For years photographers and YouTube commenters have been telling us that in order to get the most out of our Profoto B1 and D1 lights, we need to add the Profoto Frosted Glass Dome to our strobes. Today I test this add-on to see if it makes a difference at all, and the results are surprising.
I often see instructional videos and one-on-one tutorials with amazing photographers on various websites and while many of them are amazing and full of valuable information, they usually cost several hundred dollars. There are a lot of photographers that I would love to have a one-on-one tutorial with, but often it is just not in my budget. While I like to stay as busy as possible with my own photography business, in my free time I'll sometimes come across good opportunities. When I started assisting in my spare time, I quickly found that I could learn as much, if not more, than if I was watching a tutorial or having a one-on-one conversation with an experienced photographer — and I get paid to do it.
In a previous article, I shared my favorite way of dealing with an overcast sky in photography. Today, we will focus on the opposite: clear skies. Those can also be a challenge for landscape photographers. But there are ways to take great photos under such conditions, and in this article, we'll explore several of them.
I strive to capture moments in time with my photography, and one thing I like is once in a lifetime or very rare moments. The Neowise comet (aka C/2020 F3 NEOWISE) is one of those moments that won't happen again for about another 6,800 years.
I’ve seen the future of film... and it is bright. In the next few weeks I will be interviewing companies that are pushing the film photography industry forward. As the large film companies cut film stocks from production, these people are pushing forward. Developing new films, cameras, products, and services. This week, I start with CineStill.
It's rare that any piece of photographic equipment is versatile and affordable enough that I recommend it to everyone, but the GVM-600S Ring Light is one of those rare products. If you shoot photos or videos, you should buy this light.
Over the last two years, photographer Pedro Oliveira has worked on a photo essay celebrating an underappreciated demographic, and the results are timeless.
The votes are in, and you've helped to choose our Fstoppers Photographer of the Year! We've also randomly selected one member who voted to receive a free Fstoppers tutorial of their choice!
Talking cameras isn’t always about lavishing praise on the most recent release. Nearing two years since I first placed my order, the Nikon Z9 continues to be the best camera I’ve ever owned.
Correct buildings that appear to lean back away from the camera with three techniques using both software and hardware, it's simpler than you'd think.
Sony has established the era of the incremental update, offering new bodies at an alarming rate that are putting the old guard to shame. Where flagships used to be replaced every four to five years, Sony has just announced its ultimate camera after the first iteration has been on the market for a mere two-and-a-half. Is this what customers want, and is the a9 II a big disappointment?
I guess you will have a zoom lens in your camera bag. It is a very handy tool that allows you to zoom in, and to zoom out. But you can also use it to manipulate the size of the background compared to your subject. Let me explain.
Almost a year and a half ago, I undertook the most technically challenging photo shoot of my career. I was fairly proud of the results and the community rallied around it but Lee and Patrick have publicly criticized the image. This will hopefully settle the debate between us.
You’ve got your new upgraded camera, maybe a new lens, and Santa delivered a cool new magnetic filter kit. Now you’re all set this year to take sharper photos, faster, without reflections. But is this enough to help you become a better photographer in 2025? Spoiler: No. It may actually make you a worse photographer.
Infinite view, the soothing repetitive sound of crashing waves, and probably the most romantic sunrises draw us to the sea. Where many people relax and leave their care behind, photographers start to struggle: what's the right shutter speed?
There was a time in my life that weddings were my main source of income. After being laid off from my job as a scientist, my hobby soon turned into a career. When I was first starting out, I took any and every gig I could to make ends meet. However, I held a secret during that time that I would never had admitted until now. I hated weddings.
Adding color to an otherwise boring grey background in Adobe Photoshop isn't terribly complicated. In this short video tutorial, I'll show you how to accomplish that in just a few short steps.
A few weeks ago, I read some news about the rare NEOWISE Comet passing by Earth and being large and clear enough to see with your naked eye. I got up, went outside, and looked up to a bunch of cloud cover. Luckily for me and all of you, we can always hit up Instagram and Facebook for great photos other photographers captured.
Sure, the photo-focused social media app is saturated. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it to drum up more business. If you’re a photographer wanting more clients, Instagram has the potential to be a powerful marketing tool.
Focus and sharp images are always at the top of the photographer's priority list. But you shouldn't just toss out a photo because it's not pin-sharp exactly where you want it to be. In fact, there are many reasons why you should covet that soft shot over the others.
Working with a second shooter has a ton of advantages: you can cover more moments, you get different angles and perspective on the same moments, and they even allow you to try new things during the day that you normally couldn't afford to do. One of the more frustrating things about working with a second shooter though, is when you get back home to later find out that your cameras were not synced to the correct time. What you're left with is images from the reception all intermixed with images from getting ready.
Years ago Instagram was filled with poorly filtered and over processed HDR images. Thankfully we have moved away from those days but how did we end up in a world without much color?
Last week, fellow Fstoppers Writer Ty Poland wrote an article called "The Power of Overshooting." Ty is a great photographer, and he made some very valid points, but I must respectfully disagree. To me, undershooting is what advances your skills as a photographer.
Do you often return from a photography session or trip to upload your photos and immediately delete the bad photos from the set? While getting rid of the obvious blurry image can save you disk space, I find that deleting can sometimes do more harm than good. Had I culled my images right away I never would have created this photograph.
Oh, what's that? I'm using flashes to take a portrait? Well let's turn those bad boys up to 11 and make that subject pop! When you're first learning to light with flashes, the temptation can be overpowering to drown out all the ambient light in your scene to make your subject stand out. I'd argue that, at least for environmental portraiture, sometimes subtlety with flash is a more compelling way to go.
Now in its seventh year and incarnation as Luminar Neo, Skylum's editing software can fit the needs of some photographers as a standalone app or as a plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. But what if you want to push the limits of your creativity with it? That's when you have to think outside of the box.
Some photographers obsess over color, spending thousands on calibration equipment and high end monitors. A recent popular news story showed why this might not be worth it.
Do you like this photo? Would you believe it if I told you that it wasn’t a photo taken in real life – it’s from a video game, Dishonored 2, by Flickr user Videogame Photography. So, then, does the question change? Is it even a photo anymore? No, it’s not.
As a professional photographer, I have a love-hate relationship with cameras. I love them because they enable me to pursue my passion, but I also find them frustrating at times. However, amid this complex relationship, I've managed to discover one camera that embodies everything I love about photography while sparing me from the aspects I dislike.
Angle is everything. It's often the difference between a mediocre shot and a legendary one. Ansel Adams once said, “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” It turns out he was actually pretty off because it's actually all about where you kneel, lay, and hang.
Nikon dropped the price of its legendary D850 by almost 15 percent last week, and retailers have rapidly run out of stock as a result. Given the demand for a DSLR that’s more than three years old, is the idea of a D850 successor looking like a smart move for the Japanese manufacturer?
Sky replacement has been a method used in landscape photography for years but recently it has become much more accessible with AI assisted features in programs such as Photoshop and Luminar. That accessibility has ignited debates within the photography community raising the question whether or not manipulating an image in such a way is ethical.
I’ve been making money from stock photography for about 10 years now. I very rarely set up a shoot, or go on a trip thinking “I can’t wait to take stock images and make money from this,” but I've managed to recoup some money I've spent on trips over the years. Although I don't shoot stock full time, there are a few things that I do to make sure that every shoot I do gets me at least a few nice stock-style images that I can try and sell.
Photoshop’s newest version introduced a head-scratching change to one of the essential functions of Photoshop: if you’re used to easily saving a quick JPEG or having your choice of file formats, the latest update has changed things for the worse. Fortunately, there’s a quick and easy way to get things back to normal, and it uses one of the best workflow-enhancing parts of Photoshop.
The Internet can take you to places that you might never get to see in person such as the famed astronomical clock in Prague’s Old Town Square or the Amundsen–Scott research station in Antarctica. And, there are cameras situated at literally the top of the world capturing things in the night sky that you may have never even seen before.
The new season of Photographing the World 3 behind the scenes is now in full swing! In this week's episode, the gang heads down the Amalfi Coast and settles into the small town of Atrani. Here Elia Locardi teaches something I didn't think was possible: capturing star trails in a light polluted town. Of course, our food adventures continue but we also share some of our photography tips for getting great time-lapses straight out of camera. Oh, and yes Donald Trump takes his oath of office.
Email etiquette. Nobody tells us how it should be done. Much like taking photos, it's something we tend to learn as we go along, and our individual email style can take several years to shape. Here are many of the things I’ve learned through dealing with a multitude of different clients, including how best to address and engage with those with whom you’re doing business.
Take those flat, lackluster photos that were destined for the trash and set them free in a flash with these simple Lightroom tweaks.
Wedding photographers often tell me how annoying it can be to get a consistent white balance across the images of the day. Shooting weddings almost every weekend during the summer myself, I used to have that problem as well. With a white dress for the bride and a white shirt for the groom, it should be easy though. The problem is I like my images to make my couple look good. Meaning I like having the same skin color and tone on every picture. During the day, their skin might change color a bit because of the sun, the emotions, and the alcohol. Switching to Capture One this year I found the perfect solution to avoid this issue: setting my white balance based on skin tones and not on a gray card anymore.
While there is much discussion about different camera brands, models, and the development of the market, the perfect camera still hasn't been built. This article will show you where to find information to make your best choice from what's available.
Have Sigma and Tamron been beating Canon and Nikon? It's been an interesting year.
We recently filmed a video on the validity of Peter Lik's newest "photograph" of the moon, and it got us thinking: how far is too far when it comes to Photoshop?
Let's face it, we all use our phones a little too often. The average person checks their device over 100 times a day. For this reason, I decided to use a fairly unknown hidden function on most smartphones to help curb my habits. Not only did it help tremendously, but it also brought some unexpected benefits to me as a photographer.
Long exposure photography is a fascinating discipline. It can be used in many ways and to great effect if you want to bring some mood and mystery into your photography.
If we do anything long enough, we run the risk that it may become monotonous and/or boring. While there is no fix-all for everyone, over the last few years, I’ve discovered several ways to help me break out of whatever photography-related funk I’ve found myself in.
A successful travel photographer recently announced that he would willingly give his photos to Starbucks to use on Instagram for free, as long as they weren’t marketing a product. I was so shocked that I almost spat out my coffee.
Chinese manufacturer DJI just announced a new technology to identify and track airborne drones. Dubbed AeroScope, this system takes advantages of all the telemetry data sent by the aircraft to give the authorities a detailed vision of the drone presence in a local airspace. This system is mature and has been installed at two international airports since April. Here are the technical details and legal challenges associated with this technology.
For many companies, losing 7.5% of your workforce would typically be bad news, perhaps an indication that profits are falling. This is not the case at Leica; in June last year, it announced that sales had increased for the fifth consecutive year. So, why is Leica doing so well when other camera companies are seeing their figures nosedive, and why is it reducing its number of staff?
26-year-old Constantin Schiller was one of very few lucky photographers to trial the newly released Nikon Z fc. Fittingly for him, the new Nikon Z fc was shaped like the FM2 camera of the 1980s, very similar to the FE2 Schiller grew up using. Here, he shares and talks through his experience of the new Nikon camera, including a photo trip to Japan.
The largest single landscape print I have made to date is a ten-foot-wide panorama of the Painted Rock at Fort Irwin. Titled A Thousand Words Fall Short, I donated it to a Veterans' clinic on the 4th of July. Printed on Fuji-crystal archival paper, front-mounted to 1/4" museum acrylic with an anti-glare coating, and backed by a solid sheet of aluminum, it really caught and exalted the light in the humble hallway where I was honored to see it hanging a couple days ago.
