Product Photography

Product photography has to make objects look their best — and do it efficiently enough to be commercially viable. Whether you're shooting a single hero product for an advertising campaign or hundreds of SKUs for an e-commerce catalog, the challenges of lighting, styling, and consistency are central to the work. This section covers product photography across scales, from tabletop setups to large-scale commercial productions.

Sony a7 Drops Below $1,000 for First Time

Sony today announced a price drop in their inaugural a7, making it Sony's first full-frame, mirrorless camera below $1,000. This $300 instant savings over the original $1,300 price tag is fantastic news for photographers looking to add a solid mirrorless camera to their gear bag. Retailers like B&H, are selling the body for $998 with free shipping.

The New Superhero That Could: The Pentax K-3 II, How Nikon and Canon Are Lagging Behind, and Why It Doesn't Matter

Do you want your sensor to shift in-body to create a higher-resolution image? Want 4.5-stop image stabilization built into the body so we can benefit from its use with any lens? Want to be able to decide for every shot exactly what level of anti-aliasing you want in order to balance moiré and sharpness? It’s all possible with the new 24-megapixel, APS-C Pentax K-3 II.

New GoPro Rival Has Unbelievable Price Tag

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is bringing its attention to the camera world with results that would make even the most die-hard GoPro fan think twice about their next purchase. 

RED Outs a Slew of Upgrades That Include The Newest 8K Weapon System

Built on years of experience with creating the film industry's favorite high-resolution digital cinema cameras, RED now brings the Weapon upgrade in 6K variants due out this summer and in an 8K variant due to ship by the end of the year. There's quite a bit of new information to go with this announcement, but for now, we'll go over the main and most important points. 

The New Ronin-M Aims to be a Lighter, Cheaper, and Better MoVi

We are living in an amazing time for filmmaking and video production. The MoVi was absolutely a gamechanger when it first hit the scene, but DJI's Ronin gave it a run for it's money (actually, a bit less) in the last year. Now, DJI, makers of the Ronin, are releasing an updated version that addresses most users major issue: weight. 

Fstoppers Reviews the Beautifully Crafted Zeiss Loxia 35mm f/2 Lens

In September 2014, Zeiss announced their new Loxia line of manual-focus lenses for Sony’s full-frame E-mount cameras. Ever since covering the announcement, I’ve wanted to try out these stylish lenses, namely the Zeiss Loxia 2/35 because of its extended usefulness in landscape photography.

Finally! An Updated Version of Redrock Micro's "One Man Crew" Motorized Slider

The One Man Crew from Redrock Micro was a treat for small interview productions, whereby a fully automated slider could capture subtle camera moves and add tremendous production value. It wasn't without a few issues though, and for the last few years we had been hearing about a version 2 that would address these. Redrock has finally delivered. 

Cloud Spot: Changing the Way Photographers Share Images

Cloud Spot was created by full-time photographers who were tired of the available options for photo delivery. Nothing before truly placed the photographer's brand first and cut precious time off of their workflow. The goal was to beautifully display images in a branded and modern gallery, be super fast and easy for the photographer to share, and allow clients to easily download i

DigitalRevTV Compares The Yongnuo And Canon 50mm F1.8

Two weeks ago we saw Tony Northrup comparing the Canon and Yongnuo 50mm 1.8 lenses with his thorough video. Now Kai of DigitalRevTV has decided to bring you his own version of this same comparison. In typical Kai fashion, his presentation is perhaps more humorous than scientific, but in between the jokes are some real kernels of truth.

Adaptalux: Portable Mini Studio System for the Macro Shooters

If you're into macro photography, Adaptalux could be your new best friend. The new Kickstarter project is aimed to solve a lot of the lighting issues macro photographers face and offer new ways to light objects in creative ways. The Adaptalux is a small device with five ports and five adjustable LED lighting arms with different color outputs.

Tony Northrup Compares The Yongnuo And Canon 50mm 1.8

Yongnuo recently released a 50mm F1.8 auto focus lens to compete with the very popular Canon version. The Canon 50mm F1.8 is already considered a bargain lens, so with the Yongnuo coming in at half the already bargain basement price, can it possibly perform equally or even better?

Which Is The Ultimate Nikon Portrait Lens? 200mm, 135mm or 85mm ?

The photographer makes the photo, not the gear. That being said, it’s essential to have the best tools for your career. Would a doctor go into surgery with a blunt scalpel? There's a lot of debate when it comes to the topic "best portrait lens." Personally, my choice of lens until now has been the Nikon 85mm 1.4G.

The Complete Guide To Product Photography and Retouching | RGG EDU

PRO.edu has released its newest tutorial, "The Complete Guide to Product Photography and Retouching." This in-depth tutorial features over 20 hours of content on shooting and retouching, taught by Tony Roslund. The tutorial is currently available and being sold with a $25-off early-bird discount, this week only.

Elegantly Frame Your Shots With Unique Photoshop Plugins

Lens Distortions is a Photoshop plugin that allows you to easily add lens blurs and light leaks to your images for creative effect. With the continual proliferation of digital photography, there is still a great demand for the look and authentic feel of 35mm film. There are certain colors, textures, and tones that are unique to the format many of us grew up with.

Is Flixel Ushering In A New Era For Photography?

We’ve heard plenty about the death of the humble photo as video proliferates. But photography is still far more accessible than video, often because video editing is still so time intensive. Instagram introduced video more than a year ago yet it is still predominantly a platform for sharing still photographs.

LinusTechTips Gives Us The Lowdown With Their Extreme SD Card Showdown

The humble memory card is perhaps one of the most overlooked and neglected pieces of gear. It has the incredibly important and difficult task of accurately, quickly, and securely recording and storing all the data our cameras capture and it must do so time and time again.

Fstoppers Reviews the Elinchrom ELC Pro HD Compact Strobe

Elinchrom has been the brand of choice for years many Europeans and Australians photographers alike. They are cheaper than Profoto or Broncolor, offer a good range of modifiers and – unlike Paul C. Buff – have service centers outside of the USA. To many photographers they also have been a great way to get into studio photography before moving up to Broncolor or Profoto.

The ELB 400 - Elinchrom's New Portrable Strobe Announced

With the recent announcement of the Profoto B2, Elinchrom's position in the ultra-portrable strobe pack market was somewhat overshadowed as the former exceeded the Elinchrom Quadra Hybrid in many aspects. Not to be outdone, Elinchrom has now announced the release of its next generation on-location pack and head kit known as the ELB 400. 

The New Echelon Bag Collection by Lowepro Brings Luxury to the Modern Photographer

Announced this morning at the opening of WPPI, was the new Echelon collection from LowePro. The Echelon collection is designed to blend form with function to create some of the best, and most stylistic bags available for photographers. Not only am I able to announce the new series, over the last few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to try these new bags out. 

SmartShoot - Connecting Visual Artists and Big Brands

The calendar just turned its pages to 2015. We have tiny and versatile cameras like the GoPro Hero 4 filming 4K video, camera companies making 50-megapixels DSLRs, and artists making mind-blowing stop-motion/hyper-lapse/time-lapse films. So why is it still so hard for artists and big brands to easily connect to collaborate on photo and video projects? 

Affinity Photo: First Impressions and a Call to Action

It's already been a couple weeks since Serif announced the release of the Affinity Photo beta. I, along with literally thousands of others, have downloaded the program and started putting it through its paces, trying to fit it into my own personal workflow.

Fstoppers Review Of The Descent Shoulder Bag By Mountainsmith

I’ve been shooting stills and video alongside the rest of the crew with Clear & Cold Cinema, while working on the Michigan Ice Film. Before I departed sunny Colorado, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Mountainsmith Descent Pack, and I don’t know what I would have done without it. 

The Fstoppers Flash Disc Light Modifier Is Back In Stock

After becoming the best selling off camera flash light modifier on Amazon.com in 2014, we were sad to announce that we had completely sold out of our entire Fstoppers FlashDisc inventory.  If you have been waiting patiently for our stock to replenish wait no more; our US Amazon Store now has a fresh batch of inventory.

Olympus Working On Technology That Would Allow Handheld Sensor Shift Images

Camera manufacturers are still cramming ever more pixels into their sensors. Canon has recently announced that it is releasing a 50MP full frame camera which has left many speculating about its technical limitations due to sheer physics. One solution of course is to move up to a larger medium format sensor but prices can be prohibitive for many.

Both Versions of Sigma's 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Now Available for Pre-Order

Sigma's hot, new sports telephoto-zoom lens is now available for pre-order in both of its configurations, the Sport and Contemporary models. The Sport model features superior image quality along with increased weight and a heftier price tag. It comes in Nikon F, Canon EF, and Sigma SA mount options for $1,999.

Sigma Announces the 24mm f/1.4 Art and dp0 Quattro Camera

Just announced by Sigma is the newest in their covenant Art series of lenses with the 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art. In the past couple years now, the Sigma Art lenses have been considered by many the best in their class in terms of sharpness, so the news of a 24mm Art has gotten photographers everywhere excited. Along with this announcement is the dp0, an update to their mirrorless camera systems.

The Siros: Is Broncolor’s New Affordable Strobe Any Good?

With companies like Profoto and Elinchrom offering an increasingly broad range of self-contained strobes, Broncolor was no doubt feeling left out with its predominantly pack and head oriented lineup. That’s all changing now with the release of the new Siros strobe; a compact, wall powered, feature rich and wallet friendly flash unit. 

CalDigit's TS2 Thunderbolt Station Dock is a Nifty Convenience Packed with Features

Thunderbolt docks have always been something that I've wanted, but haven't absolutely needed. The $300-$500 price range of these little all-in-one boxes didn't spark urgency in my search for the perfect dock either. Given a little time for the excitement (and price) of Thunderbolt-related technology to die down a bit, however, the prospect began to grow more interesting.

Canon Officially Announces the Canon 5DS, 5DS R and 11-24mm f/4L

After weeks of rumors and speculation, Canon has finally confirmed that the megapixel monster known as the 5Ds/5Ds R is real, and coming to stores here soon. Boasting 50.6MP full frame sensor, Canon has surpassed Nikon and Sony, offering us the highest resolution to date for a DSLR camera system.

Control Your DSLR Wirelessly Through a Smartphone - Fstoppers Reviews the CASE Remote

The CASE remote is a wireless device that creates a mobile hotspot attached to your camera, providing you with live-view connectivity on your mobile device. One can easily control shutter triggering, HDR, focus stacking, time-lapse, and photo transfers from your iPhone, Android, or tablet. Fstoppers had the opportunity to give this device a spin and here's what we thought. 

Photoshop Shortcuts Stop Working When Using Wacom Tablets - SOLUTION

After endless hours wasted, I found the solution for an issue I've had using the Intous tablet with my Macbook Pro. The brush would get stuck and I couldn't hit Photoshop shortcuts between brush strokes. I went through the hassle of reinstalling all drivers, buying a new tablet and setting all my Photoshop settings back to default before finding the following simple 30-second fix.

GoPro Announces Updates To HERO4 Camera Line, Including 240fps Video

Everyone's favorite point of view action camera is about to get even better. According to a post on the GoPro website, firmware updates are coming for the HERO4 camera lineup that will add features and capabilities users have been requesting for some time. 

New Samyang 135mm F2 Spotted On Ebay!

Rokinon/Samyang have been throwing around cryptic teasers hinting at the fact that a new lens was coming in January 2015. "3 digits and they are all odd" read one of their promos. Everyone's best guess to date was a 135mm but we really had no information about it, that is, until now.