Layer masks are one of the most fundamental and powerful tools in Photoshop and one of the first things anyone new to the application should work on mastering. If you are new to Photoshop, this great video will show you everything you need to know about how layer masks work and how you can use them in your image editing.
Wildlife and sports photographers live on supertelephotos lenses, and Sony offers two great zoom options in that range. However, they have overlapping focal length ranges and some similar features, so you might be wondering which of the two is right for you. This great video takes a look at both of them to help you decide which one is right for your work.
The Tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 Di III VXD lens is the final entry into the company's trinity of f/2.8 zoom lens, and like the 28-75mm f/2.8 and 17-28mm f/2.8, it is quite a bit cheaper than similar first party lenses. If you are wondering how it compares to the more expensive options, check out this great comparison with the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/4.
Perhaps no compositional guideline is more strongly ingrained in the minds of photographers than the rule of thirds. And while it is certainly a useful heuristic, it is not the law, and it is overused quite a bit of the time. This great video discusses why the rule of thirds is overrated.
Our photos are important to us, and as such, it can be difficult to be honest with ourselves and objectively evaluate their quality. However, if we want to improve as photographers, it is crucial that we be willing to do so, and this great video discusses why.
A complaint has been filed against Microsoft, which suggests the tech company used a series of images without the permission of a photographer.
An award-winning macro photographer travels the globe capturing the world’s smallest creatures, some so tiny they’re invisible to the naked eye, despite the fact he says he is scared of bugs!
Shooting for Billboard Magazine would undoubtedly prove exciting for any photographer, but especially so if it was your first assignment since the global lockdown began. This is the story of how one photographer completed a portrait shoot for the renowned publication, taken in the back garden of the subject’s home.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Chief Adviser has been facing heat this week after he was caught repeatedly flouting lockdown. However, even more criticism has been heaped on the UK’s press, after several videos emerged of huge swarms of paparazzi photographers defying social distancing guidelines after they clustered together, each attempting to get the best shot.
Sometimes you can't shoot during a beautiful golden hour, with fresh light pouring through the window onto your model. On those occasions, you have to fake it.
In this great video, Brandon Woelfel takes us through photographing with natural light at golden hour and dusk. Explaining his ISO, shutter speed and aperture options at every stage makes it nice and easy to grasp the secrets he's sharing.
The use of drones over sensitive areas is certainly a point of contention here on Fstoppers. I think we can all agree that airports are a no go. Even if the risk is small, the damage could be catastrophic. What about irreparable heritage sites?
Anyone who has shot buildings and interiors might wonder what possibilities shooting at 10mm could unlock. This lens definitely triggered my curiosity.
Taking images of your family every day for 50 days is a challenge all on its own. Pair that with being stuck at home in quarantine for all 50 of those days, and things get downright interesting. This is how I approached it and what I learned.
While it's important to get things right at the source, if you've made that age-old mistake of not changing your camera settings before taking the shot, is it possible to recover the photo? Or is it destined for the recycling bin?
Shutterstock sent an email to its contributors recently and informed them about their new earning structure. As you might guess, it was shocking and disappointing for the vast majority of contributors.
While people’s physical health has been hard to ignore, the impact of the global pandemic on mental wellbeing is definitely being felt, but often goes unseen and undocumented. One artist’s project has evolved under lockdown, giving a means of expressing how mental health may affect us long after the stay-at-home orders have been lifted.
Following on from the success of its version for Sony E-mount cameras, Samyang/Rokinon has just announced the launch of a new 85mm f/1.4 prime lens for Canon RF — this time with autofocus.
Noise is something we pretty much all try to minimize in our photos, and we know that one of the best ways to avoid it is to shoot at as low an ISO as possible. But even at low ISO values, you can still see noise, particularly as you shoot longer exposures. This great video will show you what long exposure noise is, why it happens, and how you can fix it.
A lot of photographers think that using automatic modes on a camera is a sign of a lack of technique or ability, but it is not such a black and white issue. Here is why you should consider using automatic modes in certain situations.
In the past few years, there has been a surge of online freelance marketplaces, and on them, you can often find photo and video editors waiting to process your work for fees ranging from just $5 to well into the hundreds. This fun video shows what happens when total strangers edit a filmmaker's sushi commercial.
A CNN correspondent and his camera crew were arrested live on air while reporting on events in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd.
Double exposures have been around since the days of film, but thankfully, you can create them digitally now (with a lot more control over the final result too). Now is a great time to grab a couple of photos from your library and to try it out yourself, and this great video tutorial will show you how to do it in Photoshop.
Capture One is already quite a powerful tool for working with portraits (and is used by a lot of top professionals), and the latest version brings a variety of useful new features. This great video will show you how to retouch portraits using Capture One 20.
The DJI Mavic Air 2 is the latest drone from the company, and it brings with it a range of improvements along with new features. This excellent video review takes a look at the new drone and the sort of performance you can expect from it.
For the normal person, blue skies make for a lovely day, but for the landscape photographer, they can be pretty drab and boring. That does not mean you can't take great shots, though; it just means you need to try for different images than you would otherwise. This great video discusses how you can turn monotonous blue skies into fantastic images.
A dark background is a fantastic way to keep the focus on your subject, and all it takes is a little lighting know-how to make it happen. This great video will show you how it is done and how you can use it to create dramatic, vibrant images.
Leica cameras are some of the most expensive out there, and while some see them as a niche product for enthusiasts, other photographers swear by them for their work. This great video features a photographer discussing his thoughts on Leica ownership after a year with his camera.
Creativity and productive is difficult to maintain at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. So why not try a simple and straightforward trick that can aid in both?
Plugins for both photography and video are plentiful nowadays, and the quality of them varies hugely. Here are one cinematographer's favorite video plugins that he is glad he invested in.
Last month Canon excitedly released some free software to turn many of their DSLR and mirrorless cameras into a webcam. However, it was Windows only and the many people the other side of that operating system fence were displeased.
Sony’s a7R IV arrived in September last year, offering incremental improvements over the a7R III, but possibly quite a big step up from the a7 III. In this video, photographer Julia Trotti did some tests to try and find out where you’ll feel the difference when shooting stills.
The blur tool was once a largely useless feature, only applicable in niche uses. That's no longer the case and it's now more powerful than ever before. In this video you will see five different effects you can utilize in your photography.
Nikon has just released its 2020 financial results alongside its medium-term management plan. How does the manufacturer see its future in the wake of last year's financial results?
Pratik Naik is one of the more recognizable people in the photography industry, with tutorials across numerous educational platforms. But what most people don't know about Pratik Naik is that he was never supposed to be a retoucher.
In the automotive world, there’s a saying that there’s no replacement for displacement — a bigger engine is a bigger engine, and that’s all there is to it. One can say that this is the approach that Kandao is taking with its new QooCam 8K: more resolution and larger sensor sizes that make for quite an appealing 360 camera on paper and, as it turns out, in real life too.
How do you photograph extremists without giving them the publicity they desperately crave?
In this video I show you around my commercial food photography studio. This is very much a place to create and steps away somewhat from the pristine white, minimalist set up to complete and utter (organized) chaos.
A debate has raged, particularly in the Fujifilm community, over which type of sensor is better. So, here's a blind test. Do you have a preference before you know on which sensor the image was taken?
Video footage shows the moment an unprovoked man decides to push a photographer into a nearby pond, injuring her and submerging her $3,000 worth of gear into the water. The clip sees members of the public rally around to support the woman, while the attacker tries to downplay his actions.
Do you remember when adverts meant you'd pop to the kitchen for a drink and a snack? Many of us were outraged that they appeared louder than the shows, which was invasive. Now the adverts pause in disgust if I look away, like Orwell's telescreens.
Finding free photography education is about as easy as it is to find a cup of decent coffee. But finding world-class education for free is another story. But until June 6th, you can get free education from 30-plus educators on the top of their game through Photographers Unite.
While dedicated studio lights are much more powerful, speedlights are far more portable and can be a perfectly viable substitute in a lot of situations, especially location work where full monolights would be cumbersome and tedious to use. This great video will show you how you can use simple speedlights and portable modifiers to shoot professional headshots anywhere you go.
Adobe After Effects is something of a companion to Premiere Pro, offering a range of visual effects, motion graphics, and more for video work. And like other Adobe production apps, it is a fairly intricate and often complex application. This great video demonstrates every effect in the program so you can see what they can do and where they might be appropriate for your own work.
The paparazzi have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with celebrities in lockdown leading to a 95 percent drop in output. It seems paparazzi are resorting to even more invasive methods by flying drones very low over celebrity residences.
Some days are beautiful and full of vibrant color and interesting skies, while others are, well, just plain boring. However, those boring days can be the most important of all. This is why you should still be heading out with your camera, even on the least interesting days.
You will often hear proponents of prime lenses tell fans of zoom lenses to simply "zoom with their feet." However, zooming with your feet will not produce the same image as zooming with your lens, and understanding the difference will give you lots of creative capabilities for taking more powerful images. This helpful video will show you the difference and the impact it will have on your photos.
A lot of beginner photographers hear the advice that professionals only shoot in manual mode and that it is a necessary method for becoming truly adept with a camera. And while there is certainly some truth to the benefits of using manual mode, you might be surprised just how often professionals use various semi-automatic modes, and this great video discusses why and how they can benefit your own work.
Generally, you need to get into about the $300 range before you start to see any lenses that can really deliver great results, but occasionally, a gem comes along at a price that seems too good to be true. The Pergear 35mm f/1.6 seems like it could be one of those lenses, and this great video review takes a look at it and what you can expect.
360 and action cameras are experiencing increasing popularity, especially as video quality improves more and more. This great video will show you nine creative tricks for better 360 and action camera footage.
