Fstoppers Original Articles

We all know how a histogram has to be read, or at least we should know. It is a handy tool to check if the exposure of the image is correct, or as correct as possible. If the image is not exposed correctly we can read the luminance histogram on our camera LCD screen and know exactly how much the exposure needs to be corrected. Well, perhaps not exactly, but enough to prevent us from guessing.

As a photographer, you inevitably meet a lot of other photographers in the industry. As much as I am not a fan of putting anyone in a box, it is still lots of fun and can make for some great jokes. In this article, I will do just that: list the seven most common photographer types I met.

I pride myself on bringing ideas to life using minimal equipment and whilst working on low budgets. I’m also in the process of setting up my second photography-related business, so I don’t currently have a ton of expendable income to splash on new gear. However, I recently invested in a cheap set of portable lights I found on eBay for a little over $200. Here I showcase a casual menswear editorial I shot using the lights and an inexpensive kit lens, as well as outline what you get for your money, how exactly I used the lights, and how you, too, can shoot professional images without breaking the bank.

Recently I put my eyes under a lot of pressure. There are habits that anybody should abide by, but sometimes it's not always easy to stick with them. What's the worst that can happen?

The day has finally come in which we are no longer bound to the square crop within Instagram. The ability to post horizontal and vertical images has been requested by users since the beginning of the app. In the past, you would have to open your image in another app, add borders, and then export the new image to Instagram. Since this is the process I follow, I know it’s a huge pain. But even with this new cropping ability, I’m sticking with my old ways.

There is something truly sublime about a fresh coat of snow. There are few things in nature that are as visually organic as snow-covered trees.

Image sharpness is, for the most part, a false economy. It is mistakenly believed to be synonymous with image quality; that isn't the case. One major difference is that image quality has a ceiling and once reached (if that's even possible), the image cannot be any better in terms of quality. However, with the sharpness of an image, you can far exceed the perfect amount (again, if there is such a thing), and it begins to cost your image dearly.

After almost eight years of the freelance life, there are some things that I wish I had gotten sooner to make my life easier. Little things that might seem inconsequential at first but have a big impact on my well-being as a photographer. Here are 10 of them.

The secret to running a successful business is organization. Developing an effective workflow that is both simple to understand, and manages your time properly is key when running a studio. Introducing fotoClient, an easy to use workflow and task managing website developed for photographers. It’s new, it's simple, and already, I can’t run my business without it.

Patrick and I decided to create a video series where we compete to see who can come up with the best image based on a set of randomly chosen rules. This week, one of us got to use an iPhone and the other had the entire studio at their disposal.

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?

2019 has just begun, and it is time to wrap up and look back at 2018. Like last year, I have found my favorite photos, and what they have in common are strong compositions.

Most people would search for a new day job after nearly dying in a California wildfire, or after crawling to safety under a barrage of bullets during a Cleveland gang fight while on set. But Steven Holleran isn't most people.

Do you believe that your images are objective representations of reality? You might be mistaken. Here are a few arguments why.

The process of culling is used in every type of photography and is used by professionals and amateurs alike. Culling is simply the process of selecting the best images from a shoot to be edited and delivered to a client. When photographers first start out in the editing world, this process can seem like a waste of time or hard to figure out a best practice. So I’m going to explain why we cull and some of the best ways to do it.

As all wedding and portrait photographers have experienced, things often don't go as planned. Two common scenarios are, 1) timeline delays that cut into your ideal outdoor shooting times and 2) rainy or cloudy weather that covers the sun, making the popular backlit look impossible to achieve with natural light. When either of these two things happens, we at Lin and Jirsa Photography use the following five ways to recreate or fake the sun. We hope these tips will come in handy and allow you to wow your clients despite less than ideal circumstances.

Photographers almost always begin as artists. The camera doesn't draw the interest of the business minded, rather, it draws the passion of the creative. We all entered this pursuit chasing expression of some sort or another. For some, that passion eventually transforms into the longing for a career. The business of photography, however, throws a nasty wrench into the artistic pursuit of photography forcing photographers to overcome several of our most core creative instincts in order to create value that a client is willing to pay for.

We are all unique people, but there are some mistakes that almost every new photographer makes at some point. Here are five common mistakes to watch out for in your own work.

For many of us, photography is a form of art, or at least there is an artistic process behind it. More than that, each of us strive to have a "style" that is an artistic consistency to our work. Photography, however, is quite different from your traditional art-making process. There is as much technical knowledge required as artistic or creative inspiration and thinking. This separates the process into two distinct parts: the shoot and the edit. These two parts are equally important to your identity as a photographer.

Photographers love to critique. Or is it criticize? Or comment? Complain? Postulate? Pontificate? We seem to witness quite the gamut of behavior in response to one simple request: "CC, please."

Photography is a wonderful hobby, but for some, a hobby just isn't enough. Some of us get so infected with the craft that we instantly know we want to one day spend all our time on it. So what skills should a hobbyist photographer focus on?

We all know about Luminar. The post-processing software from the company Skylum is quite popular amongst a lot of amateur photographers. Perhaps professional photographers also. It is said to be an alternative for Lightroom, but I don’t agree.

There’s more to focusing than half-pressing the shutter release. Focus is one of the three most important technical variables in photography; it can make or break a photograph. Here are ten things, some basic, some more advanced, to help you shoot better photos.

I can still remember the first time I saw the effects of bounce flash. The soft natural light looked unlike anything I had seen from my little point and shoot's direct flash, and the resulting image looked so natural. Soon afterward I was introduced to off camera flash and a variety of light modifiers. The results between all of these lighting techniques were not subtle and I became obsessed with finding my favorite tools to light people. In today's video, I explain how one single flash both on and off camera, and a few light modifiers can give you the perfect light quickly and easily.

It doesn't matter what stage your career is at, having a non-photographic job could increase your chances of getting better clients and earning considerably more money.

This week, Instagram awed us all by rolling out one of the simplest and most obvious features that we had all been clamoring for for years. OK, maybe I wasn't awed, but boy does multiple account support make my life so much easier. I’m no longer typing in my Instagram passwords 30 times per day, which got me to thinking: as a platform, Instagram is pretty good, but its features are still notoriously primitive. Here are a few features I think they should add that would make my life much easier.

Sony in part led the way for highly customizable cameras that are commonplace on the market today. While there are many different ways to set up a Sony, these are my top three custom settings that I share with you today.

"How did you retouch that?" This is the common question I see most when I post my images online. Unfortunately, answering that question directly won't get photographers any closer to being able to replicate that style on their own. In order to broaden the dialog here are five things you must understand if you want to get skin looking beautiful in your portraits.

Some things in photography take years to master, while others take just a few seconds. Here are three tips that take less than a minute but can have a massive impact on your photo results.

When we ask people about what lens to get for landscape photography, we often get advised to get a wide-angle lens. But how wide do you need these lenses to be?

Trials cyclist Danny Macaskill released a new video featuring a ride through unthinkable terrain in his homeland of Scotland. The daring exploit took place on the Cuillin Ridge in the Isle of Skye, where the spectacular scenery alone is worth the price of admission. The beauty of the Scottish landscape, mixed with the technical and dangerous mountain bike riding is absolutely thrilling to watch. The pinnacle shot, where Danny climbs up a ridge with bike in tow, closes the film and solidifies Danny as a death defying badass. We reached out to the director of the film, Stu Thomson, to ask a few questions about the making of this project.

Nothing happens overnight, and this is especially true when it comes to photography. Photography is a craft that takes years to master, which is one reason why there are few people that become successful. So many people pick up a camera and expect their careers to take off the next day, which isn’t realistic. In order to become great, you must first become patient. Don’t compete against the clock, success will happen in its own time. Slow and steady wins the race. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you are feeling impatient with your work.

Transferring images from the camera to the customer is a complex process that — depending upon your genre — will require a greater or lesser number of intermediate steps. Irrespective of who you are delivering to, you need to get photos off your camera, and this is where the fun and games start. Nikon has released NX MobileAir as another solution to fix the problem. Has it missed a beat or taken a bold step forward?

DSLR makers have developed a rather interesting propensity to focus their R&D budgets on creating the fanciest, most marketable sensors possible. A camera, however, isn't just limited to the scope of its sensor. There are so many other upgrades that could be made that have nothing to do with megapixel numbers. Below are a few straight out of my dream list that likely would be pretty difficult to make work.

Some model poses seem to pop up everywhere repeating across different mediums and across decades. Many photographers deride these posing cliches, but these cliches can be useful on fashion and other model shoots, especially when working with new models still learning how to move. They can help create serviceable images when you are stuck for ideas or when you need shoot a series of good looks in a short period of time.

Being a photographer comes with perils that only fellow photographers can relate to. Here are 7 things that only photographers care about on set.

Canon CPS is changing for the better? We talk to Frankie Jim, the man in charge of Canon’s Professional Services in the UK, to find out what’s changing and assess if these changes happening are for the better or worse?

I’m never taking a tripod on vacation again. Last year I took a lightweight compact travel tripod to Japan but never used it once. This was because shooting long exposures on the OM System OM-1 was a breeze. The camera boasts incredible 7 stops of image stabilization, increasing to 8 stops with compatible lenses.

Photography has always existed in multiple spheres - as an artistic medium, a vehicle for documenting history, a channel for self-expression, a tool for surveillance, and a form of casual communication. With the meteoric rise of social media in the 21st century, however, the ways in which photos are produced, consumed, and understood have profoundly changed. While social media offers photographers unparalleled opportunities for visibility, it has also homogenized photographic styles, marginalized minority voices, and constrained creative freedom.

Vaping is a phenomenon that has swept across America and much of the First World, mostly as a safer alternative to cigarettes. The culture, however, is what has caught the attention of the media worldwide. Smoke tricks have likely been around for as long as humans have been inhaling smoke, but vaping has spawned something quite interesting out of it: smoke tricks and ridiculous plumes of vapor spilling out of people’s nostrils. Photographer Louis Amore (whom we featured last year with his portrait series of English veterans) went to a local vapor shop, Prohibition Vapes, to document a vaping competition.

Before you gear up to become a landscape photographer, there are some crucial things that you should understand if you want to be well-prepared. Landscape photography gets better as you experience different shooting scenarios, but here are some tips to help you get started.

I never thought I would learn important lessons about selling my photographs from a six-year-old, but now that I have learned them, I think you should, too.

The history of camera gear is rich, storied, and well, weird. Camera design has evolved in many different directions over time, sometimes in magnificent arcs of ingenuity and design, others in pit stops of absurd creativity or questionable judgment. Today, we're celebrating some of the strangest stops along that journey.

When editing landscape photographs, there are many ways to get from point A to point B. In this tutorial, we'll cover using Adobe Camera Raw to get the most out of your raw files.

Across the board boudoir photographers have seen an increase in the number of inquiries for couples boudoir sessions. While boudoir photographer was generally more known as a more intimate session for a female to either reconnect with her own sensual side, or perhaps to give as a gift to a significant other, the trend is now becoming for these couples to capture these moments together. So how do you coach and pose for emotions during a session if the inquires start to roll in?

Street photography is one of the most popular genres of photography, both for professional and amateur photographers. Done well, it can produce art that not only tells a story about a particular moment in time but also provides us with a window onto the human condition. Questions have been asked, however, about the ethics of street photography, and whether photographers ought to be doing it at all.

When teaching workshops and talking to other photographers, I’m constantly asked how I market myself to gain more exposure and business. While there are no surefire ways to insure your success when it comes to marketing, I have found four really unconventional ways to better market myself.

If you are like me, you probably get numerous emails and Facebook messages from people in India wanting you to use their services for your image editing. While these individuals may give outsourcing to India a bad reputation, I’m here to show you what it’s really like at the reputable post-production service provider that is located in Mumbai, India: Pro Image Editors.

While this view of the Tetons and Snake River, as made famous by Ansel Adam’s iconic photo, doesn’t have great resolution, there’s a reason for that. One of the biggest changes to photography might start with landscape photos just like this, only it doesn’t involve hiking or even camera gear. Want to know what it is?

The majority of the readers of this article who shoot video probably use still lenses. You might ask yourself why you may need different lenses for video while your existing photography ones work just fine. In this article I'd like to show you certain features of the cinema glass that you probably always wanted subconsciously. Maybe after reading this you'll start saving up the money for one.