Fstoppers Original Articles

It doesn't take long to burn out on a single photographic genre, especially for a creative person not being challenged enough. If you’re in danger of burnout and could use a unique challenge to reignite your passion for photography, consider astrophotography.

In between the ads seemingly every three posts, forced "suggested" posts and accounts, and the infamous algorithm, a lot of us have grown very apathetic toward Instagram in the last few years. If you are one of those people, here are three ways to make the app more enjoyable again.

On September 2, Sony announced that the previously rumored FX6 cinema camera was indeed coming before the end of 2020. Here’s some juicy speculation on what we can expect.

In this article I will be giving some insight behind the creation of my latest video, “Green Heron: A Cinematic Portrait,” which includes dealing with gear limitations, working with music and sound effects, and forming wildlife footage into a story.

Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve used quite a few different types of ring lights for my portrait and product work. Each had its own particular benefits and drawbacks. Nothing was ever quite “perfect,” but most worked well enough in their given role. This is my review of the very affordable GIM 19” 48W Ring Light.

If there's one thing that triggers me, it's a crooked photograph. I'm not talking about a dutch angle or an intentional angled composition; I'm talking about merely not straightening your photograph.

At the beginning of the summer, Olympus announced the sale of their imaging division, leaving the future of their highly regarded OM-D range and Micro Four Thirds (MFT) more widely in disarray. The other half of the MFT founding partnership — Panasonic — has been strangely quiet on the subject. Their next move is crucial, so what might it be?

Esteban Toro’s new episodic short-format travel film, "Aperture: A World of Stories," is a beautiful watch. On top of the eye-candy, Toro’s film also provides some very valuable insights into and tips for filming internationally.

There's a huge variety of photography competitions, from your local camera club, to huge global awards and some big prizes if you win. So, how do you win a photography competition, and is there a special formula you can use to reap the rewards?

If you were impressed by Canon’s ability to keep the price so low on the EOS RP, you might be a little shocked to hear that the manufacturer might be planning a full frame mirrorless camera that’s even more affordable. Just how much cheaper can a camera get, and what features can be ditched to keep the price down?

Have you ever had a photo of yours stolen? Here are some important things you should know about.

Bella Kotak is an international fine art, fashion, and portrait photographer whose magical aesthetic has gained her fans all across the globe and garnered her features in industry magazines like Rangefinder and PhotoPlus, but her photography career didn’t start in the happiest place.

As photographers, it's vital not to keep all our eggs in one basket, but to expand our means of income by setting up different revenue streams, one of the most popular of those streams being YouTube. But is it still possible to make money from it in 2020?

I have met a lot of photographers who are using an Olympus camera. They are often very enthusiastic about their gear. A lot of their functions cannot be found in other cameras, which makes Olympus quite unique. If these cameras are so unique, why aren’t these more popular? I tried an Olympus for a few weeks to find out.

Wide-angle lenses are often considered the go-to lens for landscape photography; however, sometimes they are also useless, and the telephoto lens is the one to use.

Two interesting rumors emerged this week, one suggesting that Canon will kill off its M-series cameras, and another suggesting that an RF APS-C camera is only a year away. Despite the full-frame furor of the last few years, Canon should keep both of these formats. Here’s why.

If you've read any tech journalism over the last day or two, you're probably sick of seeing the words Nvidia and 3000 series designations. It's no question Nvidia has created some impressive technology, but is it actually going to change anything for photo and video editing? The answer might just surprise you.

Have you ever asked yourself why you picked up a camera? Learn about the inspiring and touching work of photographer Rich Johnson as he gives a voice to the incredible teachers who are fighting for their kids' futures each day.

In today’s article, I thought it might be helpful to those just getting into the business to take you through my real-time thought process when bidding on commercial assignments, from the initial query email to whether or not I take a job. Over the years, I’ve made a lot of good decisions and a lot of bad decisions, and hopefully, you can learn from my journey.

The day has finally come when photographers can sync their powerful off-camera flashes with their Apple iPhone using Profoto's new AirX syncing system. Being the skeptic I am, I had to see for myself if using 500 Ws of powerful strobe light with your cell phone was simply a gimmick or potentially an industry game-changer. Today, I'm left swallowing my pride.

Getting untracked photos of the Milky Way is significantly easier than you may think for both digital and film. The approach for film is much different than digital but still attainable with the right approach.

I move a lot. It’s kind of my thing. In the past sixteen years, I’ve called fourteen different places home and I’m currently packing up and getting ready to move again. One thing I’ve discovered over the years is that lightweight, self-contained art — like canvases — is easier and safer to move. I’m always open to trying out different vendors for printed products, so I was excited to give 365Canvas a try and see if their products would work well for my nomadic lifestyle.

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 2020, 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.

Making any kind of money from photography is hard, so it would seem counter-intuitive to give away your work for free. However, there are times when I have no hesitation in giving away dozens of images free to people. Read on to see why this might help you too.

There are times when you can get away working with a friend or someone willing to model for you for free, but then there are those times where you save yourself money, time, and effort by simply booking a professional model! How to decide which one to go for?

Photo editing software has granted us powers that were beyond our imaginations a little over a decade ago. No matter how much try to "fix it in post" though, bad light is bad light — let me elaborate.

The wide-angle lens is very well known to be “the” landscape photography lens. That being said, it can be a little hard to figure out how to use it in the beginning. Here are five tips.

There are many tips that have improved my portraiture, but if I had to pick one, it would be this.

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?

Do you have a gray card? A piece of foldable card that has a gray tone which is called 18% gray? If you do, there is a chance you have used it to set the white balance. But that is not where the 18% gray card is meant for.

Over the last few weeks I’ve talked with several adventure, wildlife, and landscape photographers about the Canon R5. I think that Paul Zizka’s four-word summary has been the most direct expression of satisfaction to date: it has it all.

The economic effects of COVID-19 are still being felt by photographers, but glamour photographer Nino Batista built a strong foundation under his business that allowed him to weather the worst of the storm. What did he do to make his business recession-proof?

Film photography has been enjoying a strong revival in the last few years. If you’ve yet to try it, it’s about time you jump on the film photography bandwagon.

Step-up and step-down rings are useful for attaching filters to multiple lenses with differently sized filter threads, but when they get stuck, they're almost impossible to separate, which can leave your filter completely unusable. So, use this quick tip to separate them with ease.

They say the best camera you have is the one that's always with you. Almost all of us carry our smartphones everywhere in our pockets, so it's probably a good idea to learn how to make better images with them. Learn from these 10 tips for better smartphone photography.

There are more cameras available to buy today than ever before. That usually means that consumers receive more innovation and better prices, and sometimes the best example of those perks are hidden gems.

It’s a question that everyone who picks up a camera asks at some point. But how do you know if a career in photography is right for you?

Around four months ago, amidst a harsh lockdown here in South Africa, I moved from the big city to a small coastal town, Betty's Bay, nestled between the Overberg mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. There was no work coming in, and there was no budget to rent additional gear for any shoots. It was worrying, but on the upside, I had to do something to occupy my mind and pass the time, and luckily, I had my camera to shoot while I wait. What followed was two months of intense filming and editing for my first narrative short film.

Color is one of the most important things to photographers, but surprisingly, we often do not do everything we can and should do to ensure our colors are accurate and consistent. Datacolor's SpyderX Photo Kit makes it easier than ever to make sure your colors are spot on from the moment you press the shutter to the final export, and Datacolor is offering it for 50% off. Let's look at how it can help you.

The night sky is photographed more today than ever before, and yet, dark sky areas are shrinking at incredible rates. That's something The World at Night (TWAN) program and Babak Tafreshi are trying to educate others on with this new book and the amazing collection of images within.

I awoke Friday morning to see a heart-wrenching Facebook post from a friend of mine. She had knocked her camera into a lake.

Between the Nikon F mount, Nikon Z mount, FTZ adapter, Metabones MFT to Nikon F mount, and Nikon TC-14e II, I have a serious amount of adapters and extenders to choose from depending on what camera I'm shooting on. Here's my $0.02 on dealing with the FTZ adapter on my Z50 and adapting glass to other cameras.

The late summer moors, hills, and mountain areas are turning purple with blooming heather; Now is time to photograph it.

A girl, perhaps barely in her teens, stands alone in a dimly lit room, her hair obscuring her face. She’s naked from the waist up, the front of her torso is visible, and she wears little more than socks from the waist down. The caption labels her a child prostitute and lists her hometown. Until this week, this photo was available to purchase from Getty Images.

Of course, any photographer who enjoys shooting film is just as much a film photographer as anyone else. Processing your own black and white, however, is a rite of passage for film photographers.

If there is one inevitable in life, it's that at some point, it will end. So, what do you do about all of the digital photos you've shot on different cameras and smartphones, stored on your PC at home, as well as spread out across a host of social media platforms?

Unfortunately for professional photographers, according to most current estimates, COVID-19 looks like it will be sticking around for quite a long time — perhaps years.

What do you do when you hit a creative roadblock? What things do you do to promote new, creative ideas when you're fresh out? For a lot of folks, that means heading to Instagram, YouTube, or any of the thousands of repositories for creative works that exist. Look through your favorite photographer's latest book, or find an artist you like and get inspired by someone's travel vlog. I'm here to tell you there is another way, and I think this type of inspiration should be used sparingly.

Don't get stuck with the standard wallpapers on your smartphone. Make your own in Photoshop CC using these simple steps and use your very own images to stand out from the crowd.

Whether it’s engaged, emotional portraits, conceptual science fiction, or striking fine art nudes, there’s a special quality to Bryce Chapman’s photography that transcends boundaries. How does he create such cohesive work across multiple genres?