Recently, Canon announced the EOS R6 Mark II mirrorless camera, and alongside it came the RF 135mm f/1.8 L IS USM lens, the update to one of the company's most popular lenses, the EF 135mm f/2L. As such, expectations are high for the new version. This great review takes a look at the new lens and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in usage.

Samyang has long had a reputation for producing manual focus lenses that are sharp and very affordable, and recently, they have started to add autofocus options, making them viable for many more photographers and situations. One such option is the AF 85mm f/1.4 FE II, which offers photographers the popular combination of a portrait focal length and very wide maximum aperture, all at a price significantly lower than many other options. Can it compete with those more expensive options? This excellent video review takes a look at the performance and image quality you can expect.

There are several timeless photography debates that are fun to engage in but will probably never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. There’s film versus digital, zoom lenses versus primes, small compact minimalistic camera versus fully featured monster-sized pro camera, and of course, continuous lighting versus strobe lighting. This article will not seek to determine whether strobes or constant lights are better for portraiture, but we will take a deep dive into how one photographer used continuous lighting on a recent celebrity shoot.

Canon has clamped down tightly on the RF mount, disallowing essentially any third-party lenses with autofocus. This has been to the dismay of many photographers who embraced lenses from companies like Sigma and Tamron, which often offered options that were either cheaper or simply not available from Canon itself. At least one company is still highly interested in the RF mount, as recently confirmed by Sigma's CEO, Kazuto Yamaki.

DxO is well known to our readers. They've been leaders in camera and lens optical testing, and they've offered software like the DxO PureRAW pre-processing software and PhotoLab 6, which is a full-featured raw editor.

Do you take your camera for a walk? In this second article on that topic, we will be considering why it is good for you and your photography in ways you might not think, why you could leave the telephoto lens behind, and how to improve at photographing animate subjects even with a shorter lens.

Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. In this world of photography gear and gadgets, sometimes, less is more. When it comes to filters and landscape photography, which do you really need?

Landscape photography can be tricky, complex, and frustrating, but it can also be tremendously rewarding. If you'd like to improve your own work, check out this excellent video interview that offers a lot of insightful advice sure to help you on your way.

The demand for images is higher than ever, and yet, the security of many photo jobs is in more peril than ever. One of the hardest-hit genres of the last few decades has been stock photography. Is AI going to kill the genre entirely?

My quest to become the best photographer I can be has encountered many failures, but if I truthfully examined the reasons why I failed each time, some common elements always seemed to appear. Take a look to see if they might apply to you, too.

The Canon 7D and 7D Mark II were two of the company's most popular DSLRs, as they offered professionals and advanced amateurs many of the features from higher-level cameras like the 1D series at much more affordable prices. Now that we are in the mirrorless era, the EOS R7 has picked up that torch and has brought with it a huge range of new features and upgrades sure to catch the eyes of a lot of photographers. This great video review takes a look at the camera from a photographer's perspective and the image quality and performance you can expect from it in usage.

Walking photography should be a genre of its own; it is the most popular form. There are simple things you can do that will ensure you come home from your walk with better photos than before. This is the first of two articles looking at ways to improve those images.

Have you ever seen images and wondered how they create an editorial look that you just can't seem to recreate? It's clean, it's crisp, it may be edgy or sleek... you can't quite put your finger on it, but whatever "it" is, you want it for your work. Here are a few tips, from composition to post-production, that will upgrade your images and give you a more professional look.

The past few years, Venus Optics has been making great strides in affordable, niche lenses. In this video, photographer Markus Hofstätter shares his experience with the Laowa 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5X Ultra Macro lens.

Fujifilm's GFX line of medium format mirrorless cameras revolutionized the industry by including an array of modern features traditionally reserved for smaller-sensor bodies and putting them all together at extremely competitive prices. Perhaps the most intriguing option of the line is the GFX 100S, which brings the company's best sensor in a body that competes on price with top-level full frame options. This great video review takes a look at the image quality and performance you can expect from the camera.

As a medium, photography is all about sight. If you can’t see it, you can’t really take a photograph of it. The alternative is, of course, things like art, music, or prose where you don’t need to see something to make something about it.

Landscape photography is a challenging genre that requires a balance of technical abilities, creative vision, the ability to predict and adapt to evolving conditions, and a lot of persistence. If you would like to improve your work, check out this fantastic video tutorial from an experienced landscape photographer that will teach you some important lessons sure to put you on the right track.

After a year in my bag, it's time for a recap of the first 12 months with the best camera I’ve ever owned.

An editorial shoot, like any type of photography, requires a perfect blend of planning and play. Timing is critical, especially when working with a celebrity. In this video, London-based photographer Ejatu Shaw shares a behind-the-scenes look of her shoot with radio host Roman Kemp.

Lewis Potts picked up the cheapest camera he could find on Amazon and tried shooting alongside an Arri Alexa Mini LF.

Landscape photography can become frustrating if you get too focused on results and constantly compare yourself to other photographers. While browsing the web and visiting social media sites, you see countless photos of spectacular sunrises and sunsets. But getting truly awesome conditions is rare, even for those who are pros at planning. Let me share what the reality looks like.

Waterfalls are some of the most popular landscape photography subjects, offering the ability to add a sense of motion to otherwise still scenes and to leverage natural leading lines to bring your viewers' eyes through the scene. If you are new to the genre and looking to improve, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you some helpful tips and techniques for improving your waterfall photography.

Photographers love to talk about gear, but there is also a strong contingent of those who believe that all that discussion is a distraction from what really matters. The truth is probably somewhere in-between: gear does matter, and your choice of it can affect your workflow, but it is still the means, not the end. This interesting video discusses the matter and why gear matters.

As a digital artist, being able to easily get your hands on overlays and effects for your images can sometimes be a costly experience and, at times, not provide you with enough scope of selections for your edits. One of the plugins I have in my collection is Infinite Texture, which provides a whole host of editing possibilities, from simple sky replacement to more complex edits.

Along with shutter speed and ISO, aperture is one of the fundamental parameters that helps you create balanced exposures and gives you a ton of creative control over the look of your photos. If you are new to photography and looking to improve your photos, check out this awesome video tutorial that will show you the ins and outs of aperture and how to use it to take better control of your images.

2022 has been quite the year for photo gear, with a huge range of impressive camera and lens releases. What has been your favorite? What failed to impress you? This hilarious video discusses the best and worst camera and lenses of the past year.

I’ve been making a tutorial about the Map Module in Lightroom Classic for the Dutch Photographic community. It can be a lot of work collecting and adding GPS data to your images. Does this information have any use at all, or is it just nice to have?

That's what one of the internet's most popular photographers and reviewers said about the rumored specs on the Canon EOS R5 II, due for release in 2023. Take a look inside to see why he made such a huge statement.

As the adage goes, “you have to run before you can walk.” This also applies to photography. Once you’ve learned how to consistently make a good image within your camera, what is the next step?

Since Lightroom and Photoshop introduced their automatic sky selections, changes to the sky in landscape and architecture photos have become very easy. But, how good are those automatic selections? If you edit photos for web representation alone, they are mostly good enough. But if you intend to print your photos, you might want to improve them, which is what I show in this article.

If you are new to working with artificial light, you might look at some of the complex multi-light setups seasoned professionals use and feel a bit overwhelmed or discouraged. However, you can absolutely make creative, compelling, and professional-level portraits with just a single light, and this neat video tutorial will show you one of the more unusual but effective ways of doing so.

When you are new to photography, you spend most of your time focusing on the image-making process, but as you start to charge for your work, there are important fundamentals of business you must learn as well, one of the most crucial being the contract. This important video discusses why you should really have a contract, even if you think you don't need one.

After many years of non-pro iPhones, Apple’s new 48-megapixel iPhone 14 Pro was enough to convince me to pull the trigger. I was ready to fall into the embrace of Apple’s AI-assisted ProRAW format. While it has its uses, in its current state it’s still kind of a mixed bag.

When it was first released, the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art was one of the most exciting and innovative lenses ever seen, being the only standard zoom with an aperture below f/2. Nonetheless, the lens is almost a decade old now, and in the meantime, sensor resolutions have increased. So, can this famous lens keep up with the demands of a modern camera? This excellent video review takes a look.

In recent years, Tamron has shown that they intend on creating impressively versatile and often innovative zoom lenses that can take the place of several others in a photographer's bag. One such lens is the 50-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di III VC VXD, which covers everything from normal to supertelephoto focal lengths. This great video review takes a look at the lens and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.

Laowa now has a total of six lenses with an aperture of f/0.95, so how useful is it to have this aperture, and what are the results? As a landscape photographer mainly, this maximum aperture is something I had never really considered, although I do understand the usefulness of such an aperture for different types of photography, especially in low light and video. So, how does the lens perform throughout the apertures, and does it have the ability to provide results that are in line with or better than similar lenses in this price range? I tested it to find out.

Wedding photography is notorious for being a demanding, high-stakes genre, and as such, it is natural that with that comes a fair amount of stress. Nonetheless, that does not mean you can't do certain things to reduce that stress. This excellent video tutorial features an experienced wedding shooter discussing five reasons why you might be overly stressed shooting weddings and what you can do to fix that.

There are many different techniques for getting consistently sharp images, but I think this one is the best of them all. Take a look to find out why.

Photographers have preferences on everything ranging from their favorite camera to their best lens, how they edit their photos, and what photo paper they use to make prints. What if your own preferences aren't aligned with what your potential clients enjoy? We asked dozens of normal people which photo papers and print products they prefer, and the results were not exactly what I had expected.

While Photoshop remains the place where the most complex and intricate edits are done, Lightroom has become far more capable in recent iterations, and you can now finish many photos without ever leaving the program. This excellent video tutorial features an experienced landscape photographer sharing how to edit photos from start to finish in Lightroom.

Today is the day we learn which color will take the crown as the color of the year for 2023. Are you ready to start seeing the unconventional new shade everywhere?

The value of participating in non-commissioned projects in a photography career is very high, and photo competitions are a good example of that.

When Fujifilm announced the new X-H2, I was immediately interested to test it out against my current camera, the Canon R5. Featuring a 40-megapixel sensor, much improved autofocus, and other advancements, on paper, it hits all the marks for my type of work.

If you're a steadfast Sony loyalist, you might want to look away now, because a dedicated Sony shooter just got his hands on the Canon EOS R5 and a bunch of Canon lenses and absolutely loved the ecosystem. Take a look to find out why.

I keep on seeing the advertisements about software for reducing noise in digital photos. It gives the idea noise is always a huge problem that needs to be addressed. This is advertising, of course. Or is it indeed an issue that we have to solve with specialized software?.

Apple's MacBook Air line features some of the most popular computers in the world, and since the move to the company's own silicon, they have become legitimate tools for creative professionals, able to tackle demanding tasks formerly left for larger and more expensive options. The new M2 model has now been on the market for about five months, giving creatives a good chunk of time with the device, and this excellent video review discusses one such user's experience with the computer in that time.

Between coming out to the worst of the pandemic, the rise of AI, and people producing and consuming more images than ever before, 2022 has been quite a year for the photography industry. What will 2023 bring to us? This interesting video discusses six trends we will see in the new year.

Nikon has made their way into more specialized mirrorless lenses in recent months, with the NIKKOR Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S being one such option. The 800mm f/6.3 might be one of the most competitively priced lenses in recent memory, and it offers top-shelf sharpness and portability on top of that. This great video review takes a look at the new lens and the sort of image quality and performance you can expect from it in usage.

Technology often follows a path where it begins life large, slow, and expensive, and then gets smaller, faster, and cheaper as time passes. Digital cameras have not followed this trend for a number of reasons, and every time I think I can predict where the industry will go, a curveball is thrown.

This one will be a subjective post, but I will not make it a praise piece for my camera brand of choice. Instead, I'm talking about the pain points that led me to a particular brand over any other.