The votes are in, and you've helped to choose our Fstoppers Photographer of the Year! We've also randomly selected one reader who voted to receive a free Fstoppers tutorial of their choice!
I’ve always known about Google’s Night Sight mode on Pixel phones as a method to take pictures in near darkness, but it seemed somewhat overkill in daylight. As it turns out, it can actually push your pictures to DSLR-like levels of detail and sharpness if you use it right.
If you're a wedding or event photographer, chances are, you've encountered mixed lighting situations. Though mixed lighting can be used creatively, there are times when it just isn't ideal. Today, I'll be walking through several examples of mixed lighting conditions with solutions on how you can work around it on location or fix it in post-production.
School shootings in the United States were the worst they've ever been in 2018, and the number of incidents and deaths show no signs of slowing down. Photographer Richard Johnson created this striking series that captures the new reality children must deal with.
At the beginning of October, I challenged photographers to make amazing photographs using only a flashlight, and the winning image is a testament to the creativity of the Fstoppers community.
You wanted it and now you've got it. Almost every single video-capturing device today boasts 4K capture. Do you feel the future is here?
The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2021, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.
Becoming a successful professional photographer requires more than just being able to shoot a pretty sunset or stunning portrait. It's about how you run your business.
Champ Camera has one of the world's best ranges of 35mm film for sale. Although their stores aren't huge, the range and variety of film they sell is incredible. Here are 20 interesting films I found in one of their stores late last year.
I had to deal with a problem, when the video editor's processed footage looked great, but once exported and uploaded on YouTube, it looked dull and desaturated.
A little handshake can go a long way.
There’s nothing worse than seeing wonderful photographers wasting their efforts by hiding stunning images away on dusty, unseen hard drives.
Every year, we all take steps to grow as photographers, but maybe it's time we start growing as a community. Here are some things we can all stop doing in the new year to grow positively together.
Instagram influencers have been accused, among other things, of caring more about perception than reality. But maybe there's some justification for that and something we can learn from it. The problem may not be the idea itself, but only that it's sometimes taken too far.
Over the years I have had the pleasure of attending a handful of workshops, trade shows, and conferences, but the last two I have attended have been different, and the changes I see are exciting.
Molly Baber is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and fashion photographer creating conceptual works that evoke blood, death, and feminine power, as well as a subconscious fantasy through ritual, divination, and mythology.
Some artists have dreamed about having their work on display in art galleries since they were young. Others dream of the fame it will bring the moment the doors extend on opening night. There are few inbetween that know the true reality that one does not always follow the other. So how do you know if having your art in a gallery is the right step for you?
What happens when two filmmakers get together, fill a suitcase with camera gear and hop on a plane? In the case of Preston Kanak and Brent Foster, a great work of digital cinema. With only a rough idea of what they wanted, much was left to chance as these two spent 8 days in Havana, Cuba. Read on for the final film and some insight from the creators.
When I purchased my first large zoom lens it came equipped with a tripod foot. I quickly learned that a standard ball-head wasn't the best way to use one of these beasts on a tripod. This started my venture into the gimbal games and actually helped in ways that I didn't anticipate.
This year, my kids have plans for Halloween that don’t require me to be there. Instead of sitting by my front door, passing out tooth decay and diabetes wrapped in a pretty package (candy), I’m going to give my community portraits instead.
Photography is a medium in which — for the most part — a moment is intended to be immortalized. But a recent study of memory and cognition coming out of University of California further explored that under certain conditions, taking a photo of an object made it more difficult to recall than merely looking at it, and now, no one is quite sure why.
There’s something magical about watching a Polaroid coming to life in your hands. The little piece of instant film is a moment of captured time that is always a joy to have, but there is something about the scope of Ken Yu’s Polaroid Project that makes it truly special.
With all the incredible new 4K cameras — BlackMagic’s new pocket cinema, Sony’s mirrorless line — anyone remember last year’s excitement when Magic Lantern shipped 4K raw for the 5D Mark III on April Fool’s Day? Only it wasn’t a prank.
Have you ever gone to the see a romantic comedy and absolutely fallen in love? Have you ever gone to a romantic comedy and spent the majority of the film’s running time politely sneaking peeks at your watch? Have you ever realized that both movies were essentially the same story and wondered why you couldn’t get enough of the first, and got way too much of the second?
During my latest trip to the Faroe Islands I noticed how many tourists were flying drones. Drones are very popular, and rules for flying become more strict by the hour. I wonder why people like to fly a drone; is it just to fly, or to make films? I use it for landscape photography.
I absolutely love shooting commercial work in the studio. Who doesn't? Shooting in a studio environment allows the photographer full control over the lighting and the subject. It also allows for full creative freedom over what you can composite into the shot if needed by easily matching up the lighting. Earlier this week I had a few hours of downtime and decided to shoot a bottle of Bacardi Dark Rum in my studio. Using a softbox I built myself a few weeks ago, I decided to take it on a test run using the bottle of Rum as my subject.
Shooting landscape photography is not only fun but very therapeutic. The act of planning and capturing, the peace of the surrounding scenery, and the thrill of success all help your overall well-being in a way that makes photography a very effective way to uplift your spirits. For those of us that can't get out to some of these locations, looking at beautiful photos of them is also very soothing. I hope this week's list can relieve some stress for you. And be sure to check out next week's theme because I'm positive you'll love it.
Composites are a funny subject to people. Lead with it, and they are impressed. Tell them after and they just might feel duped. I found this out the hard way when I took a bunch of boring fireworks photos and added them to a night shot of the glorious Niagara Falls. Let's just say a major upgrade to the background.
Hard drives fail, computer programs get corrupted, and companies have data losses from time to time. If you rely on Adobe to keep all your files and settings safe, then you may be in for a shock if things go majorly wrong. Make sure you have the following four items manually backed up while you still can.
Abe Van Dyke is a Milwaukee-based freelance photojournalist whose work is submitted to the Demtix Wire, which is owned by Corbis Images. You may recognize Abe's name from his work covering the rioting and demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo. or his photographs documenting the passing away of his mother earlier this year. On Friday, Dec. 19, 2014, Abe was photographing the protests in his hometown of Milwaukee when things went south with law enforcement officials quickly, resulting in the arrest of Abe along with the protestors. Abe was kind enough to make time for a brief interview to share the story behind the photos that took his freedom.
George Wheelhouse is a fine art nature and landscape photographer from Bedfordshire, U.K. I recently spoke with him about his contemporary portraits of animals, as well as his more traditional woodland and mountain landscapes. Though many of Wheelhouse's favorite subjects are local, he told me that he loves to travel to remote locations, particularly to Nordic areas. He also shared that he is quite fond of boreal forests like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Canada.
I was recently in America doing more photography work and did a total of 11 photoshoots in the one month I was there. It was an incredibly long flight from Singapore, gotta make my time there worth it!
Atomos debuted its five inch monitor and recorder a few months back, but the problem was that a regular SSD is be slightly too big for it. So how much will a full set up actually cost you?
As photographers, we need to put our best foot forward, especially if we're hoping to get clients to hire us or even simply aim for a quick dopamine hit on Instagram. However, one of the most beneficial exercises I have done is to look at the process of getting to my own favorite images and the process others follow to get to theirs.
If you’re a photographer who has tried using photo-sharing platforms, you might be familiar with the same problems that plague some of them. This can get pretty annoying. If you have been irritated by this, you might be happy to learn about 100ASA, a platform changing the game with its unique community-centered features.
If you're based in the U.S., you know that the day after Thanksgiving is a day where everyone around you is extremely prone to gas. Photographers in particular are particularly prone to it, so here are some tips on how to avoid it.
In my last article, Adventures in Large Format: A Beginner's Perspective, I talked about some of the things I noticed upon purchasing and attempting to use my first 4x5 large format camera. As fun as fiddling with some knobs and taking a photo of a stool was, it was time for me to point my camera at some actual people. After lugging the camera upstairs and taking portraits of some of the awesome characters that work at the bar, it was time to see how I did.
A simple question for you: do you find that from January to December, over the course of a given year, your photography changes along with the seasons and the environment? Kind of a loaded question though, right? The answer probably depends quite a bit on what exactly your brand of photography is. Of course, other factors play a major role like your location and whether your work is outdoors or in the studio too. When is the last time that you sat down and looked at your body of work? Aside from technical improvements, do you notice any trends that may coincide with various times of the year?
One of the first things I learned early on after becoming a full-time photographer is the importance of establishing a diversity of revenue streams. I’m not a traditional commercial photographer whose brand is predominantly focused in one area, or specialty, such as booking client gigs (weddings, maternity, etc), shooting products photography for companies, or catering to the swath of people who need headshots.
We all want to take better photos. There are countless ways of learning how to do that. Attending courses and workshops, watching YouTube videos, and reading books and articles such as this are traditional approaches. But there is one unexpected way too: embracing bad photography.
As photographers we are artists, so what we display on our own walls, in our own living spaces, should be of paramount importance to us. What do you display for others to see?
There aren’t many monitors that can record footage onto an SSD. There aren’t many monitors that can work on set as well as in post production. There is one monitor that claims to do it all though. The Atomos Sumo is not just jam-packed with features, but I think it represents the future of video production. Does it live up to the hype?
I'm not one to obsess over gear; I've never suffered from GAS. Frankly, the seemingly endless discussions around cameras, lenses, and various bits of kit that just keep multiplying year after year, couldn't interest me less. And now that I've said that, I'm going to write about gear.
Did you know that some of the earliest combat images were captured on personal pocket cameras by professional soldiers (amateur photographers), not by official or professional photographers?
There are times when the kind of image you want to create just isn't possible on the day of a shoot. Don't let practicalities get in the way of your imagination; take advantage of stock images.
When photographers hear overcast skies, we immediately think of flat light. What this usually means is an overall lack of detail and contrast, especially in the sky. It might be easy to assume that the sky during overcast days is uninteresting, but I want to show you the opposite, that overcast days are some of the best times to get deep and dramatic images. In this video and article, I'll be walking through how to shoot and edit dramatic clouds during overcast conditions in Adobe Lightroom Mobile.
Whether on land or underwater, photographing mermaids has become almost a whole new genre in itself. It has gained popularity in recent years creating whole mermaid communities as well. There are a few tips on creating a great portrait for your mermaid clients.
In an industry where supply is abundant, saying "no" to work can feel both counter intuitive, and suicidal for your business. The truth is, it has quite the opposite effect.
Adding props is a simple and effective way of adding production value to your photographs. Not only do they add additional points of interest, they also can add to the story you're trying to tell. In this video and article, I'll be walking through the creative process of how an image evolves to the final version. To do this, I'll begin with a basic "walk-up" shot. From there, I'll be walking through the step-by-step changes to the shot until we get to the final image using various props.
There are two kinds of light sources for video: LED lights and panels. Both have advantages and drawbacks. Which is the best choice when you’re on a budget? Should you choose an LED light or an LED panel? I made my choice, but now, I have my doubts.
