A Lifetime Review of the Canon 5D Mark II
I am about to buy my new cameras, so I thought a review of my trusty fleet of Canon 5D Mark II cameras was in order.
I am about to buy my new cameras, so I thought a review of my trusty fleet of Canon 5D Mark II cameras was in order.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC has recently updated to 8.1. With any new software release, there are new features. This new version is no different. Some of these options can speed up your workflow or speed up performance in general.
Anyone who has ever been to New York City remembers their first impression, amazement, and awe. Photographer Michael Shainblum credits this feeling as one of the main reasons he got into photography in the first place. You will be glad he did when you check out this amazing three-minute tribute to the city that never sleeps.
There are a lot of photographers that I have seen go the extra mile for their clients. What James Day Photography has done is gone to the moon and back.
Creating a strong black and white image is something photographers of almost every genre should know how to do. This helpful tutorial will show you everything you need to know to do it in Photoshop.
When it comes to athlete portraits, dramatic lighting is the world standard. There are many ways to achieve the dramatic look, but in this video, you will see how to get it with continuous lights.
Poke around online, and you'll find thousands of Lightroom presets for sale, promising to give you the looks of famous photographers and styles. However, it's really not hard to create your own presets for free, and this helpful video will show you exactly how to do it.
Shooting tethered can have a lot of benefits that can really add to your workflow whether you're in the studio or on location, but it's not without its drawbacks too. This great video examines the pros and cons of shooting tethered.
I have mentioned before that I am always seeking new ways to improve. Today, I want to share one of my daily initiatives that I religiously employ, and that’s my daily color exploration.
Okay, okay, maybe he did not exactly say that verbatim. But after watching this snippet from an interview from Complex with musician John Mayer and fashion designer Jerry Lorenzo, you'll see immediately that his analogy aligns what we go through as photographers throughout the creative process.
Photographers have a long history of finding things unique and affordable for their photography needs. I'm no different, and that's why I just wanted another top-of-the-year reminder. The goodness of the dollar store cannot be overestimated, because they can carry many similar items found at higher-priced outlets. It seems in the past few years, the quality of goods at the discount stores has increased. Am I correct in that assessment?
Selling prints is a tricky business with seemingly infinite reasons for someone to decide they don't want to purchase your image. But one simple question can dramatically increase your odds of convincing a potential customer to pull the trigger on investing in your art.
Spend enough time in photography, and it's likely you'll stop and realize one day that you seem to have drifted away from the reasons you got into it, and you might not even enjoy it anymore. This great video talks about getting back to the basics and not losing sight of why you enjoy taking photos in the first place.
Do you hate using a tripod? Do you find it too cumbersome to use, heavy, and do you think it stands in the way of creative photography? You are not the only one. I meet a lot of photographers during my workshops and masterclasses that find the tripod a necessary evil. And most of the time, it is because they are using it the wrong way.
Not all photography how-tos have to come from photography websites or YouTube photography channels. This video that addresses basic light-painting of a car comes to us from an automobile YouTube channel. If you are new to light-painting or want to give it a try, this video provides an excellent introduction.
With the holidays over and us in that strange time after Christmas but before the new year, we often find ourselves both stir crazy and broke. With this video from The Creative Contrast, they teach us how to solve that by cheaply creating our own collapsible V-Flats.
With 2018 winding down to a close, it's time to start thinking about what to do with all of those wondrous images we've created. Storing them on a hard drive is difficult, because if the hard drive gets lost — so do your photos. The New Year is a perfect time to re-organize your life, do some cleaning, and keep your photos safe!
Larger images provide a world of options for photographers, but if you're not careful, more pixels could mean more problems. If you're one of the many photographers finding yourself with a new high resolution camera after the holidays, here's a guide to wrangling that newfound resolution.
While observing other photographers using v-flats, I would say most use them in two different ways. Here are the five most common ways to use a v-flat.
One of the most fundamental things every new photographer should learn is how shutter speed, aperture, and ISO interact to produce an exposure. This great video will introduce you to the three parameters and how each of them determines your overall exposure.
If you rely heavily on HDR for your image processing, I have some news for you: It can be a lazy approach, and you may be using it in the wrong applications. It's time to learn about the limitations of HDR and far better alternatives at your disposal.
Photographing war has a long history dating back to at least Mathew Brady's photos of the American Civil War. Some images become inextricably linked to the events they portray. So what is it about this image that makes it so powerfully representative of the First World War?
When you're looking to print something that can really stand out and be unique, you may be wanting something more than a traditional matte or glossy paper. That's where Moenkopi Washi Unryu 55 comes in with a gorgeous texture and feel for your fine art prints.
Women have always played a big role in the photography world, but this fact is not always apparent. Street photography in particular has always lacked a strong female presence. Women Street Photographers aims to change that perception.
We have all used Photoshop to adjust the color of an object, but what if you need to make something a specific color? This tutorial shows how to have complete control over all the colors in your image.
One of the most challenging situations for any photographer, whether they're a beginner or a seasoned veteran, in shooting in low light. This quick, helpful video will give you eight tips to get better shots when shooting in low light.
Stock photography can be a futile pursuit, but Adobe Stock instituted a program that finally made participating worthwhile.
We spend a lot of time learning about lighting scenes — where to add it, how much to use, how to modify it, etc. And as important as it is to learn how to add light to a scene, it's equally important to know how to remove it, and this quick, helpful video will show you why and how.
I owe a lot of the success I’ve had in my career to the critique I’ve had from other photographers. Since specializing though, I’ve had to unlearn many of those lessons. Specializing has proven to me that critiques from photographers are often wrong.
Being a great photographer doesn't guarantee success in the photography industry. On one hand, some of the best photographers struggle to keep up a sustainable business, and on the other, some average (and even below average) photographers do well for themselves.
How many bags do you pack for a landscape photography trip? While your camera gear is probably the heaviest part of your luggage, your clothing may be the bulkiest. But as any mountaineer or thru-hiker will tell you, it doesn’t need to be that way!
Lens manufacturers go out of their way to design a lens that will eliminate lens flare. So why would you want to cause lens flare purposely and how would you go about it?
What would it be like to take a year long travel sabbatical to photograph the world? When I started in November, I expected it to look like my last five years of landscape photography trips — just back to back. After just two months of being location independent, it’s fair to say I was pretty far off the mark. Here are seven lessons I’ve learned.
Every well-rounded photographer needs to be able to tell a story in three images or less. This is particularly important when shooting editorial content for online publications and in print magazines. On today's assignment, I explore three different focal lengths to capture a well-rounded story of a local musician.
It's that time of year again when you've suddenly realized there are less than two weeks to Christmas and Santa's stocking is looking sadly lackluster. So, what can you do to rectify the situation? Here are 20 ideas.
Glue guns and poster board. Who would have thought these basic craft items would be useful for photographing jewelry? This in depth tutorial by New Amsterdam Photo Video covers the entire gamut of shooting rings from set up and lighting, to focus stacking and retouching, and everything in between.
Fact is we are nothing but brains absorbing the necessary information around, which is needed to survive. Did you know that something as fundamental as colors are as much a cultural phenomenon as everything else?
Photographer Randal Ford has photographed over 100 animals up close and in person and has no plans on stopping. Why would he? These are some fascinating creatures that we share this planet with and so anytime we can interact with them, its probably a good thing. They are also super cute!
You've probably heard before that you should not shoot portraits with a wide angle lens because it distorts the features in an unflattering manner, but there's more to that concept than just that advice. This great video will quickly clear up what is really happening when you change focal lengths.
A lot of landscape photographers prefer a maximum depth of field when photographing wide landscapes. They love to use small apertures in combination ultra-wide angle lenses, making use of hyper focal distances or even focus stacking to achieve their goal. But not many have ever considered using a camera with a crop sensor for that goal.
Each new version of Photoshop brings better sliders to the software for adjusting the colors of your photographs. Sliders are great for quick editing and have become a staple of my post-processing. However, sometimes, the sliders are just not enough for getting that exact color you want, and more control is needed. PiXimperfect has an excellent video for taking extreme control over the color correction process.
It's that time of the year to reflect on the progress you have made so far and to start jotting down your goals and dreams for the next year and beyond. What little changes can you make to improve your business and your overall satisfaction and productivity?
Flying with camera gear doesn’t have to be hard. Whether you’re a professional photographer traveling for a job or a hobbyist traveling home to see the family over the holidays, these tips can make your next trip fly by with ease.
Does the thought of SEO produce in you a mixture of fear and confusion? It's time to stop putting it on the back burner and get your photography website noticed on the front page of Google with these SEO tips.
What can you do to make your outdoor shots stand out from the crowd? With a great location and a great model, you are set to get a successful series of shots, but how creative can you get? The one ingredient of a creative outdoor shoot is a simple yet strong theme.
The holiday season is upon us and dreams of new camera gear are dancing in our heads. Our email boxes are full of offers for deals on lenses, flashes, tripods and of course those new mirrorless cameras. If only we could have it all, our photographs would be so much better.
Well-known tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee recently put together an ultimate smartphone camera test complete with a proper white board bracket, millions of blind votes on social media, and more. But when a Blackberry beats an iPhone XS, you know there's more to take away from this than pure camera specifications.
Boudoir photographers are constantly on social media's radar. Images are flagged daily even if they are subtle. With numerous lingerie ads being approved daily, boudoir photographers have been working to get an answer on why this type of photography is still considered against Facebook policy.
Photography is something where there are lots of little details, any one of which can make or break a shot. This great video talks about the many benefits of keeping something as simple as a notebook on you.
If you’ve run a photography business for any amount of time, I can almost guarantee that you’ve come across clients who make requests you don’t want to fill.