70mm f/4 G both promise a smaller standard zoom, and each one asks you to give up something different to get there. If you carry a camera into the mountains for hours at a time, the choice between extra width, extra reach, and an extra stop of light shapes nearly every frame you bring home.

 

Landscape Photography Beliefs Worth Questioning, From Gear to Fame

Most people start landscape photography already believing a few things: you need a wide angle lens, a tripod goes everywhere with you, and a strong portfolio might eventually pay for itself. Those beliefs decide what you buy, where you travel, and how you judge your own progress, and several of them don't hold up once you've spent real time in the field.

 

Should You Fix a Vintage Lens' Flaws in Lightroom?

Adapting a vintage lens to a mirrorless body gets you inexpensive, well-built glass with a look modern optics rarely have, and it also brings purple fringing, darkened corners, and lines that bow at the edges. Every one of those flaws can be pushed around in Lightroom, so each one becomes a decision about how much of the old lens you keep in the final file.

 

How to Find Compositions When a Location Overwhelms You

You arrive somewhere beautiful, raise the camera, and every frame comes back looking like a postcard someone else already took. Too much to look at can stall your composition faster than too little, and the fix often starts with seeing less of the scene through a viewfinder, a long lens, or an in-camera crop mode.

 

Are Inflatable LED Lights Actually Any Good?

Inflatable LED lights are one of those ideas that sound gimmicky. A soft, glowing tube you inflate like a pool toy, then use to light a portrait or paint with color in the dark. It's the kind of gadget that could easily be all novelty and no substance.

How to Edit Autumn Foliage in Lightroom Without Overcooking It

Most fall edits in Lightroom go the same way: you open a frame full of yellow leaves, push vibrance and saturation, and end up with something that looks worse than what came out of the camera. Warm hues clip and smear fast, and a heavy hand turns a glowing tree into a flat neon blob.

 

Do You Really Need a Fiery Sunset to Make a Good Landscape Photo?

Most of your time with a camera happens under ordinary skies at ordinary places, yet the landscape images that get the most attention online are blazing sunsets over famous viewpoints. That gap shapes what you think a successful outing looks like, and it can make the scenes you actually encounter feel like second best.

 

AstrHori's 8mm Fisheye Brings a Rare Look to Medium Format

Fisheye lenses for medium format have been close to nonexistent, so if you shoot a Fujifilm GFX or Hasselblad body and want that look, you've usually had to adapt glass that doesn't cover the sensor properly. AstrHori's new 8mm fisheye goes after that gap with a circular image and a field of view wider than a full hemisphere.

 

Do You Still Need One Career-Defining Photo?

For decades, a photography career seemed to hinge on one or two pictures, the frames that appeared in every magazine profile and forum thread until they became shorthand for the person who made them. If you've ever wondered whether your own work needs that kind of breakout image, your answer affects how you shoot, how you edit, and how you share everything else.

 

Canon's Craziest Lens Ever Just Appeared

A Canon patent application published in Japan on October 16 includes a complete optical design for a 70-200mm f/2 zoom covering a full-frame sensor, a combination Canon has never sold in any mount. The design, Example 9 in the filing, holds f/2.06 from 71.65mm to 194mm.

 

Six-Tenths of a Second Separated Two Dallas Photographers in 1963, and Only One Won the Pulitzer

At 11:21 on the morning of November 24, 1963, Jack Beers was standing on a railing in the basement of Dallas police headquarters with a Mamiyaflex twin-lens reflex, and he tripped his shutter as Jack Ruby stepped into the open. Several feet lower and to his left, Bob Jackson released the shutter on a Nikon S3 six-tenths of a second later. Beers got Ruby walking; Jackson got the bullet.

BenQ PD2732U Review: Could This Be The Monitor for Photographers?

When BenQ asked me if I would like to take a look at the new PD2732U monitor, I was interested because a monitor is something I spend a lot of time looking at, particularly when I am editing photographs. Color accuracy is obviously important to me, but so is how the monitor fits into my existing workflow.

 

Why Boredom Might Be the Best Thing for Your Street Photography

Most street photography outings involve long stretches where nothing worth photographing happens, and how you handle those stretches shapes what you bring home. If you've ever walked for two hours, felt the pressure build, and started shooting anything that moved, you already know the problem.

 

How Sharp Is the Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 on the X-T50?

Fujifilm's XF 400mm f/4.5 gives X-mount shooters the field of view of a 600mm lens on full frame, with an aperture about two-thirds of a stop brighter than the company's 500mm f/5.6. If you shoot birds or wildlife on Fujifilm, that extra light can be the difference between a usable shutter speed at dawn and a frame lost to motion blur.

 

Lumix S9, Fujifilm X-M5, or OM System PEN for Everyday Carry?

The Panasonic Lumix S9, Fujifilm X-M5, and OM System PEN sell at similar prices in 2026, yet each uses a different sensor format: full frame, APS-C, and Micro Four Thirds. If you're moving up from a phone to a camera you'll carry every day, that price overlap makes the decision harder than any spec sheet suggests.

 

Why Would Anyone Sell a Sony a7R V for Fujifilm APS-C?

Most side-by-side tests of APS-C and full frame end the same way, with differences that barely show up in the photos people actually print or post. Far fewer people act on that result, because selling a full frame kit means walking away from money already spent and from a long-held idea of what a serious camera is supposed to be.

 

This Famous Ether Daguerreotype Shows the Wrong Patient

In the whole plate daguerreotype the Getty Museum catalogs as "Early Operation Using Ether for Anesthesia," a young man lies on a table in a Boston amphitheater with both legs bare below the knee and his socks still on. Nine men crowd around him, and several of their faces are smeared by the length of the exposure.

This Might Be the Last Camera Case You Ever Buy

The Protector 1510 Studio Case reimagines the toughness you’ve come to expect from Pelican. Is it worthy of its name? More importantly, is it worthy of the price? 

“It’s no secret Pelican is the best. It’s also no secret they’re expensive.”

What Makes You a Photographer When 5 Billion Photos Are Taken Every Day?

Roughly 5 billion photos are taken every day, and anyone with a Midjourney account can now produce an image that looks interesting in seconds. With volume that high and a barrier that low, it becomes a practical question whether your own pictures carry anything that someone else's don't.

 

How Good Are Viltrox's Budget EVO Lenses for Video?

Viltrox's EVO series offers three matched prime lenses for just over $1,000, about what a single first-party prime can cost. If you shoot video on a gimbal or pack light for travel, a set that shares size, weight, and filter thread can save more time than an extra stop of light.

 

How to Build a Layered Street Photo From the Background Up

Layering sounds like a checklist: put something in the foreground, something in the midground, something in the background, and press the shutter. Anyone who has tried it on a crowded sidewalk knows the elements rarely cooperate, and a frame with three layers can still read as a pile of clutter.

 

Turning a Small Venue Into a Portrait Studio With One Light

Shooting portraits at an event means working in whatever corner the venue hands you, with a line of people who all expect to look good and very little time to fuss over each one. A single strobe can give you soft, directional light that looks like it's coming through a big window in that space, but only if you shape it with more than a bare umbrella or softbox.