Fstoppers Original Articles

There are so many camera options when considering a primary camera and a secondary backup, so there’s quite a bit to take into consideration. As the saying goes, two is one, one is none, so for big trips and always for professional work, a backup is a must. If you are looking for a second camera, how do you know what to choose? Rather than looking at specific brands, here’s a look at which gear combinations might be the best for your still photography projects.

We all have those pivotal moments in our lives where a single decision changes everything. When I picked up a camera about five years ago I quickly became obsessed with composites. In the beginning, I honestly had no idea where to even begin learning how to create these marvelous hybrids of photography and digital art. I had to learn how to create composite images! I knew if I could get to a point where I could create what I saw in my head, I could change the path of my career. Little did I know composite photography would change my life forever.

If you're thinking of taking the leap into professional photography, or have wondered if you can possibly make a living in such a saturated space, take this one piece of wisdom and chant it like a mantra.

The holiday season is upon us and dreams of new camera gear are dancing in our heads. Our email boxes are full of offers for deals on lenses, flashes, tripods and of course those new mirrorless cameras. If only we could have it all, our photographs would be so much better.

These are tough times, and they're likely to get tougher. The virus has been spreading quickly, affecting countries around the world and causing the cancellation of many events. This article isn’t intended to be doom and gloom or alarmist for the sake of it, but rather to help.

We now know that the Sony a7R III and a7 III have sorted out many of the major complaints with mirrorless cameras, such as battery life, overheating, and autofocus, but there are still so many more features that we didn’t get. What does the next generation of Sony mirrorless cameras have in store for us?

The recent addition of an astrophoto time-lapse mode (uncovered by XDA Developers) coming to Google’s camera app on their Pixel line of phones piqued my interest. Not that I think it will replace all of our “real” cameras, but I do have a deep appreciation for the engineering wizardry required to push right up to the physical limits of a tiny sensor and lens. And as an astronomy enthusiast, any developments that might open an appreciation of the night skies to a wider population get me very interested.

Recently, one of the most well-known photographers in history was caught in a Photoshop scandal. Naturally, this begs the question: where is the line between truth and manufactured reality in photography?

Out of the over 1 billion Instagram users on the platform in 2018, it's important to stand out. Check out my top 10 favorite female portrait photographers on Instagram and go give them a follow! Be ready to be blown away!

One of the most common questions photographers have is about how to effectively price their work. Rates vary so widely based on location and skill level that many are left scratching their heads as to what is fair. This has led to the common mantra stating “ask for the clients budget.” Here is why I think that's a ridiculous way to price yourself and a horrible piece of advice.

I didn’t realize I was an introvert until I was well into my 20s. I’m not shy, and I don’t mind speaking up in a crowd if I’m asked a question, so I always assumed I was an extrovert. You can imagine my surprise, then, when taking the Myers Briggs personality test in college yielded the result that I was an introvert. It all started to make sense. I would constantly find myself shying away from social events, although I considered myself social and had many friends, and I never liked any job that included a high volume of social interaction within a day, it exhausted me. When starting my business, one of my biggest struggles became working with my introversion.

iOS 15, the next major update of the operating system, is available today, and it brings with it a lot of exciting and useful features, particularly for photographers. Let's dive in and see what you can expect when you upgrade.

I have already written two articles about focus stacking here. The first article dealt with how I use automatic focus bracketing in the field, and in the second article, I shared my focus stacking workflow in Helicon Focus. To provide you with even more tools, I now show you how I combine focus stacking with exposure blending.

Using a polarizer in landscape photography is often advised. And with reason: colors will be enhanced, reflections in water and on the leaves can be removed, and skies can turn deep blue. But it is not advisable to use a polarizer as a standard filter, because there are situations when it can turn against you.

I think it is always wise to shoot in raw. The raw file format will store the maximum amount of image information. This can even be optimized when shooting with exposure to the right to make full use of the dynamic range of the camera. Although intended for JPEG photographers, a flat picture profile can have a benefit or raw shooters also.

In 2019, I wrote about how I would never quit full-frame DSLRs. Back then, I complained about mirrorless cameras for wonky bodies and mediocre autofocus. Today, I’m eating crow.

When learning about retouching, selections and masks should be on top of the list along with curves and brushes. But each of these tools have so many options, and it is hard to know the in and out of each of them. In this article, I will guide you through different ways to create precise and refined luminosity masks to help you improve your retouching skills.

Working as a photographer for over a decade has helped me realize one important thing: I hate editing photos. I absolutely love every aspect of being a photographer, except for the editing. This is why Aftershoot has been incredibly useful to me.

Pripyat, once a town of 40,000 people and now a short distance from the world's single most deadly object, stands inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. As I waited to get a coffee at the tiny shop alongside the Zone's checkpoint, I cringed slightly at the array of glow-in-the-dark knickknacks on sale. Chernobyl, the site of the biggest nuclear disaster in history and now a slightly Disney-fied tourist destination, is a reminder that photography's "truth" is always a little suspect.

It is no secret that Nikon is starting to fall behind in the lens game, partly because competitors, such as Sigma and Tamron, have doubled down on quality and focused heavily on innovating, but also partly due to Nikon's seeming unwillingness to invest in new and updated, innovative designs. As the demands of modern sensors expand, so does the demand for sharp, high resolution glass. Nikon has several legendary lenses in their past, which with a modern facelift could become some of the most competitive lenses in today's market.

A lot of interesting photography equipment is released almost every week. This could be an upgrade to something you currently are using or something new that you've never considered buying before. However, think twice about spending your hard-earned money on new photography equipment.

Lightroom is a notorious slow-poke, and higher-resolution cameras are even dragging down Photoshop. While there are plenty of software tweaks to eke out a few more percent here and there, want to know how you can actually kick your editing workflow into high gear?

Nikon's new Z fc has been widely praised for its return to retro styling and — indeed — taking the design cues of the much loved FE/FM series. It's one thing to make a retro camera, but it's quite another thing to sell it. So, who is it targeted at?

For my latest photoshoot I decided to use harsh light to photograph my buddy Bart in two different ways. If you've wanted to learn how to get that vintage movie style look, you'll enjoy this full tutorial.

Success is something that we all strive for no matter what we are doing. Everyone wants to feel like they are doing well in their work and that they are accomplishing something. The advantage with this is that the line is constantly moving. Once you reach a goal, there is a bigger and greater goal to start reaching for. This causes us to continuously move forward, but because of this, our definition of success is always changing. I asked a handful of industry leaders, “At what point did you feel like a success?” Their answers are something we could all learn from.

When it comes to architectural photography, tilt-shift lenses are quite possibly the best option available. The flexibility and amazing image quality make them very popular amongst architectural photographers and even some landscape photographers. Having said that, there are occasions when you may want to push these lenses to their respective limits by shifting right to the edge. Sometimes the building you're shooting may be a little too close and the lens just isn't quite wide enough. In these circumstances getting the most out of your tilt-shift lens really helps. Doing this, however, creates a vignette in the image and due to tilt-shift lenses not having correction profiles, they can be tricky to remove in post.

If I were shooting portraits on a desert island and could only take one lens with me, it would be hard to leave my 70-200mm behind. After picking up a Canon 16-35mm for a trip to Scotland, though, I've found myself using it more and more often when I have people in front of my lens.

If you try to pinpoint a single reason that the D850 is creating as much buzz as it is, it would be nearly impossible. This isn’t an amazing camera that has a singular standout feature. It’s the precisely and perfectly juxtaposed array of many new features, big and small, that culminate in the D850's success as a standout camera. Here’s a quick dive into some of the top, more obscure tricks the sold-out D850 brings to Nikon’s top line, how much they’ll really help your photography, and what limitations these features have.

Lightroom obviously is a powerful editor with the highest level of user-friendliness. It’s made to help beginners and advanced photographers edit their photographs within the blink of an eye. Its shortcuts can speed up your edits. Here are my favorite ones and a description of when and how I use them.

Wedding and bridal expos are a great place to find potential clients for your boudoir business. Brides typically come in with their mothers, girlfriends, and sometimes part of the wedding party giving you the opportunity to speak with many leads at one time. One photographer has had over 50 percent of her clients just from bridal booths alone.

I had the glorious opportunity to play with the highly-anticipated (at least for me) upgrade from the D810, the D850. I wanted to touch on a few things, namely the hype and if one really needs this new camera. For me, absolutely I do and I'll explain why. This isn't a review of the D850, but just a few key things that I was really wondering about and needed to know before upgrading.

Anyone can buy expensive cameras. And anyone can buy even more expensive lenses. But not everyone can create images that evoke emotion in viewers and really make you think about what's going on in them.

Last week, I had a photographer friend (hobbyist, but very talented) ask me if it was still possible to make a living in photography.

I've seen a lot of changes to cameras since I picked up my first, but one stands far above the rest for me.

Making the move to being pro is fraught with the anxieties of not having the right equipment. So what equipment do commercial photographers use? Being a commercial photographer is pretty much as vague a job description as being an administrative assistant.

Photography is not just about capturing beautiful images; it is a powerful tool that can positively impact our mental and physical well-being. Whether you are an amateur or a seasoned photographer, picking up a camera and immersing yourself in the art of photography can bring numerous advantages to your overall health. In this post, let's explore the remarkable benefits that photography offers for both mental and physical well-being.

For the longest time, my favorite lens on any camera system was a 35mm wide-aperture prime. The focal length forced me to get "in the action" for impactful portraits, yet it was wide enough to capture wide angle scenes. But a new lens has recently won my heart and assumed the top spot in my kit. In this video and article, I'll be walking through a photoshoot while demonstrating why the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2 lens is my favorite lens of all time.

Photography is more accessible than ever before, with a plethora of cameras and lenses available and affordable. So, I decided to figure out what the best setup I could build with a maximum budget of $500 was.

Have you ever struggled with getting creative in your photography, but whatever you have tried, it didn’t solve the problem? Artists think in a very special way. Knowing how can massively change your photography.

It's so simple yet so powerful and has literally saved me hundreds of hours and untold gallons of frustrated, angry sweat. If you want to know a quick, fast camera hack that can make your photography life a rosy ride of comfort, then keep on reading.

A lot of landscape photographers prefer a maximum depth of field when photographing wide landscapes. They love to use small apertures in combination ultra-wide angle lenses, making use of hyper focal distances or even focus stacking to achieve their goal. But not many have ever considered using a camera with a crop sensor for that goal.

So it goes without saying that there are a ton of different ways to match skin tones across your subject or between images in Photoshop so it's often just a matter of picking the option that is most convenient or intuitive. Despite the wide array of choices, I seldom see people use the selective color adjustment layer for this task. The beauty of selective color is that it allows us to go off the numbers rather than intuition and achieve an accurate result in little time.

Photographer Juergen Teller is under fire for his recent images of pop singer Rihanna created for Vogue magazine. Teller has been accused of appropriating the work of Mickalene Thomas, a staple in black female art.

Use your next five minutes effectively and learn how to create faded, filmic photo edits with nothing more than a few tweaks in Lightroom.

If you haven't made any bad choices, then that just means you haven't been shooting long enough.

Let's just pretend for a moment that DSLRs are officially dead and we're left with nothing else, but mirrorless cameras and cell phones. What would that mean to photographers?

There are an infinite amount of photography-related items you can spend your hard-earned cash on. Sometimes, it's the small and insignificant purchases that can really save the day.

Want to improve your images? Here are seven rarely talked-about approaches, not involving the camera settings or composition, that may help you take your photography to the next level.

Are you a photographer or a content creator? More and more photographers take on several roles and end up being content creators rather than traditional photographers. The industry is changing every year, and as it looks now, you have to learn content creation to stay in business. Photography is not enough.

Have you ever been to a spectacularly picturesque location and envisioned a perfect image in your head, only to never commit and follow it through? I’m far too guilty of that, but this time, I was determined to get the shot I wanted, no matter how many ridiculously hilarious mistakes it took along the way. Here’s how I did it.