The Art of Composite Photography: Part Three
Welcome back to The Art of Composite Photography. In the previous parts, we have covered pre-visualization, planning, and unbreakable rules.
Welcome back to The Art of Composite Photography. In the previous parts, we have covered pre-visualization, planning, and unbreakable rules.
Learning photography, especially for beginners, can really be kickstarted by one’s enthusiasm about the craft. In fact, since people have different ways of learning and different paces of learning as well, being able to ask the right questions most of the time gets one on the right track. So, here are a few questions that one should skip entirely.
Adding some video production offerings to your photography workload has become pretty common for a lot of photographers. Even though a lot of the technology is transferable, not all the skills are, and shooting interviews, both in the setup and getting better dialogue, can be difficult to learn.
In Washington, a woman has been taken to hospital after being bitten and injected with venom by an octopus she picked up and placed on her face in what was an attempt to win a local photo contest.
New footage recorded at 1,000 frames per second is giving insight into how an ant stinger works. In what is said to be the first recording of its kind, we can see the stinger, which is thinner than a human hair, releasing venom.
Very few things get me riled up like buzzwords, soundbites, and marketing drivel. And over the years, I've noticed some words in the photography vernacular that are right up there on the gibberish scale. Here are a few examples.
Landscape photography can be a tricky genre, full of subtle aesthetic and technical choices that can really make or break a photo. This excellent video details seven tips that can help you to improve your landscape photos.
Search the internet for photography articles about noise, and almost universally, they will be about how to reduce it in your photos. But is noise always a bad thing? This interesting video discusses why it might not always be bad and why you might want to embrace it at times.
Sex and stripping seem to go hand in hand, but in this edition of the A to Z of photography, I cover the acclaimed work of fashion photographer Bob Carlos Clark, "Shooting Sex" and then delve into the technical details of the photo finish.
Starting out in commercial photography is a daunting prospect, especially for those who are more creator than entrepreneur. I was one of these people, and I'd like to share some tips that are very easy to implement that could save you from a lot of headaches down the road.
I got the idea of shooting a total moon eclipse with a long lens. I was thinking about the Canon EF 500mm, but all I could get was a massive Canon EF 800mm lens. The lens turned out to be too long for the eclipse photo I had in mind, but I got a great opportunity to shoot for a while with this long and heavy white beast.
Have you wondered how it looks when a landscape photographer gets up early in the morning and hikes to the top of a mountain to photograph a sunrise?
The Samyang AF 45mm f/1.8 FE lens for Sony E is quite the intriguing lens, providing an autofocus prime with a wide maximum aperture in an impressively small and cheap package for Sony shooters. Does it give you a lot of bang for your buck? This great first look video aims to answer just that question.
Sony cameras have some incredibly powerful and advanced autofocus systems with intricate settings and numerous customization options. At times, however, all those capabilities can almost be a bit overwhelming. This helpful video will show you the ideal autofocus settings for portrait shoots.
If you have a good understanding of how light works, you may find that an expensive studio stuffed full of high-end strobes and funky diffusers is far from important when it comes to creating striking images. In this short video, photographer Irene Rudnyk shows you how to produce something remarkable using little more than a shed.
With the popularity and accessibility of drones in recent years for everything from music videos, to photography, and even parcel delivery, designers are continuing to come up with creative ways in which to use them. Now, researchers have created a drone that shrinks mid-flight so it can squeeze through small spaces.
Topaz Studios seems to have endless releases of powerful tools for photographers, and many of us have at least one Topaz application or plugin in our collection of editing tools. So, just how good is the newly released Topaz Studio 2?
If you've been involved with photography for very long at all, you may have noticed that photographers have a variety of opinions — about everything. Unfortunately, many photographers appear as though they live in a box, where they can only see the things that they are personally involved in.
Venus Optics (Laowa), a small Chinese lens manufacturer founded in 2013, has risen to prominence with their sometimes off-beat, always different, and always high quality lineup of lenses for all the major lens mounts. They have launched niche lenses like the 24mm f/14 probe macro and a series of their flagship close-to-zero-distortion Zero-D lenses. Today’s topic is the latest in that line and the widest lens available for the Fujifilm GFX system, the Laowa 17mm f/4 Zero-D.
As photographers and videographers, let's be honest, we never have enough light equipment. But it can quickly become quite expensive! Thanks to DIY Perks, if you own an old TV that you don't use anymore, you won't have to break your bank account to add a new LED panel to your kit.
The Sony a7S II was a very well received camera, but it is certainly ready for the next iteration, and many creatives (particularly filmmakers) are eagerly anticipating the third version and wondering if it will actually come to market. The good news is that Sony has confirmed that a third version is indeed in development and will eventually come to market.
While their mirrorless bodies have received mixed responses, no one can accuse Canon of playing it safe when it comes to mirrorless lenses, and they're showing no signs of stopping, as patent documents have emerged showing a positively ludicrous lens design.
In light of the barrage of recent allegations against top industry photographers, Jessica Kobeissi is utilizing her platform on YouTube to shed light on what she describes as “the dark side of modeling,” sharing stories she’d heard from females she’s worked with.
Childhood photos are precious, particularly to the parents of said child, so why not teach that parent to edit the photos in Photoshop?
Many of us have either done this ourselves or have a friend that has done it. I'm talking about getting out to a location only to learn that you don't have a usable memory card or battery.
This is a look at how this affordable home security cam can be used for increasing security of your gear while traveling on assignment. Even though it was never designed for this purpose, unlike a lot of other options on the market the Wyze Cam has just the right features to make it possible.
In my last "Behind the Image" article I talked about looking where other photographers aren't. This week I'd like to talk about the importance of being ready for just about anything — particularly when it comes to wildlife photography, as well as how images can impact our behaviors.
If you have aspirations of being a fashion photographer, London Fashion Week is about as big as it can get. It's one of the main fashion capitals of the world, and remains highly respected for both designers and the press.
Every now and then a video seems to explode over YouTube. More recently this has been the food styling hacks tutorials. Here are some myth busting facts.
In case you've never taken the time to just sit outside at night and look (or howl) at the moon, it's actually freaking awesome. The logical next step is to setup your gear and trying to photograph our lunar friend.
In most lenses, the center of the frame might be razor-sharp, but the corners and edges always appear a little soft. It’s something that’s been a problem for thousands of years within optical devices, with many researchers giving up hope until a recent breakthrough from a Mexican physicist, who has now developed a formula that will change how lenses are manufactured.
Canon has been in the game for over 100 years, and along with Nikon, they made the transition from film to digital relatively unscathed. In this photo duel from Denae & Andrew we get to see Canon's last ever film camera, the EOS-1, compete head to head with their first consumer full-frame digital camera, the Canon 5D.
Everyone in the industry must know who Pratik Naik is by now. And if you don't, then you should. In ten years Pratik has become one of the most famous retouchers on the planet.
Besides making cool miniature city scapes and stopping converging lines, there are a host of reasons why you should consider buying a tilt-shift lens.
Instagram is the fodder for many complaints straining from what many say are tactics to make money. My problem with these complaints is that they never speak to the business side. They only talk about why Instagram is at fault, but never why they might have had to make these decisions
[Update] The winner has been announced. Congratulations to Eric Au for being selected as the winner of the Fujifilm XT30 with XF18-55mm lens kit! His entry of visiting the Fstoppers YouTube channel snagged him the prize.
A filmmaker in New York City recorded a video through his car window, shooting at 960 frames per second. The resulting clip makes it seem as though moving pedestrians are frozen on the spot.
Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk has been outed for blocking anyone who calls him out for posting photographers’ images without permission or credit. Numerous photographers have jumped in to defend Richard Angle, who took the photo that Musk tweeted to his 27 million followers.
A YouTuber is facing intense backlash after she accidentally uploaded a video of her shoving, hitting, and yelling at her dog to her channel.
Whether you’re making the switch or just starting out with the Sony Alpha mirrorless system, sports photographers will want to watch this video that examines which lenses are worth your while to kit up with.
Sigma caught the industry by surprise last month by announcing the forthcoming release of the fp, a tiny full-frame mirrorless camera with an unnecessarily lower-case name. More details have emerged, including a quick way of prepping your images and footage for Instagram with a teal and orange color mode that looks, well, interesting.
As still photography cameras and motion cameras continue to merge with technology, so have, to an extent, the expectations of our profession. No better way to prepare yourself for the future than to learn from the masters.
Whatever is your wedding photography style, inevitably, a part of your final gallery will be filled with photos of guests. So, how can we make them less dull and repetitive? How can we "wow" our clients?
With the release of the Fujifilm GFX 50R, the Hasselblad X1D II 50C, as well as a burgeoning used market, digital medium format has become more attainable than ever by professional photographers wanting to step up to the next level in image quality. However, the full frame market is firing back on all cylinders, producing cameras that claim to rival medium format, such as the Sony a7R IV. Many medium format users are quick to point out that there is a medium format look that these high-end full-frame cameras are lacking. So, what is the medium format look? Is it real? Why, yes. Yes, it is.
At pretty much three-quarters of the way through the alphabet we stop at R, an eminently popular letter, to look at the foundation of pretty much all contemporary cameras — the Reflex. This is followed by the inspiringly funny work of Tony Ray-Jones whose career was cruelly cut short.
I remember my first post to Instagram. As an Android user, I had to wait until April 3, 2012 before I could get the app, but when I did, I excitedly uploaded my first photo, the Nashville skyline with the seemingly appropriate Nashville filter. I was hooked.
Adobe’s Premiere Rush app, a piece of software focused on editing shorter length, social media focused videos, has just received a major update to version 1.2. This update brings a major feature, requested by many users.
Sony may have changed the game with the introduction of eye autofocus but Canon might be about to resurrect a feature that’s not been seen since the Canon EOS-3 and EOS 7 were released around twenty years ago: eye-controlled autofocus.
Intimate bird photography has usually been made possible by using some seriously hefty lenses paired with large pro DSLR camera bodies. Can a Micro Four Thirds system really be just as effective while physically being much smaller and easier to carry?
When you are new to photography, there can be a tendency to point your camera indiscriminately. And while there is nothing wrong with feeling out how the entire process works, eventually, you have to move from taking snapshots to making photographs. This great video discusses that process and offers some helpful tips for getting there.