Fstoppers Original Articles

Building a respectable name for yourself as a photographer can oftentimes feel impossible, especially in a market saturated with other photographers. In an industry with so much competition, you need to differentiate yourself and your work from the rest your competitors if you really want to stand apart from everyone else. That sounds extremely overwhelming, but there is a very practical and efficient way to carve out your own niche in this market.

Our next episode of "Critique the Community" will feature natural light portraits. Use this awesome featured image by Dani Diamond as inspiration for your submission. While images which include the use of reflectors are acceptable, please do not include any shots that include extra light (flash or continuous) added by the photographer. Please get in your submissions by Sunday, October 18th and you'll have the chance to have your image critiqued by the Fstoppers team. For this episode, we will be giving feedback to 20 pictures. To qualify, you must follow the submission rules below.

Many photographers rely on their 50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.4 lenses to give that dreamy, narrow depth of field look to their portraits. These two lenses have become a staple for portrait, headshot, wedding, and boudoir photographers who enjoy the soft look that comes with a narrow depth of field and natural lighting. But what happens when you want to create a similar effect in the studio, where your strobes are often too powerful for shooting wide open? Today, I'm going to share with you a fairly unconventional lighting technique that will allow you to shoot your lenses wide open in the studio.

When DJI announced the Inspire 1 drone, I didn't get it. It was a much larger and more expensive quadcopter that had only a slightly better camera attached to it. I had no interest in the Inspire 1 until they announced the new Zenmuse X5 Micro 4/3 camera/gimbal system. I currently have one and I can tell you, it's pretty amazing.

With only two days left until the contest period closes, this weekend will be your last chance to fill out our 10 minute survey and be eligible to win some fantastic prizes! All entrants will also receive a discount code for Fstoppers Original Tutorials. Check out the survey details below.

Last week we asked the Fstoppers Community to submit some of their family portrait work for the next episode of Critique the Community. We accepted anything family related, groups, kids, or babies and chose 20 of them to give feedback on. Check out the submissions below and listen as Lee and Patrick give their thoughts.

This is some rather sad news I have to bring everyone. At the moment there are only 500 FlashDisc units left in our Amazon UK store and we will not be replenishing them once they are sold out. We are currently sold out of the FlashDisc in the US (more coming in the next 2 weeks), but because of logistics and the amount of administrative work it takes selling a product in another country, we will not be replenishing our Amazon UK store once inventory is sold out.

Our next episode of "Critique the Community" will feature family portraits. We will choose anything from kids in a studio to whole family groups outdoors; so, feel free to include a wide range of pictures. Please get in your submissions by Friday at noon (EST) and you'll have the chance to have your image critiqued by the Fstoppers team. For this episode, we will be giving feedback to 20 pictures. To qualify, you must follow the submission rules below.

Last month Fstoppers teamed up with SLR Lounge and BH Photo for an exciting camera giveaway. If you missed the entry post, basically we were giving one lucky winner their choice between the Nikon D810, Sony A7RII, and the Canon 5DsR high megapixel cameras. Yesterday we released our own review of all three of these cameras and today we are excited to announce the winner of a brand new camera!

Last week we asked the community to submit their automotive imagery to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team. Lee Morris and Patrick Hall went through a range of 20 images and gave their thoughts and feedback with the Fstoppers rating system. Check out the selection of pictures below and add your thoughts to the comments!

Our next episode of "Critique the Community" will include any automotive imagery, cars, motorcycles, engines, or other vehicles. The above incredible image by Digital Macdaddy should inspire you to submit your best automotive photos below! Please get in your submissions by Friday at noon (EST) and you'll have the chance to have your image critiqued by the Fstoppers team. For this episode, we will be giving feedback to 20 pictures. To qualify you must follow the submission rules below.

Yesterday we released the iPhone Bikini Shoot, a video in which I do a professional quality photoshoot with minimal gear. The point of the video wasn't to say that the iPhone was a better camera than a professional DSLR, it was meant to inspire photographers to use the gear they currently own to create beautiful images. Obviously the iPhone is infinitely worse than any current DSLR for stills but surprisingly it appears to be a far better video camera than my $3000 DSLR when there is enough light present.

Brooke Shaden is an undeniable force of photographic nature. Not only is she well regarded as a pioneer of modern fine art photography with her dream-like compositions and self portraits, she is often as focused with helping us develop our own work as she is with her own. This week, Brooke throws open the doors to her “Promoting Passion Convention”, which aims to more than your ‘typical’ photo workshop. If you’ve been looking to spread your creative wings and be inspired to create by learning from some of the best in the industry, this could be exactly what you’ve been waiting for.

Today I got an iPhone 6s and the only feature that really excites me is the option to shoot in 4k video. As I've said before, I don't care to export videos in 4k, I just want higher quality 1080p footage. I decided to do a quick test comparing the 4k capabilities of the iPhone 6s to the hottest camera on the market today, the Sony A7RII.

Fstoppers is asking for your help! We have a 10-minute survey that will make you eligible to win 1 of 4 prizes and will also guarantee you an Fstoppers Original Tutorial discount. All you need to do is complete the survey below and you will enter the drawing. Here's what you can win:

For our latest submissions to Critique the Community, we asked photographers to submit their product images for review and feedback. We had a great variety of submissions this week and choose 20 of them to talk about. Thank you everyone who posted their pictures. To see the variety of shots we chose, check out the talented work from our community below.

It seems that a lot of photographers tend to avoid direct sunlight and for a long time, I did too. Occasionally, I would backlight subjects, but I would never dare light them directly with the sun. I decided one day that it was time to embrace the sun. In this article, I break down my methods for achieving a good photograph in direct sunlight, discussing what has helped me and what you should avoid.

It comes up when I'm driving someone around and they ask where my car charger is (I don't have one). Or when I'm having a party at my house and my guests asks to go into my office to plug their iPhone into my computer. You don't have to live like this anymore. There is another way.

Submissions for a new episode of "Critique the Community" are now open! Between now and the end of the day on September 23rd, you have a chance to submit PRODUCT images to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team. For this episode, we will be giving feedback to 20 pictures. To qualify you must follow the submission rules below.

Aerial photography has always been something that I have found interesting. Seeing so many of our writers like David Geffin, Mike Kelley, and Noam Galai capture exciting photos and video from the sky has inspired me to finally attempt my first doors-off helicopter excursion. In just one short one-hour ride, I've learned a lot of do's and don'ts as well as a bunch of things to experiment with again. I even attempted shooting with a $7,000 lens that everyone told me would be a disaster — and it nearly was!

Yesterday, we posted Part 1 from our latest episode of "Critique the Community" on un-posed wedding photos. For this episode we promised to give feedback for every single image that was properly submitted. If you missed the last video, we went through a little over half the images and gave our thoughts. Today, we'll be giving feedback to the rest. Check them out below.

Last week, we asked the community to submit their un-posed wedding images to be critiqued here at Fstoppers. Unlike past episodes, we promised to give feedback to EVERY image that was correctly submitted. Thank you everyone for all for posting your pictures! We had a total of 49 images that we covered in two separate videos. If you don't see your image in today's video, stay tuned for tomorrow's post.

Over the last two months we have been releasing one episode a week of our Behind the Scenes series of our world tour with Elia Locardi. In this first season (Season 2 is currently being edited), we visit both Iceland and New Zealand to film our latest tutorial on all things landscape photography.

I came across a web app for scheduling appointments that was a complete game changer for my business! It's by far my favorite productivity tool. Every wedding photographer needs to check this out. It could be the missing link you need in your business to book more wedding photography clients. In my first week I was able to arrange seven meetings and book two clients. Wow! This changes everything.

As we have come to expect, Apple's latest announcement of the iPad Pro has caused quite a bit of controversy. Apple fans love the update and the additional accessories, while critics claim that they simply ripped off other products that are already available. Let's take a closer look.

Through September 13th, you have a chance to submit any un-posed wedding photos to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team in a new episode of "Critique the Community." What do I mean by un-posed? Your submissions need to be candid moments of people that you captured, detail shots, locations, or any other picture where you did not position or pose your subjects. This episode we promise to critique EVERY submission, even if it takes a few videos to do so. However, to qualify you must follow the submission rules below.

Do you edit video in Adobe Premiere? Have you customized your keyboard with your favorite tools and shortcuts yet? If not, you're not editing as quickly as you could be. Check out our favorite tools and shortcuts to get the most out of Premiere.

As I am writing this Apple is having a press conference about their new products. The Apple Watch is getting a software update, the Apple TV is getting a total overhaul, the iPhone is all new (and can finally shoot 4k video), but potentially the most exciting news for photographers is the Apple iPad Pro.

Markus Andersen, certainly one of the leading street and fine art photographers in Sydney, Australia, and known globally, has just released pre-orders for his first book – and it looks stunning. “Rage Against The Light” published by TG Publishing showcases his wonderful work around his home town of Sydney (and for the first 100 pre-orders, 42 remaining pre-orders, comes with a free print).

Starting your own photography business can be very rewarding. However, we often let our creative right-brain get ahead of the left-brain practicalities and fail to ensure we are adequately protected from a legal standpoint. Corporate Attorney Adriel Sanders sent us these important legal considerations that may seem obvious to some, but many overlook.

The final episode of this season of Photographing The World Behind The Scenes is finally here. In episode eight, we finally wrap up three months of filming and to celebrate, I go bungee jumping and Patrick takes a ride on the worlds tallest swing.

In case you missed it, ‘Rocket Wars’ is a five minute film that has changed the game. It's breaking new ground and heralds in a beautiful new era in filmmaking. 150,000+ views and a Vimeo ‘Staff Pick’ are pretty amazing, but what’s ground breaking isn’t that the film is just a beautiful cacophony of visual and aural eye and ear candy. What’s fascinating is the fertile new ground it thrusts us headlong in to, and how it engages us. How did the filmmakers pull this off – and importantly – what can we learn from them to apply to our own projects?

If you ask any well-known and successful photographer what the most important thing you can do to grow your business is, they will almost all point towards shooting personal projects. Before the end of every day, I try to visualize at least one creative and interesting idea that might be worth photographing. Nine times out of ten, those ideas are complete garbage. Every now and then, I come up with a really great idea, but unfortunately, 90% of the time, I completely forget these great ideas and they never become a reality. Here is how I have solved this problem.

Many beginning photographers find it very difficult to translate their vision verbally. In order to save yourself time, effort, and frustration the day of your shoot, use a mood board. Mood boards are visual collages of inspiration designed to provide your team or client with a visual reference guide that everyone can agree on before your photo shoot.

Earlier this week, we asked the community to submit their wedding photographs to be critiqued by Lee and Patrick. Thank you everyone for all for posting your pictures! Check out the images we've selected.

In this tutorial I will show you how to setup your studio strobes for full length portraits as we shoot an editorial style lighting setup. First we will look at the entire gear list we used and you can use for a similar setup, from the backdrop to the studio heads. I will breakdown our lighting. with lighting diagrams and explanation of WHY we are placing our lights where we are. Also, in this video tutorial we share some Behind The Scenes from our shoot day.

Since fall is the biggest and busiest Wedding Season for most photographers, we want to see your best wedding images for our next episode of Critique the Community. Lee and Patrick will select 20 images to critique; upload your wedding image of choice to your Fstoppers account, then paste the URL of the image in the comments below. We are anticipating a lot of images, so you have until August 25th to submit your best image.

Or at least that's what the salesman tried to sell it to me as. You see, LG's new G4 sports a pretty incredible camera for a phone. Its 16 MP 1/2.6" CMOS sensor has an f/1.8 lens in front of it for light-gathering goodness. If this wasn't enough, the full manual controls of Android's new camera have been implemented. This all sounds impressive. But, just how capable is it?

Working as a wedding photographer is often an exercise in mutual respect with other vendors who have parallel, yet sometimes different, priorities in serving the bridal couple and their family. Most of time everyone is on the same team, but occasionally we photographers run into rules that don’t serve anyone properly. When those rules come from the church, it’s often hard to explain them away.

Giving a great first impression is imperative, especially when our work is mostly based on aesthetics. It can be the way we dress, the image we carry through social networks, or even a simple email signature. I have tried many different email signatures, using HTML formatted text, an image, or a mix of both. But I never was satisfied with how it looked. I then stumbled upon WiseStamp. A very simple way to create a professional and clean looking signature for your emails.

Since the advent of photography, the craft has completely changed the world — from its profound effects on communication and documentation in practical applications, to being a powerful form of personal expression and a visual art. Now, photography is being used to look into the past and discover significant historical information thought to be lost forever.

So if you have been watching social media this week, then you most likely heard about British photographer David Yarrow who made headlines after a tiger allegedly got "loose" during a photo shoot that was taking place in the well-known Packard Plant in Detroit. As a photographer, I am in Michigan a lot for various still and video projects throughout the year and have a lot of creative industry friends in the region. After reading the initial news reports, I decided to do a little digging of my own and went to the source to find out what REALLY happened.

Although the summer heat is still lingering, fall is swiftly approaching. It's that time again: time to hit the books and head back to school. Books are expensive, but we have some exciting news: The New York Institute of Photography is giving three lucky winners their choice of a free photography course! There are just three easy steps to enter for your chance to win.

Recently I had the distinct honor of being a groomsman in a close friend’s wedding. It’s a lot of hurry and stand while remembering where to look. The pressure really is more on the two people getting married to remember their lines: “I do.” But as part of the wedding party, you also get the full brunt of posing, smiling and cheesing it up for the wedding photographer.

Erik Almas is one of my all time favorite photographers. His work mixes equal parts clever advertising and personal vision in a way that makes each image intriguing to study. But behind all of his brilliant images is a businessman who works diligently to get his brand in front of art buyers and advertising agencies. Today PRO EDU has released a free section about marketing from Almas' Composite Photography tutorial, and this advice is something every photographer should hear.

Welcome to the this week's installment of Fstoppers’ Gear Tuesday! Below, you will find the answers to last week’s questions, including great topics such as film scanners and the Nikon D750.

It's Monday morning and that means another completed retouch and time to submit your image for next week. We had more amazing submissions last week and here is the winner! In this post, you will see the SOOC image compared to the retouched image and I will discuss the particular challenges and the direction I decided to go with the photo. You can also watch the entire retouch in the video. And once again, you can post any image of yours that you would like and it may be chosen to be retouched for free and delivered to you in full-res to do with what you'd like.