Fstoppers Original Articles

During a fascinating interview given by one of the company's senior executives, Canon dropped a few bombshells, including the plan for a full frame mirrorless camera that is even cheaper than the recently launched EOS RP. When you consider how affordable (and limited) the RP is, you have to wonder what Canon has in mind.

Making the move to being pro is fraught with the anxieties of not having the right equipment. So what equipment do commercial photographers use? Being a commercial photographer is pretty much as vague a job description as being an administrative assistant.

I recently heard about three Puerto Rican photographers who would go out and shoot casually as friends. But, what made them unique was that these three photographers specialized in three completely different genres of photography.

If it wasn’t already crystal clear that dyed-in-the-wool photojournalists needed to add video to their toolbox, Apple News+ has just made the case even more pressing.

Capture One is multi-faceted image processing and asset management software. As a raw processor, it is considered the gold standard, supporting over 500+ cameras, and with it comes a uniquely powerful toolset for developing, color grading, and tethering. But that is just the tip of the technological iceberg that is Capture One. With a focus on user experience, its mountain of capability and complexity is hidden under a veneer of simplicity so as to make working with your images fast, focused, and easy.

Warning: For entertainment purposes only.

Late last month I did a post on my ongoing problems with Adobe and the Creative Cloud software and apps. I sometimes find Photoshop unreliable, as well as Bridge. I've also had numerous crashes with the Creative Cloud app too. There were a lot of good comments on my piece, and I also attracted some of the good folks at Adobe who were anxious to weigh in on my experience, which I welcomed.

Have you ever thought what post-processing is involved behind the car images you see in the ads? An interview with founder and CEO of "Curve Digital" Nick Limb lifts up the curtain behind their workflow.

Why would you want to simplify your landscape compositions? And once you're convinced, how do you start?

A recent round of layoffs at Canon’s USA headquarters in Melville and the closing of a major service center in New Jersey can’t mean good things for the company’s future in photography.

Building a shooting space in your home can be difficult to say the least. For most photographers, a home studio is never large enough and every inch of space becomes a commodity. In this video we show you perhaps the easiest and cleanest way to hang seamless paper in your studio space.

Depth of Field, or a lack thereof, has become a buzzword of sorts in photography circles. Many times the term is used as a blanket nomenclature to cover anything to do with how much or little of a subject is in focus. What we often fail to consider is why. Why are we choosing to use as much or as little depth as we do? It's time to look past aesthetics and really think about depth of field in relation to our subjects.

A few weeks ago, I beat Lee Morris in our Puerto Rico Landscape Challenge. With that victory, many of our readers said my edit in Photoshop was simply too over the top. Today, I try to re-edit my photo to see if I can create something a bit more realistic.

Have you ever made a picture of a landscape? Sure you have. Everyone has. Making the photo is the easy part, but showing the landscape how you experienced it, is something else. Often the photo does not show the landscape from you perception. Finding a subject is often one of the solutions.

A quick trip into downtown Los Angeles allowed me a closer look at one of my photographic heroes.

One of Darwin's most seminal remarks on evolution, quoted en masse throughout the internet and various text books, is a profound piece of advice to any photographer looking to build a lasting career in the industry. The only catch is, he didn't actually say it.

Fstoppers wouldn't exist without Ritz Camera. Patrick and I met each other working there 13 years ago. But, as many of you know, Ritz Camera went bankrupt, and we know why.

With one simple change to my everyday routine, I suddenly feel more creative, able to generate ideas more quickly, and with greater clarity. You can achieve the same thing with one simple trick that won’t cost you a penny.

Were you one of the early adopters who jumped to a Fuji X series, selling your extensive Canon camera body and lens range, to be thoroughly unimpressed with the image quality to then jump back? Or did you fork out on a PhaseONE medium format, drooling over that dreamy tonal range to then see Pentax release the rather good 645Z for a quarter of the price a year later? Enter the "Yesterday's Tech" purchasing model.

We've all heard of saving less than perfect images by turning them black and white, but when should you really do it? Here's how I decide.

Travel photography is mostly associated with exploration of wild, untouched spaces, but in my experience, most commissioned travel photography takes place in cities. This article provides five tips for getting started in urban photography.

Maybe you've had a prospective client — someone you've never heard of — ring you up to discuss your photography services... and had your brain freeze, making the conversation awkward. Even if you've been landing photography gigs for years, the excitement of an unexpected phone call can throw you off course.

So you upgraded to a DSLR to take your photography to the next level and you now feel a strong urge to step into the big bad world of professional photography. You have the kit lenses, but you know they won’t cut it. Let me introduce you to the must-have kit lens of professional photographers.

As a photographer or a videographer, do you routinely get stuck in the same cycle when working on a project, which may or may not include Imposter Syndrome, exasperation, and more? What's your unique "cycle"?

I love shooting film, it's not always the best choice, but the idea that I am forced to slow down and really be sure I like my frame before I hit the shutter overall makes me shoot more efficiently, reduce the amount of culling at the end of the shoot (which is my least favorite part of any photoshoot to be honest), and with shooting with 6x7 I can get a very specific look that is hard to replicate with smaller sensors, for better and worse.

Instagram TV has been a bit of a flop, which is a shame as the idea really excited me. However, it hasn’t stopped me from using video on Instagram.

I recently started shooting with a Nikon Z 7 and noticed something interesting when reviewing some images from a shoot. There was a feature that I didn’t pay much attention to, but I think it’s really undervalued.

Plans are good. Most of us live by plans, and we like things to go as planned. But sometimes just showing up and going with the flow can yield immense rewards for photographers. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know what to expect so you can plan appropriately, but sometimes we just need to let go. Here are a couple of examples of some amazing moments I would have missed if I had stuck to plans and took shelter in my comfort zone.

If you want to continue to grow as a photographer you need to have honest, real time feedback and yes, criticism. Sure, you can ask a friend maybe see if Mom wants to flip through your portfolio and you might get some feedback but more than likely you’ll get some “wow, that’s a cool shot” or “Honey! This picture is lovely!” but no really push back on your composition or lack of. So, go find a photo editor.

We create tons of free content on a weekly basis for our YouTube channel, but until now, we have exclusively sold our "professional" photography tutorials on the Fstoppers store. But today, thanks to a few sponsors, we've created a free 45-minute tutorial on product photography.

Wireless audio monitoring is meant to be a cardinal sin, but isn’t youth about breaking the rules?

Photography is hard. It's even harder when you forget your camera. But, as Chase Jarvis always says, the best camera you have is the one you have with you and with the rise of computational photography that is becoming more true than ever.

For almost every photographer who shoots bulk works of images, Lightroom is an essential tool. But we often make the costly and frustrating mistake of letting our Lightroom catalogs grow too large.

For many of us, marketing ourselves to potential art buyers, publications, and agencies is the stuff of nightmares. Cold calling is certainly one of the most feared.

It didn't seem like very long ago that I reviewed Luminar 3, and while I liked the editing features, I dislikes the fact that if you weren't using Luminar's "Lightroom lite" catalog feature you were stuck with it and couldn't turn it off.

Something I muttered to myself one cloudy afternoon on my garden ended up being a mantra I have had with me for over a decade.

We planned a few days at the Opal Cast in France, a wonderful seaside area with rocky coasts, large tide differences, and a lot of remains of the Second World War, that has shaped the landscape many years ago. The forecast promised fantastic weather for landscape photography, so we had high expectations for impressive sunrise and sunset shots, and perhaps even a few star trails. The reality turned out quite differently.

Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted to make huge changes to copyright legislation. The new directive could mean that Instagram will finally have to address the vast amount of freebooted content that proliferates on its platform.

What happens when the sun is setting and you want to get a balanced exposure of the setting sun in the background and your subject? The reality is you can't without the use of a strobe and high speed sync. In this article, I’ll share with you how I was able to get a perfect exposure on my subject and the background using high-speed sync.

Sony in part led the way for highly customizable cameras that are commonplace on the market today. While there are many different ways to set up a Sony, these are my top three custom settings that I share with you today.

There was a time when this question would have been laughable. Now, if you laugh it off, you're either in a a specific niche that dodges renders or computer generated imagery (CGI), or you don't understand the problem.

Once again, a small personal moment has caused me to reflect on a larger picture.

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 2019, 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.

Spring is finally just around the corner (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). This is the perfect time for me to wrap up my detailed review of the tips booklet I used to provide to my couples for their engagement sessions.

I would hazard a guess that most working photographers will tell you that talent has very little to do with a successful photograph. Somewhere along the way, you've probably heard the words “Genius is one per cent talent and ninety-nine per cent hard work.” It's that hard work that brings about good photography. Let's explore the roles that effort and perseverance play in our photography today.

All photographers can agree that you won't stay in business long if you do not charge for your work. But what if I told you that the best way to gain exposure to high-paying commercial clients was to give away your images for free? Today, we sit down with commercial and composite photographer Josh Rossi and explore the concept of free.

It’s the height of tax season, and an odd thing just happened to me. I was at my accountant’s office filing my business taxes for 2018 last week, and she said to me, “Wow. I have a lot of photographers as clients, but most of them aren’t making a living. What are you doing differently?”

Do you ever get the opportunity that you just can't let slip away? In this quick behind the scenes breakdown, see how I shot a portrait of inspirational speaker and renowned musical prodigy, Sparsh Shah.

The internet can be a tough place to share your art. Some people love to judge. While it may make sense turn off your ears completely but in doing so you might miss opportunities to improve your photography.

Air travel is a fact of life for jobbing amateur and professional photographers alike. At some point you need to stuff your gear in a bag and get on a plane. Here are my top 5 rules for air travel.