Fstoppers Original Articles

Spending your Covid-19 isolation time working on your business now could mean art sales later. Seattle-based Fine Art Photographer Jason Matias, who runs a program that helps artists sell their art, has a few tips for how to go about snagging those sales.

Professional photography is a pretty exclusive club in someways. It is a dream job that many of us are protective of and online this can be seen by those defining what makes you a professional photographer.

In this tutorial, we’re going to make some quick and simple adjustments to a close-up flower photograph using ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2020 and its powerful Develop Mode.

Fear is a dangerous thing. We all have to find ways to deal with it and maybe even use it to our advantage. Unfortunately, I let fear make decisions early in my career, and I'm still feeling the effects. If you struggle with putting your work out in the open, maybe you can learn from my mistakes.

Would you throw 10,000 printed photographs in a bathtub to search for an image of your child’s first steps? No! So, why should you do it with digital files?

If you stack too many requirements onto getting yourself to shoot, you may miss out on simply enjoying photography like you did when you started.

When working in Photoshop from home or on the road, the new Wacom One tablet can be a super helpful tool that matches up especially well with your laptop, giving you not only the control you get with a stylus and tablet but an additional screen as well.

A reader sent us in a tip to check out a photographer on TikTok that approached a wedding couple and took portraits of them. Is it wrong to do if the people you are approaching are already on a shoot with another photographer?

Do you have Gear Acquisition Syndrome? Are you a bit of a camera gear savant? Test your knowledge and let us know how you get on?

Macro photography is a fun thing to do. With a normal macro lens, you can reach up to a 1:1 magnification. With a couple of extension tubes, it is possible to boost the magnification a bit, but not much. If you are interested in higher magnifications, you could try a reverse ring first.

If you have an ear for music or you're tuned into pop culture, you're likely aware that Kenny Rogers passed away last week. Did you know that he was also an avid photographer? Did you know that Rogers was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum?

A photo is taken in an instant, snapped as you perceive the moment, recording indefinitely the raw values encoded from the sensor to the memory card. How then can a photo be a living entity?

What are your bets on how the wedding photography industry will look by the time we get through the pandemic? Here, an award-winning wedding photographer shares his experiences on getting through this period and looks to the future of the industry.

It’s amazing what modern software can create within seconds and how we can alter images with only a few clicks. What does it do to our reception of photography?

As you advance in landscape photography, you'll likely come across techniques such as exposure blending or focus stacking. But what if you want to do both?

In last week’s article, I took you through the four best investments that I’ve made since becoming a professional photographer. But, since there are two sides to every coin, I guess it's only fair to also tell you where I’ve gone wrong.

Molly Baber is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and fashion photographer creating conceptual works that evoke blood, death, and feminine power, as well as a subconscious fantasy through ritual, divination, and mythology.

Most of us are familiar with "the gear trap," the fine line that's crossed when a shooter makes a top priority of continually researching and purchasing newer and better camera equipment. This can be a dangerous money pit. But there are times when your gear must be upgraded, lest you suffer the technical shortcomings of outdated or inadequate equipment.

Here is a fact: You will not find your creativity by following a rule, regardless of how many people believe it. In this series of articles, I aim to put this right. I’m on a mission to change how photography composition is taught — forever.

Billions of people around the world are self-isolating to slow the spread of Coronavirus. However, it's not just our physical wellbeing at risk, but also our mental health. Stu McKenzie has pioneered a new project to help veterans with PTSD, which could also help those suffering from anxiety and depression during the quarantine.

Doing long exposures is the most fundamental trick up a landscape photographer's sleeve. But for effective use of its visual effects, there are a few essential steps that one must follow.

With COVID-19 impacting our world on a global scale, it has become an important part of social history that needs to be (safely) documented not just for tomorrow, but also future generations.

Details are emerging of a new patent just filed by Canon that could revolutionize one of its most exciting products: the Cripple Hammer. Brace yourselves, because the plans for this updated version look crazy.

We all live in Zoom right now. With the global pandemic, chances are your client meetings aren’t happening in person anymore. But while your photography gigs may have temporarily dried up, you still have to put your game face on, even if it’s via videoconference. Here’s some gear to help you do that.

With so much depressing news about Covid-19 circulating these days, any good news is much welcomed. The other day, I was greeted by some needed good news when I opened my email. I’m a firm believer that humanity is more good than bad, though sometimes, it is hard to keep the faith. CamRanger helped to re-enforce my belief. CamRanger is stepping up to help the medical community protect themselves from infection by Covid-19. Yes, a company that produces remote controls for your camera is fighting Covid-19.

Enjoy some online courses with a two-month trial of Skillshare Premium.

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.

Capture One is a great tool for processing raw files, but it lacks one key feature found in Adobe's Camera Raw: the ability to export files as Smart Objects. While that feature seems a way off, there is a cool workaround hack that lets you come close.

When Pentax released its 24-70mm f/2.8 lens back in 2016, people quickly realized that it was little more than a rehoused Tamron lens without the VC feature. More recently, Pentax has announced that it's developing a new FA* 85mm f/1.4. Although there are certain physical similarities to a Sigma lens, I doubt that it's the same lens.

Photography isn't a young person's game, though it may look it from afar. And now might be the best time there will ever be to give it a chance.

Just as literally billions of people were caught unprepared for the coronavirus outbreak, many are also unprepared for a data disaster. Sure, many professionals are prepared, but many others just think they are.

It's a very mixed feeling: you are happy they like the shot, but you are also disappointed that it's not sharp. I'm going to share my way of dealing with the situation, but I am also curious about your way of handling the problem.

By now, most of the countries around the world are under full lockdown or about to undergo lockdown. At the time of writing, my country (South Africa) would be one of the latest to undergo lockdown. Tensions seem to increase the day before the actual event, as people question what they'll be doing with themselves while locked in a house for three weeks or longer. Luckily, it doesn't need to be as scary as you think, especially if you're a photographer.

If you're like me, you just had a couple of months’ worth of work canceled and are now looking for alternative income streams. If you want to know how to start selling prints online — with no setup costs and no ongoing fees — read on.

The coronavirus has affected most of the world. In the UK, freelancers have been hit hard with no financial help until June at the earliest. Here are some brutal business lessons that we are all going to have to swallow.

It’s no secret that a ton of people are stuck at home right now. So, while there are a lot of great things to watch on Netflix, here are seven things you can do to help your business while stuck at home.

For the last couple of decades, a prime lens wasn’t professional grade if it didn’t have a maximum aperture of f/1.4. Times have changed, however, and now, you have to look past the aperture to really understand where a lens is positioned. Want to know what drove this change?

There’s a very real chance this COVID-19 pandemic could send some of the biggest camera companies under. If that happened, what would you do and how would you respond?

The COVID-19 epidemic has thrown the photography community into a financial tailspin. And while some of us are busy trying to survive, others are taking this business downturn as an opportunity to reinvent their business, do a better job of living out one’s values, and form deeper connections with our clients.

Every week I get many messages asking where I get my stock images from, so here you go.

We are quite familiar to the rule of thirds, the golden ratio, and perhaps the Fibonacci spiral. We know how to use it in photography, more or less, and we all have heard about breaking these composition rules. But perhaps you should use composition theory instead.

Lightroom presets are a great way to create quick and effective edits, but if you’re relatively new to photo editing, it might be useful to know how to make the most of them and when they should be avoided.

You might think your progression is slow, you might think you suck and will never be as good as your idols. It takes time to learn photography and here I show you my development.

Many countries around the world are now experiencing social distancing and practicing self-isolation, me (in the U.K) included. So I’m pledging to run a series of photography tutorials for those of us affected by these measures.

Okay, I get it, that’s a pretty bold statement, but hear me out. I’ve been working on this for nearly two decades.

Sitting at home, waiting out a global pandemic can lead one to do a bit of thinking. And, because I am a photographer, what better thing to think about than gear?

In many ways, digital photography is not on the same level as film photography. In many others, film cannot compete with digital.

Cameras are expensive, and you spend your hard-earned cash in the expectation that not only will your purchase be the latest and greatest, but that it works out of the box. Would you still buy it if you knew it was at least partially experimental?

If you've not used Adjustment Brushes with Range Masks to make subtle changes to colors in Lightroom, you're missing out. This is how I used both tools to finish my edit of this rock climbing photograph.

You can not go on any photography-related blog these days without seeing some kind of negative post about Adobe, or an Adobe article without a comments section of people with their pitchforks and lanterns out.