Fstoppers Original Articles

We’ve studied how direction and angle can drastically change the quality of light produced from your umbrella. We have also seen examples about how distance can change the umbrella light falling on your subject.

Now it’s time to look at the big picture. Let’s take a peek at how our umbrella is actually producing light across the whole image, not just the subject that you chose. In Umbrellas 103, we’re going to study fall off, and compare the type of light produced by four different shoot thru and reflective umbrellas.

If you’ve ever wondered why you might use a giant umbrella instead of a small, collapsible model, this article is for you!

A great street photography photo, like any well shot candid photo, is a combination of good light, composition and the right moment. You have to go search for that combination of interesting light and people. The hardest part of street photography is you have to create the context for your photos. It is your job to convince people they should be invested in this picture you took of a complete stranger.

For any photography enthusiast, a nice view of a city’s skyline can be quite irresistible to photograph.

Sometimes even the widest wide angle lens is not enough. In those cases you have to shoot multiple images and stitch it together into one extreme wide angle shot. You can go as far as 360° around, if you want. But you have to avoid parallax errors.

Food, beverage, and product photography is all about sculpting light, your composition, and understanding which modifiers to use in which situations. In this behind the scenes tutorial, PRO EDU takes you in their St. Louis studio for a step by step look at building an image. Join PRO EDU this May in the Bahamas for a 2 day intensive workshop on liquids, glass, beer, and beverage photography. You could even win a free trip.

I love Fujifilm's X Series cameras. They're small, light, quick, and have wonderful image quality. The lens collection is at the top of the game, especially the primes. I went back and forth for quite some time in the lead-up to my recent personal work trip to Myanmar. I would be creating a book and needed to choose carefully. Which gear should I take? Should I take my DSLR system, or should it be the Fuji X system? In the end, I went for the Fuji X, as it allowed me to carry a couple of extra lenses and fit all of my flash system in the same pouch as well. But how would they perform?

Nikon has had a torrid few years as it rapidly tried to pivot to mirrorless on the back of declining financial results. It ended 2019 with falling market share, losing second spot to Sony. The reason for this is now apparent: low mirrorless sales that place it 5th in the market. What is happening at Nikon?

It's a slightly uncomfortable question when said directly, but it's one you ought to answer. If you want any significant improvement in your work, being happy just taking pictures isn't enough.

With the release of Apple’s new Studio Display, the new creative standard may be here. Are the specs and price good enough?

If you’re into landscape photography, shooting with a purpose can help you capture special photos. Why not set such a purpose for 2025? I suggest capturing twelve different natural phenomena. Of course, you can make a list of your own as well.

Sometimes photography can be difficult, but what keeps us going is our passion for creating images that satisfy something inside us. However, if your passion happens to be wildlife photography, then you have a whole other level of difficulty coming your way. Come to think of it, there are so many valid reasons to abandon this passion and yet, this group of photographers persevere and do it anyway. Here are 10 reasons why wildlife photographers are crazy and why we can’t help but respect their pursuit of happiness.

Newborn photography is one of the hottest genres of photography today. And with more and more babies being born everyday, the demand for talented newborn shooters has never been higher. Here are ten reasons from Stephanie Cotta on why you should be photographing newborns.

Well, it has been about a year since I published one of my first popular articles titled "Why Us Average Joe Photographers Suck at Instagram" and I think it's time to update some things. If you think I'm better off now with thousands of new followers and busy influencing left and right, you'll be disappointed.

New lenses and cameras are always fun to purchase, but equally important is finding a way to store those photos you’re making with those cameras and lenses. Here’s why you should consider network attached storage before you spend that money on another lens.

One of the most challenging yet rewarding aspects of landscape photography is finding the perfect location. The right location can elevate your photo from ordinary to extraordinary. However, choosing where to shoot can be a time-consuming process, filled with challenges such as overcrowded tourist spots, difficult terrain, or simply not knowing where to go. In this article, I want to explore the difficulties we face when finding the perfect location and provide strategies that have helped me overcome them.

When it comes to photographing animals, one of the most technically difficult images to capture is the running action shot. This style of photography often captures the most comical expressions, and is a necessary skill for artists who specialize in photographing dogs. Choosing the appropriate lens, camera settings, and lighting environment will ensure that you will be able to consistently nail your action images time after time.

Photography can be quite an expensive hobby or career. Needless to say us photographers love our gear and always want more of it - or at least I do! Over the past couple of years, I've been transitioning from being primarily a wedding photographer to incorporating more studio photography in my business. I don't plan on leaving weddings, but I love having a couple more thousand dollars a month doing quick and easy headshot photography. Here's how I built my studio with both simplicity and quality in mind.

There's no denying that the Coronavirus has changed the world as we know it. The way companies and individuals act towards photography going forward is about to shift dramatically. Are you ready for this?

There’s no phrase I dislike more in the photo world than "I’m a natural light photographer." Believe me, I love natural light more than anything. It’s simple and easy to work with, and you don’t need to worry about bringing a ton of gear with you. But very rarely will just unmodified natural light work. It’s the unfortunate truth of photography (unless you’re a landscape photographer, you lucky bastards). Most photographers will use a flash to do what natural light can’t. Sadly, many don’t use it to great effect. If you want your portraits, or any image with mixed lighting to look better, there are a few key things to keep in mind when you’re on location.

I recently read a survey that said the average time a person spends driving a car is 4.3 years. Let me break that down for you. Let's say you live to be 75. That is 37,688 hours spent behind the wheel of a car! Most of us listen to music while we drive, but what if we took that time and devoted it to expanding our craft and making us better photographers? Over the past year I did just that, and the results speak for themselves.

Extending backgrounds is sometimes needed when you have a great shot, but the composition was a little off or the backdrop was just slightly too small. In this tutorial I'll show you two ways you can extend the backdrop in Photoshop CC with clean results.

Some of these photographers are well known in the industry, and others are climbing the ladder of recognition, but all of them have something incredible to offer the genre of fantasy photography.

The wide-angle zoom lens is known as the “go-to” lens for landscape photography. It certainly has its benefits and in this article, I will explain how to compose for that distinctive dramatic look that a wide-angle lens can create.

Drones are great tools for photography and video, but with technology changing at such a rapid pace, racing drones (FPV) are becoming much more popular and in demand for commercial work. It can be a little overwhelming to learn this technology all at once, so I am here to help you with your first setup.

It's another day in Puerto Rico and another photography shootout. Last week, we asked you which photo was better, but today, we take you behind the scenes and reveal the winning images. This is a battle for the photography blogs!

This month, I’ve gotten a chance to spend some time shooting with one of Nikon’s two new macro lenses, the NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 Macro.

It's that time of year when we're gearing up for the shoots to come, and we're focused on making this the best year we've ever had. It's also that time of year where we can get rid of some of the distractions and clutter that slow us down every day. It's spring cleaning time! Here are what I consider the 5 most important things for you to start cleaning up right away so you can feel better about yourself and your business this week!

Morning red needs some special requirements to appear. Find out how to plan and photograph red sky to get a masterpiece.

Do you have a photo that you found totally amazing until you noticed something in the background that ruined everything? If you do, you’re not the only one. When shooting a subject, always keep an eye on your background.

Sometime around 3 a.m. this morning, I awoke to a strong light beaming through my bedroom window. It was the supermoon glowing big and bright. I crawled out of bed, grabbed my camera gear, and set up a tripod on my tiny patio in Amsterdam to shoot the famous supermoon lunar eclipse — that phenomenon that happens only a few times each century.

The Internet is full of memes comparing what people think photographers do with what we actually do. A lot of our actual time is spent inside, editing, on the phone, or sprucing up the website. And through it all, it can be difficult to meet and collaborate with others in our field while we're so busy with our own schedules. But by not getting out and meeting each other, we're missing a huge opportunity to help each other out, pass along jobs outside of our area of focus, and potentially collaborate or partner on future projects. So what if we could meet in a cool, casual environment over a beer to discuss all things photo? Enter Beers and Cameras.

The moderation of social media platforms has fallen under intense scrutiny in recent months. A recent study suggests that while some content on Instagram is removed almost as soon as it is reported, other violations are allowed to stay online indefinitely, raising difficult questions about how the company is dealing with a growing problem.

Last year, I took a look at Astro Panel, a Photoshop plugin designed to enhance Milky Way and other astronomical images. At the time, I was happy with what it did, but the author had a security scheme that forced you to log into the app every couple of weeks, which I thought was burdensome and downright silly.

Tourism in Japan is growing, and fast. According to JNTO, the estimated number of international travelers to Japan in March 2018 was about 2.6 million (+18.2 percent from the previous year), making it the biggest March ever. In 2020 the Summer Olympics will be hosted in Tokyo, and the city and country will have to cope with the resulting huge influx of tourists.

Based on Instagram being so important and popular for photographers at this particular time, and as a follow up on some Instagram tips I wrote about before, we constantly look for ways to stand out and be different or better.

Fujifilm, in their eight years producing X Series cameras, have developed a reputation for producing digital cameras with a tactile feel and a few features that no other manufacturers are offering. While they still remain the underdog in terms of market share, their cameras have a loyal user base. In a concept straight up stolen from Alex Cooke’s series (with his blessings, of course), today, I’ll talk about three things I appreciate about Fujifilm’s cameras.

Did you know that using artificial intelligence wizardry, Adobe Sensei, Photoshop CC can now colorize your black and white photos in just a few clicks? Well, find out how to do it, and how to do a little tweaking to make some realistic colorized images from your black and white photographs.

Having trouble getting more out of your photography? Perhaps the answer is to do less.

The megapixel war is almost over for still digital cameras. But we see another battle started, the same one for digital video cameras. All camera manufacturers are now marketing their 4K, 6K, and 8K devices, including phones. 2K starts to look quite old school, but is it?

For the past several years, I have done this one thing at the end of the year, and it has been responsible for my improvement more than anything else.

The next generation of cameras are going to be competing in a market that’s tougher than ever. While the launch of mirrorless camera hardware from Nikon and Canon may have prompted some to upgrade, the next round of camera purchases also needs to offer something new in software. Want to know what needs to be there?

This lens is an essential part of my photography kit and one, which I would not go out into nature without. In this article, I want to show how you can master and get the most out of your 24-105mm zoom lens and hopefully inspire you to use it more in your landscape photography.

Over the last few years, weddings have become much more relaxed, and documentary wedding photography is taking over. How can reducing our need to make choices when shooting help our candid game?

You saw that wonderful long exposure image on the internet, with a smooth water surface and moving clouds in the sky, and you thought; I want to shoot images like that. So you invested in a dark neutral density filter that makes it possible to shoot with shutter times that are 1000x longer. Now you can start making those long exposure images.

Embarking on my journey as a landscape photographer has been a thrilling ride filled with exploration, challenges, and countless awe-inspiring moments. Over time, this pursuit has not only honed my technical skills but also imparted invaluable life lessons. In this article, I'm excited to share the five most significant insights I've gained as a landscape photographer, each of which has enriched my craft and my perspective on the world. They may also be applicable to you. Or, perhaps you have more to add?

Josh Newton is all too familiar with shooting under pressure as a professional wedding and musician photographer. Recently though, he had a wedding shoot that's gotten him national press for it's high stakes and unbelievably gorgeous results. Josh was able to take some time out of his busy schedule for a brief interview to talk about his now famous forest fire wedding shoot.

Just as Tamron has been asking us to reconsider the accepted focal range of an ultra-wide angle zoom, up steps Canon with the rumored 16-28mm f/2. You can be sure it will be huge and costly, but do we need it? And do photographers really want a holy trinity that is so heavy and expensive?

I have a confession, one that honestly seems to be a little taboo in this photographic world of “professional versus hobbyist” that we seem to have created. My confession is this: I am a part-time photographer. But there’s a good chance you are too, and that’s okay. We’re okay.

Depending who your friends are, you either love or hate Lightroom preset systems like VSCO Film, Mastin Labs, or the ever-so aged RAD Labs. The argument on one side of the fence is that everything becomes cookie cutter and lacks unique emotion. The other group of people say that it brings consistency and speed to an otherwise long-winded project. I’m primarily a wedding photographer so I understand both sides of this very reasonable argument. I’ve always hated trying to understand preset systems. I mean, since when is a preset supposed to be harder to get right than doing it all yourself?

What better time than now to pick up a new hobby where you avoid people and find yourself alone in the wilderness?. Here is all you need to get started with landscape photography right now!