Fstoppers Originals

Exclusive articles and expert opinions written by Fstoppers’ talented team of creative professionals. Here we cover everything from the latest photographic techniques to advice on running a successful photography business, to first hand accounts of working in the photography industry.

Why Kodak Film Sensitivity Depended on Cows and Mustard

The working dose Samuel Sheppard wrote into his patent was 2 to 3 grains of thiosinamine per 100 pounds of dry gelatin, which works out to roughly three or four parts per million. Added to a gelatin stripped of its natural sensitizer, that trace could raise the emulsion's sensitivity by a factor of ten or twenty. Nudge it upward and the film fogged.

 

Kodachrome Ended in Parsons, Kansas: Dwayne's Photo Ran the Last Roll on January 18, 2011

In the last week of December 2010, a railroad worker named Jim DeNike drove from Arkansas to Parsons, Kansas, and loaded a dozen boxes holding nearly 50,000 slides into an old maroon Pontiac. He had sent Dwayne's Photo 1,580 rolls of Kodachrome and paid $15,798 to have them developed, borrowing against his father's retirement account to cover it.

The Feature Nikon Never Shipped

Every camera owner has their own list of things they wish their camera could do—features that seem easily achievable with a simple software update. Normally, that list dies quietly the moment a camera leaves the manufacturer's support cycle.

You Don’t Need a Macro Lens for Mushroom Photography. There, I Said It.

There is a tendency in photography to believe that if we want to photograph a particular subject, we need to buy the equipment designed specifically for it. Want to photograph wildlife? You need a long telephoto lens. Want to photograph the night sky? You need a fast wide angle lens. Want to photograph mushrooms? You need a macro lens.

But do you really? 

The Fake Photo That Helped Sink a U.S. Senator

In the last stretch of the 1950 Maryland Senate race, roughly 300,000 copies of a four-page tabloid called From the Record went out across the state, and inside was a picture of Senator Millard Tydings standing close beside Earl Browder, the former head of the American Communist Party. The two men had never posed together, and the caption underneath called the picture a composite.

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (October 2026): Dave G

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.

He Shot an Iconic Photo—and Lost the Copyright

Lester LaRue shot 44 frames on the morning of April 19, 1995, with his employer's camera, his employer's film, and his employer's car to get him there. One of those frames ran on the cover of Newsweek's May 1 issue. A federal court later ruled the copyrights had never been his.

 

How Two Fluke Photos Revealed a Humpback Had Crossed the World

On July 10, 2013, Natalia Botero-Acosta photographed a humpback whale's tail going down in the Gulf of Tribugá, on Colombia's Pacific coast. On August 22, 2022, Ekaterina Kalashnikova photographed a fluke off Fumba, in the Zanzibar channel, on the far side of the planet. The two frames belong to the same animal, and the two sighting points sit 13,046 kilometers apart.

 

The Night Sky Is Getting 9.6 Percent Brighter Every Year, and 51,351 Naked-Eye Observations Say So

At 19,262 places around the world where people walked outside and counted stars, the satellite that maps Earth at night recorded the ground below getting slightly darker. Across North America, upward radiance measured at those exact sites by the VIIRS Day/Night Band fell 0.80 percent a year. Over those same locations, artificial sky brightness was rising 10.4 percent a year.

 

How to Use a Tripod Like a Pro: Field-Tested Tips From a Night Photographer

Here are several easy tips so you can use your tripod like a pro. You'll get the most from your tripod this way, with lessons drawn from professional night photographers who use tripods in genuinely challenging conditions.

 

First… Get a Quality Tripod

Pros use quality tripods. They know better.

How the 'Blue Marble' Became One of the Most Reproduced Photographs in History

One of the most reproduced photographs of Earth ever made was shot upside down. When an Apollo 17 astronaut framed the fully lit planet through a Hasselblad on December 7, 1972, the South Pole sat at the top and Africa ran sideways, exactly as the crew saw it on the way to the Moon. The version fixed in your memory has been turned a half circle from the original frame.

 

Why I Take the Chance When Planning a Landscape Photography Trip

Planning a landscape photography trip is something I spend a considerable amount of time doing, and living here in Ireland means that checking the weather is an important part of that process. The conditions can change quickly, and even when you use several weather forecasting apps, there is never a guarantee that things will work out as you hoped.