A Guide to Learning Photography With Any Camera You Have Right Now
This tutorial is for beginners who may want to start learning photography during the lockdown periods around the world.
This tutorial is for beginners who may want to start learning photography during the lockdown periods around the world.
In 1987, Ronald Reagan was president, Mathias Rust landed his light aircraft in Red Square, and the stock market crashed on October 19, dropping 22% in a single day. Fox also made its primetime debut, the Simpsons aired for the first time, and "Robocop," "Dirty Dancing," and "Good Morning Vietnam" were all released. But what happened in the photographic world?
Hello, my name is Jason Vinson. I'm a wedding photographer, and it's been three weeks since my last photoshoot.
With all the lockdowns across the world due to the coronavirus pandemic, quite a few photographers have been left without subjects to shoot. If you want to keep shooting, you might have considered turning to self-portraits but be at a loss for how to pose yourself. If you are struggling with that, this fantastic video tutorial features professional models giving a range of helpful tips for posing in self-portraits.
Color theory is a broad subject, and the way you use it defines your style when filming or taking a photo. The technique of using color theory on your images and footage in post is called "color grading," and it is more than just using the cinematic teal and orange duo.
Let's be honest: camera gear is fun, and it can be a blast to get a new piece of equipment to play with. That being said, gear is also expensive, and it can be easy to convince ourselves we need that shiny new camera or lens when we actually do not. This great video features one filmmaker discussing some of the worst reasons he has upgraded his gear over the years.
For anything you want to do in Photoshop, there are probably at least 10 ways to accomplish it. This great video tutorial will show you a less common way to bring emphasis to your subject's face in a portrait by using Photoshop.
Sunrise can be a magical time for landscape images, and if you are one of those brave people who can roll out of bed in time to make it out to shoot it (seriously, how do you do that?), you can often come home with some really beautiful photos. This excellent video tutorial will give you five tips for taking better sunrise shots.
A sharp, wide aperture portrait lens is one of the workhorse optics for a large number of photographers, and while 85mm is often thought of as the classic focal length for such work, some prefer something a bit longer, like a 135mm lens. This great video takes a look at just such a lens, the Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM.
Isolation is sending many of us into a form of madness, myself included. We've had lots of content created for photographers while you're in lockdown and indoors, but this is one for the garden.
Porch and front door photography sessions have exploded in popularity since the lockdown, but photographers in Canada are now seeing a pushback against the practice.
The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is currently awaiting the response from the court after having been sued over their recently approved deal to use drones for spying on the city's residents.
Most of the world is on an enforced break right now, which we can't do much about. But when the fog clears, what can you do if you find your motivation for photography has fallen off a cliff?
Stockpiling makes some people feel secure against unexpected disasters and crises. Which crisis justifies stockpiling photographs? Let’s take a look at how we can reduce our amount of unnecessary data.
With lockdown, we're suddenly all on Zoom 24/7. It's great that we can remain connected even when we're working from home, but not so great that we have to see ourselves on screen every time we speak to someone.
The Fujifilm X100 series is a modern legend of sorts, loved by many photographers for its unique experience and focus on putting the enjoyment back in the experience of photography. If you are thinking of picking one up for yourself, this great video will give you an overview of all five models in the series to help you decide which is right for you.
Roughly two months after the coronavirus began to become recognized as a pandemic threatening the United States, a well-known retailer in the photography industry has released a PSA with a simple but powerful message: continue to create your work, no matter what happens.
Daniel Schiffer is a YouTuber who started off as a guy making videos for restaurants. Now, he's got more than one million subscribers, and it's because he can get a lot done with very few resources. In this video, you can see how he does it.
If you want to manage a major production with multiple moving parts and a multitude of contributing creatives, you'll be excited about Adobe's release of a tool that will shift how you use Premiere Pro entirely: Productions.
Large format photography is something entirely different from 35mm digital, medium format, and even other film photography. This fantastic video features a large format photographer discussing his story and some of the process behind making his images, and his lessons are readily applicable to any other type of photography.
These days, there is a vast range of post-processing software available for photographers, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. This excellent video takes a look at five of the most popular options to help you decide which is right for you.
Successfully crafting light in photography is just as much about keeping it out of places it should not be as it is about controlling how it falls on your subject. This excellent video tutorial will introduce you to a fundamental tool for removing light from a scene, flags, and show you how they can improve your photos.
Depth of field is one of the most fundamental yet powerful tools for crafting your images, and it is important to make sure you have full creative and technical control of it in your work. This great video discusses three aspects of using depth of field to create stronger compositions.
If you don't already have your own home studio, now might be a great time to start building one. With a little knowhow, it's possible to transform a regular room into the perfect place to shoot.
Did you think that having just one flash unit is not enough to create bright high-key portraits?
Often, the portfolios of famous photographers and filmmakers have a "personal" category where we see work that drastically differs from what they are known for. Do you think that's the way it should be?
Printing is hard. Rather, printing well is hard. It's been a little bit science. It's been a little bit art. Trying to make digital prints look like traditional darkroom prints is even harder still. But is it possible?
Lightroom's color brush is an odd tool, but paired with a range mask, it can be a fantastic means of making water look far more appealing. Here's how I transformed the muddy brown of this lake into water so blue that you'll want to jump in and go for a swim.
I recently shot a new portfolio and every photographer I have shown it to thinks it is rubbish. But every art director, buyer, agent, and creative director loves it. Let's look into why this is.
No permits. No permissions. Pouring rain. Beautiful photos.
In this tutorial video, watch as I show you how to use the Luminar AI Augmented Sky tool.
In this video, Jason Boone from Boone Loves Video shares the best tips and methods of using still images in Premiere Pro and how to make the visual aspect as interesting and visually appealing as possible.
It might feel like the world is crumbling around you, but while you're indoors, you may as well get some learning under you belt.
In what is becoming a familiar story, yet another celebrity is being sued for posting photos of themselves on Instagram. This time, the celebrity is actress Amy Schumer.
In this video, I look at some of the dos and don'ts of photography websites. Although there are many ways to skin a cat, there are some things that are real turn-offs for potential photography clients. Here are my top five tips.
Lighting is often the difference between a boring scene and an interesting one. In this video, you get to see a full breakdown of the transformation of a scene from flat and common lighting, through to complex and cinematic looking.
Death photography was, at one time, a popular way of preserving a memory of a loved one who has passed. This video discusses the history of it, and suggests that it can still play a role in modern society as a way to cope with grief.
Filmmaker Mark Bone has just discovered that some free software from Sony can stabilize footage from his FX9 to the point that he’s wondering how often he will ever need to use a gimbal in the future. Check out this short video.
New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s a city that’s famous for it’s bustling streets and the weird and wonderful community that populate it. It’s a hub of activity, or at least it was until lockdown.
Like many photographers in quarantine, I’ve been trying to get creative without the ability to get out. I’ve had a lot of gear sitting around that doesn’t get much use, and so I’ve gone through my boxes to dust them off and see what’s possible. One gem I had forgotten about was the FotodioX Mount Adapter that lets me mount my Nikon F glass to my Micro Four Thirds cameras.
In this episode of Critique the Community, we are looking for your best photographs featuring groups of people. The group needs to be more than 2 people and can be of any genre of photography.
You may be a wedding photographer thinking of ways to secure additional future jobs, or you might simply want to focus on doing a wider variety of shoots other than just weddings. So, in what ways can you branch out?
Who says that during the self distancing period you cannot meet and photograph others from the comfort of your own home? Who says you need your camera at all?
A photographer has taken striking portraits of his wife, a nurse, to illustrate the importance of why we must stay home during these unprecedented times. The pictures serve as a visual reminder of the front line workers facing a daily battle against the current pandemic.
Every photographer is dealing with the global pandemic in a different way. For Chris Wallace, that means shooting a wedding with Lego pieces. This brilliantly creative series follows the ceremony, reception, and even family group photos with incredible accuracy to that of a real wedding.
Composition in landscape photography can be a really subtle and tricky thing. If it is something you struggle with, this excellent video tutorial will give you nine guidelines that can help you improve the compositions of your landscape images.
It is quite impressive just how advanced editing and retouching tools have become, but even so, many of the world's best retouchers prefer a more fundamental, old fashioned technique: dodging and burning. This fantastic video tutorial will show you how you can use dodging and burning for retouching skin using Photoshop.
Congrats to everyone who submitted and had their image published in this week's Critique the Community. If your image was featured, send Lee Morris a message on Fstoppers and he will add your tutorial of choice to your downloads. We really enjoyed all the images selected and hope that this episode has given you some ideas for your own photography during these difficult times.
The next Critique the Community is going to be "groups of people" which will go live here shortly.
Most macro lenses are generally in the 100mm range, but sometimes, macro photographers prefer longer focal lengths, as they can give better telephoto compression and longer working distances when trying not to disturb a subject. If you are interested in such a lens at an affordable price, check out this great video review of the IRIX 150mm f/2.8 Macro 1:1 lens.
There is no doubt that Sony cameras are some of most advanced on the market, but with those advanced capabilities come some very intricate and complex menus that can be a bit difficult to navigate. This great video tutorial will show you every item in the Sony menu system, including what it does and how you can customize it to your liking.