Viltrox comes with a pedigree for manufacturing good quality lenses at a low price point, so the entry of the 23 mm f/1.4 in Fuji X-mount and Sony E-mount is highly anticipated, not least because it is nearly $600 cheaper than the Fuji equivalent. Is it worthy of the hype and does that make it the perfect travel prime?
You prepared your bag for the day, you charged your batteries, formatted your cards, and dusted your lenses. But have you forgotten anything? Here is what is also important to think about for a blissful day of shooting.
Photography is full of tradeoffs where you gain one thing in exchange for losing another. Here are five tradeoffs that every photographer should know.
Perspective Control lenses for SLR cameras were developed primarily for architecture, interior, and still-life photography applications. PC lenses simulate some of the movements and control that photographers can get from a view camera. They are great for keeping lines parallel and subjects in focus. Just as PC lenses allow photographers to control what is in focus, they also allow you to control what goes out of focus and how quickly it does that. Fashion and portrait photos with enhanced bokeh or selective focus create dreamy blur and guide attention to the areas remaining in focus.
In just a couple clicks, you can register your business with the state and set up a social media network for a nominal fee. How can you navigate and succeed in your market when everyone and your neighbor have started a photography business? How do you stay positive?
Compositing frames in your interior photographs can be extremely time-consuming. With this simple technique developed by Mike Kelley, you can quickly and easily lighten doorways in post-processing while freeing up your editing time.
There are a thousand skills — technical, artistic, and observational — that need to be mastered to make great images. But to really get better we have to, first, learn to do this.
Now that sky replacement has become more effective and ubiquitous in photo-editing software, more and more photographers may feel tempted to give it a try, but is it a valid photographic tool or just a lazy way to save a subpar image?
As time goes on, the tools and technology keep getting better and more powerful. Today, learn how you can take a boring seamless paper backdrop and give it life with added texture and easy to follow steps using Photoshop.
In the photography industry, having a "studio" or "meeting space" translates to success in most client's eyes. The thing is, typical photographers would rather spend their cash on gear, than a studio they would probably only use once a month. Recently there's been an abundance of places for people to meet with clients as well as have their own out of home office. They're called coworking spaces and have been popping up around the country.
Bird photography is arguably the most demanding genre. The equipment quality, the photographer's camera skills, and their ability to create a narrative are pushed far beyond any other genre. Here’s what I discovered about cameras, lenses, and bird photography.
Visiting a location for the first time can be quite overwhelming as a landscape photographer, especially when you might be arriving in the dark for sunrise. In this article, I go over a few quick tips on ways to productively scout a location during your first visit.
As a Photographer you will often find yourself in a situation where your color palette is less than ideal. For example, you show up on location for a Portrait shoot and your subject is wearing dull, dark clothing on a dark background. What do you do? If you happen to find yourself in this kind of situation, here’s what you can do to add a little life to your images and broaden your color palette.
At the start of the new year, Netflix released the cultural hit show, "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo". No show has made me change my lifestyle around more than this one was able to. But I didn’t just use it to clean my room, I used her methods to clean my portfolio.
A lot of new photographers are told that shooting in manual mode is the mark of a professional. And while manual mode is certainly useful and a great learning tool, you could be missing shots if it's all you ever use.
When photographing interiors, flash is your friend, but a friend who needs some management. While flash brightens rooms, reduces glare, and brings out true colors, it can also produce the frustrating issue of ugly shadows.
Seascape photography is a challenging yet rewarding genre of photography. The dynamic nature of the sea makes taking photos at the coast very exciting, but it also requires a unique set of skills and knowledge. And that's what I'll share in this article as seven tips that'll help you take your seascape photography to the next level.
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 2017, 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.
Most photographers have a tendency to light their subjects from the same side. I personally like to set up my key light on camera right and I also always have my subject look toward that light. Not today.
Just over a year ago today, I took the leap and made my first MagMod purchase. That first endeavor included: The Basic Kit, a set of Creative Gels, a set of Artistic Gels, an extra MagGrid, an extra MagGrip, a MagBounce, and a MagSphere. Over the last year I’ve added (and replaced) a few more items into my MagMod kit that is now to a point I’m now extremely happy with. After that initial purchase though, there was still one missing piece that kept lurking in the back of my mind. It wasn't actually a MagMod item so much as it was something I saw in a video on the MagMod page featuring TwoMann Studios.
Honestly, friends. We’re a stone’s throw away from 2019, so how is this sort of thing still happening? How are there still this many people willing to fork over hundreds of dollars to learn about going “from being a broke traveler to becoming a six figure [sic] earning travel blogger” and feel duped when it doesn't pan out?
Browsing a dusty used book store on the north side of Chicago in 2008, a familiar name caught my eye: Aldous Huxley. The Huxley book I saw there, published in 1942, had an intriguing title: The Art of Seeing.
The month of January is generally a slower time of the year for portrait photographers. While you spend most of the year working hard in your business, the down times give you an opportunity to plan ahead and get organized for the next busy season. Whether you photograph people or pets, an effective way to market to new clients is to engage in activities that involve you meeting them in person. Here are three suggestions for free activities to try in the New Year for meeting prospective clients face-to-face.
Have you ever had an incredible idea, but couldn't find a model to help you? Learn how to bring your vision to life through the art of self portraits.
If you’re not creating your website with the correct goals in mind, you may be having a hard time converting your website visitors into paying clients. As creatives, we value good visual design and we want to make sure our websites are not only appealing, but are also showcasing our photography in a dynamic way. However, if we’re not asking ourselves the right questions while designing our websites, we may be losing possible clients. Here are a few potential reasons why your website visitors aren’t turning into paying clients.
Portrait photography comes with a tremendous sense of anxious pressure that most other forms of photography do not. The nature of working with a living, breathing human that brings with them strength, weaknesses, and expectations can be enough to trouble many new portrait photographer. A shoot filled with anxiety almost never works out. In fact, the anxiety itself is far more harmful than anything that a photographer could possibly be anxious about.
There's a good chance you've heard of the "Ring of Fire," a technique popularized by wedding and portrait photographer Sam Hurd. The Ring of Fire is a special effects technique that uses a piece of copper tube to reflect light and create a highlight flare in the shape of a ring. This technique has been widely adopted, and to create this effect for yourself is pretty easy. Today, I'll be walking through the steps to transform your portraits using the famous Ring of Fire technique.
One of my favorite setups for studio portraits of children was inspired by Jill Greenberg’s photos of crying babies. These portraits are fun, simple, and focus on teasing out a variety of natural expressions of children as they are being photographed. This tutorial demonstrates how to photograph and edit this particular style of a three-light children’s portrait.
From the outside looking in, the creative industry can be daunting. We think we need thousands of dollars of equipment to take images on par with our peers – but that’s not strictly true. Here’s a breakdown of how I photographed one of British pop’s biggest acts using cheap lights from eBay.
On Friday, May 10, millions of people, maybe billions, were treated to one of nature's finest shows. Following a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), a large geomagnetic storm headed our way and treated us to a northern lights display to remember.
Milan-based gallery 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS is exhibiting photographs by Mario Testino. This exhibition will first show his iconic images and later, never-seen-before personal work of Testino. I spoke to Luca Casulli, the co-founder of 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery, to find out what makes Unfiltered so special to the public, collectors, and even the gallery.
Listen, I know what you're all thinking. "Whoa, it looks cool. The modeling light is even bi-color. But it costs how much?" I get it, but bear with me.
Last month, Fstoppers was commissioned by MOO to produce an ad for their printing service with Peter Hurley. Luckily, instead of a standard 30-second ad, MOO had a better idea.
I don't mean hanging out of a car window untethered to get a shot of another moving car (although that sounds kind of fun). What I mean is don't be afraid to take your work in a direction previously unexplored. What's the worst that can happen?
Canon has had us all on pins and needles, enjoying the last few days of our padded savings account and anxiously waiting for their announcement of the new EOS R1 and EOS R5 Mark II. The anticipated specs have finally come, and we are here to tell you all about it.
Long exposures are useful to convey a sense of motion in photos, whether that's bodies of water that seemingly look like glass or car taillights whooshing by in a street scene. The iPhone allows you to create scenes like this easily. It's just a bit hidden.
Photoshop is an amazing, complex tool. When it works, everything is great. When something isn’t working or even worse, works intermittently, nothing is worse. Recently, in dealing with a problem I had, I learned an essential troubleshooting tip, which I’ll definitely make use of in the future.
While photography definitely isn’t the cheapest business you could get into, you can definitely get started on a budget. Here are my tips for being prudent with your money as you start out.
Photography has an air of mystery around it. Not every client understands how photographers work, which leads them to ask silly questions. Perhaps you have heard some of these yourself, perhaps you haven’t. In any case, here are five of my top favorites and how to answer them.
Search Engine Optimization is hard. It may be relatively simple, but it is still really hard. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There are always going to be far more people clamoring for the top search rank than there are useful top search ranks to earn. Thus, you must be smarter than your competition. Don't fall prey to some of the most common mistakes. Instead, let your competitors make it so that you can rise and succeed. Here are three mistakes to avoid.
Now and again, we all get the desire to buy new kit; it’s only to be expected with the way new tech is marketed, combined with our desire to improve our craft. Do you need that new piece of equipment? Is it time to jump from a cropped sensor to a full frame? Should you move from DSLR to mirrorless? Will it improve your photography?
It’s the tradition of suburban parents everywhere: the mall Santa photo. It’s also an excruciating photo day for actual photographers.
Da Vinci Resolve is a complete video editor with a full set of tools for editors of any level, which means you can build your videos for YouTube, or a feature film, right here in Resolve.
I raise you my swirly bokeh to your circular bokeh because I intuitively know that it looks nicer. However, is my swirly Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G on the Fuji X-T4 more blurry than your circular Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8 on the Nikon D850? Read on.
There is one versatile and affordable modifier called 5-in-1 collapsible reflector kit that practically every photographer owns. As the name implies, it can be put to use five ways, but have you ever tried all the possible usage variations of this babe? Usually, it is a double-sided material with four different finishes: gold, silver, black, and white, which is zipped around a white scrim frame. We are going to analyze the characteristics of each side and see how and when to use them to our advantage, and trust me it is going to be more than five usage tips.
It’s a rather controversial subject in the photography industry; should I sell my digital files? There isn't a right or wrong answer; it depends on your business model. If you are in the high school senior market, digital files are like gold and highly sought after by the senior.
I've always purchased medium-speed SanDisk memory cards and the cheapest USB 3.1 card readers for my computer. Have I been missing out? Are these ultra-expensive cards and readers actually worth it? Let's find out.
Look at your gear right now. How much of it did you need and how much of it did you want? Knowing the difference between the two can save you thousands and make you a more sophisticated photographer who focuses on art.
Robert Ascroft is known worldwide for his celebrity, sports, and fashion photographs. His client list includes Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Showtime, A&E, Puma, Vanity Fair, and Rolex. So, basically his client list includes some of the biggest names in his industries of focus! Not bad, right? Go big or go home I guess!
One of a photographer's least talked about yet most important tools is the horse he rides in on. Okay, so I doubt many photographers are still riding horses, but the concept is the same: a trusty companion that will take you from point A to point B safely and in many cases with style. After all, it's not like you're going to hoof it into the middle of the Baja Desert, camera equipment in hand.
