3 Tips for Becoming a More Successful Professional Photographer

Being a successful professional photographer is no easy task, and it takes the ability to simultaneously juggle a wide variety of different skills and responsibilities. If you want to give yourself a better chance of finding long-term success as a photographer, check out this great video that will give you three tips to help you find success.

The Best Images from GuruShots "Let's See Macro" Challenge

GuruShots is the host of "The World’s Greatest Photo Game” and has released yet another fantastic challenge. Participants submited their best macro photos. The challenge received thousands of entries and millions of votes. Check out the three winners of the challenge as well as hundreds of top rated images below.

The Three Best Photo Spots in Lisbon

Not only is Lisbon the capital of Portugal, its largest city, and a major tourist destination in Europe, it's also a great location for cityscape photography. Its hilly profile offers beautiful views of the narrow streets and Mediterranean architecture. All across the city, you'll find interesting photo spots, and in this article, I show you three of the best in Lisbon's center.

A Look at the Affordable and Impressive Viltrox AF 24mm f/1.8 Lens

24mm lenses are highly useful, as they are generally about the widest focal length you can use before wide angle distortion begins to become really obvious. 24mm f/1.4 lenses generally run around $1,000 or more, but Viltrox's AF 24mm f/1.8 comes in at less than half that, and this excellent video review takes a look at the image quality and performance you can expect from it.

Turning Day to Night in Adobe Photoshop

Whether you couldn't shoot at the time you wanted or you just want to experiment with composites and heavier editing, this video will show you how to make a complete transformation.

How to Use a Powerful ND Filter for Long Exposure Landscape Photos

ND filters are a favorite tool of a lot of landscape photographers, useful for creating otherworldly long exposures that simply would not be possible otherwise. If you are new to using them, this helpful video tutorial will show you the process of using a 10-stop filter to create images.

Luminar Neo Gives Us a Better Preview of What’s Coming

Skylum has been heavily teasing its new editor called Luminar Neo for many months, and today, I received another working preview of the app, available on Windows and Mac platforms. The new version seems to run a little faster than the last preview, and it is fully native to Apple silicon. I tested it on my 16" MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chipset. The release version will be faster, but Neo was editing at a good clip.

Is This Mid-Level 50mm Lens Worth the Extra Money?

You can spend under $100 for a 50mm lens with autofocus to well over $2,000 if you want the best of the best, with options at just about every price point in between. At $379, Viltrox's AF 50mm f/1.8 lens promises performance upgrades over the cheapest options without getting into the realm of ultra-expensive options, and this great video review takes a look at the performance and image quality you can expect from it.

What Do You Lose When Compressing Images With JPEG?

We encounter and use JPEG files daily, but rarely do we give any thought to what the process entails. More importantly to us as photographers, what data do we lose when using this lossy image compression technique?

Check Out This Neat Trick for Creating Dramatic Light With a Shoot-Through Umbrella

No matter how many lighting modifiers you own, there is almost no setup that will not require some sort of customization, which is why a good understanding of the fundamentals of how light behaves and how to shape it is so important. This great video tutorial will show you a useful exercise for creating dramatic light using just a shoot-through umbrella and some v-flats, and even if you own more specialized modifiers, it is excellent practice in the problem-solving skills needed for mastering lighting.

Does Your Drone Need Filters?

Drones have quickly become a common and important tool for photographers and videographers in many niches. Filters have been a staple for camera users for decades, so could you benefit from filters for your drone?

Landscape Photography at an Extreme Focal Length

When it comes to landscape photography, the lens of choice is normally a wide angle focal length, such as a 24mm prime or 16-35mm zoom. Professionals often advocate exploring longer focal lengths by using something like a 70-200mm lens, but what about when you go even longer — much longer? This neat video explores creating landscape photos using an extra-long focal length.

Is This the Year To Start Selling Your Photography?

When you are first starting with photography and developing your skills, it can be hard to know when and if to start pursuing selling your work as art prints. Is this the year you give it a try?

Behind the Scenes of Failed Photoshoots: Learning From Mistakes

It is a truism that you learn far more from your failure than you do your successes, and photography is no different. In this video, esteemed portrait photographer, Irene Rudnyk, goes through some of her failed shoots that never quite made the grade.

Helpful Tips for Editing Black and White Landscape Photos in Lightroom

When you think of landscape photos, you likely think of vibrant, eye-catching colors. And while that is a popular look for sure, a black and white image can be uniquely powerful. Lightroom contains some surprisingly versatile tools for creating black and white edits, and this helpful video tutorial will show you some great tips for getting the most out of those features.

Are You Guilty of This Very Common Mistake When You Shoot New Places?

When you photograph a place for the first time, it's thrilling. You might have been planning it for months or years in advance, so when it finally comes to fruition, you can often get overexcited and forget some very important things once you start shooting. Here's one very common error that you should avoid.

9 Ways to Improve Your Photography Website

Nowadays, the majority of people turn to the internet when they are looking for services, including photography. As such, it is crucial that you understand and anticipate the way potential clients interact with websites and how to create the best experience to give you a better chance of turning them into paying customers. This helpful video tutorial will give you nine techniques to put you on the right track.

What Can You Do When You Forget Your Lens Filters?

Neutral density and polarizing filters are an essential part of most landscape photographers' kits, giving them the ability to better control long exposures, suppress reflections, and add contrast. So, what can you do when you forget your filters at home? This neat video explores photographing without them and how you can mimic their usage through some clever post-processing techniques.

A Review of the Canon EOS R6 Mirrorless Camera

Canon's EOS R5 caught the attention of the photography world when it was announced, but alongside it came the EOS R6, which brought with it a lot of the same advanced features at a much more affordable price. If you do not need the 45 megapixels of the EOS R5, the EOS R6 may be the better choice, and this great video review takes a look at what you can expect from it.

How to Make $100,000 a Year With Your Photography

Whether you are a professional or a hobbyist, it’s safe to assume that you’d love to make at least $100,000 a year with your photography. Chances are, you’ve already heard that the key to reaching this number is to have multiple streams of income. In this video, Evan Ranft offers an alternate path for making six figures a year.

How This Photographer Shoots Light Halos Above UK Landmarks

A photographer with a passion for long exposures has shared an insight into how he creates UFO-style light halos within his landscape images. His posts containing his work have garnered hundreds of thousands of likes on the video-sharing site TikTok.

Which of These Affordable 85mm Lenses Is the Best?

Wide-aperture 85mm lenses are some of the most popular out there, a fact the seemingly never-ending arms race between manufacturers for the most bokeh-licious portrait lens can attest to. Not all of us want to spend over $2,000 on such a lens, though, and there are plenty of options that still offer good image quality at much more affordable prices. This excellent video comparison takes a look at two such options.

Predictions for Professional Photography in 2022

There are lots of gear rumors and predictions that come out at the start of a year, so I thought I would chip in with my predictions for the industry as a working photographer and give my predictions as to how 2022 will likely pan out.

23 Fantastic Tips to Make You a Better Wedding Photographer

Wedding photography is a challenging and complex genre that takes a lot of different variables coming together to produce successful work. If you are looking to improve your own work and gain more confidence in your abilities, check out this fantastic video that will give you 23 helpful tips from a seasoned pro.

Small Things Make a Big Difference: Why Smallrig’s L-Bracket Is My Favorite

The L-bracket is a pretty simple idea: have a way of mounting your camera vertically or horizontally to the tripod. Between that simple idea and the actual product, however, is a big difference in execution. I recently tried out Smallrig’s L-bracket for the Nikon Z6 and Z7 series, and I was really impressed by how it elevates that fundamental concept to accessory perfection.

Behind the Scenes of Bird Photography in the Jungle With Great Tips

Bird photography is tremendously difficult and so is photographing in a jungle. So, it follows that photographing birds in a jungle will require a lot of skill in patience. Watch as two veteran wildlife photographers go through recent shots and offer some tips and mistakes to avoid.

Behind the Scenes Photographing Huge Waves Crashing Into a Lighthouse

The sea has so many different styles of photography that can be conducted with it that if you live near an ocean, it can be a brilliant source of both imagery and practice. In this video, one photographer sets out to capture huge waves crashing into a lighthouse.

A Quick Guide to Creating Portraits

It is common to see family members using their phones to take photographs at family events. Often these images aren’t memorable because of poor composition and bad lighting. Here’s an easy lighting setup you can use to create professional-quality photographs.

8 Must-Haves for Making Videos in Your Home Studio

Most YouTubers have set up their home studios bit by bit and learned how to achieve the shots and looks that they want by trial and error. In this video, veteran photographer and YouTuber Becki, of the duo Becki & Chris, shares eight tips that they've learned over the years, and I think they just might help you.

A Review of the New Leica M11 Camera

The Leica M11 is here, and it brings with it a bevy of new features and improvements that have captured the attention of Leica fans and general photographers alike. This excellent video review takes a look at the new camera and if it can keep up with the legendary standards set by its predecessors.

Finding Your Own Photographic Style, and Why It’s So Important

Should you think more about having a coherent and distinctive style to your photography? If you want to raise your game, then finding your own look is imperative. There's one surefire way of developing that. However, some big obstacles will try to trip you up along the way.

A Good Reminder You'll Need the Next Time You're Frustrated With Photography

Photography is a wonderful thing that can be tremendously satisfying, but on the other hand, it can also be very difficult and quite frustrating. The next time you find yourself in that space, remember that you watched this video and that you are not alone in experiencing those feelings.

It’s Not About the Camera, It’s About Who’s Pressing the Shutter

I can think of so many times throughout my career where I have drooled over that latest camera release or that most recent lens that my brain convinces me that I simply have to have. Realistically, though, what photographer out there hasn't done that at least once in their career?

What Can Truly Improve Your Photography

Spend any amount of time looking up photography on the internet, and you will be bombarded from every direction by claims of how you can improve your work, a lot of them centered around gear. Really, though, if you want to improve, it comes down to how you approach your photos, and this insightful video discusses what you really need to make better images.

Which Program Handles Sony Raw Files Better, Lightroom or Capture One?

Sony cameras have long been criticized for their color science. The notion is that Sony cameras produce unflattering colors, especially for skin tones. This claim seems to be leaning towards raw files processed in Lightroom. Capture One is generally recommended, so, let's find out which of the two software is the better option for Sony raw files.

How to Customize Lightroom to Give You More Useful Information

Lightroom contains more customization capabilities under its hood than it might seem initially, but one that rarely gets mentioned is the information the program shows you about your photos. Lightroom actually lets you display all sorts of data in these cells, and taking a few minutes to change their default settings can make your workflow a lot easier. This great video tutorial will show you how to do just that.

Do You Suffer From the 'Curse' of the Photographer?

Do you find yourself in a seemingly never-ending cycle of being excited by your work, only to become disenchanted with and disappointed by it when you look back at it later? Maybe you suffer from the "curse of the photographer."

Strengthen Your Eyesight With This Simple Daily Routine

As photographers, our perception of the world around us is our most important tool, and our only interface to the visible world. There's much to be said about reducing screen-time, but it may not be practical for everyone. Instead, here's another way to relieve your eyes; with a simple daily routine.

Is This a Next-Level Travel Lens?

Generally, travel lenses are meant to cover a wide range of focal lengths to allow you to be able to photograph most things you are likely to encounter. On the other hand, when you go for a large focal length range, that often means sacrificing wide apertures for low-light situations and sharp image quality. This lens might be able to give you the trifecta of reach, aperture, and sharpness, however.

10 Steps for Finding the Perfect Camera Angle

We can learn a lot from experienced filmmakers and cinematographers, and one of their strongest skills is their ability to tell stories. Whether you shoot video or photos, this excellent video tutorial will give you a 10-step process for finding the best, most compelling angle for every shot.

The Important Question You Should Ask Before Taking Every Photo

We spend a ton of time talking about how to take a photo, including lighting, techniques, composition, and a lot more. And of course, all those things are quite important to producing a compelling photo, but that is not enough. But it takes more than that to create a good image, and this insightful video discusses how you should be approaching taking photos beyond just the how-to of it all.

Which Apple Computer Is Right for You?

The MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac. The M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max. There is certainly no shortage of options when it comes to Apple computers. If you are looking at the vast array of models and wondering which one is right for your work, check out this great video that will give you an overview of the lineup and help you pick the computer for you.

How to Become a Wedding Photographer

Being a wedding photographer can be a really enjoyable career if you have the drive and the right personality for it. If that is something you are interested in but are unsure of how to get started, this helpful video tutorial will give you some important areas to focus on to put you on the right track.