4 Creative Ways To Use A Ring Flash With Mark Wallace
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Perhaps one of the most mysterious and misunderstood lights available to a photographer is the ring light or ring flash. Most people associate the ring flash with fashion photography, but unfortunately many photographers might not know what the effect is actually doing. In this latest Snapfactory video, Mark Wallace not only shows how a barebulb Profoto Acute 2 Ringflash works, but he also gives you 3 additional lighting setups to take your own ring flash images to the next level.

Did You Do Your Photography Homework?
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Today, cameras are easy to use. The skill of photographers has shifted from learning how to handle a camera to learning how to handle what happens in front of it. Do you have this skill?

5 Tips To Help Edit All Your Photos
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One of the most difficult things in editing isn't knowing how to color grade, use radial filters, or Photoshop. It's knowing what a photo needs once you sit down to edit it and these five tips should help guide you in tackling any photo you have.

4 Inexpensive Ways To Improve Your Food Photography
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Are you interested in adding food photography to your portfolio, but don’t know where to start? Don’t be intimidated. Yes, you can spend a lot of money on expensive lighting equipment, lenses and cameras, but these aren’t necessary to make a beautiful food image. If you are a portrait photographer, landscape photographer, sports photographer, or an expert instagrammer, you can use the gear you already have to make beautiful images of your food!

How to Easily Create a Tasteful HDR Image Using Photoshop
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A lot of people associated HDR with over-processed, surreal images. This is not always the case. Shooting HDR can be very useful in different circumstances. It is often seen in real estate and landscape photography and can be very useful to balance a wide range of light levels. There are many programs out there for merging images together to create an HDR photo, but one of the simplest ways to create these dramatic photographs is using Photoshop's built-in HDR Pro.

When Does a Photograph Stop Being a Photograph?
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Capturing reality was never photography's sole purpose—it always flirted with imagination. But in an age dominated by digital tools and AI, how far can we push photographic art before it stops being photography?

Five Quick and Easy Natural Light Basics
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Hey there, Ben Sasso here! Learning new things is one of my favorite parts of what I do, and I want to be able to pass that on. If you're looking for some quick and basic natural lighting tips to play with on your next shoot, you're in the right place. Check out five easy tips! Hope you enjoy!

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Captures Breathtaking Video from Space
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Keisuke Iwaya is an amateur Japanese astrophysicist. On July 20th, 2014, he sent a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera into the Earth’s stratosphere from Obihiro, Japan for the first time ever. The video captures a time-lapse view of the amazing voyage into the heavens as well as some behind-the-scenes views of the lift off and finding it after its free fall back down. If you've ever day dreamed of flying around the planet like Superman as a kid, this video will rekindle that fantastic flame from your youth! – check it out!

How I Overcame My Fear of Using Strobes
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Every photographer, at some point in their career, will have an internal debate to accept or decline a job because they may feel insecure about having the right skill sets or gear to complete the job. Personally, I have found myself accepting certain jobs and a few hours later, I wonder if I made a mistake in accepting the job since I may muck up a huge opportunity. A few days ago, I was offered a job that, at first, I did not think I could execute. Luckily though, I talked myself down the ledge and remembered I was in fact prepared for it.

Understanding Depth of Field - It's Not All About Aperture
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Understanding your fundamentals is, well, fundamental to photography just like it is in anything else. In a previous article, I discussed the basics of aperture and exposure. Now, moving forward I want to address one of the key elements of aperture which is depth of field. All variables in photography have a give and take, and with your aperture as we gain light we also lose depth of field. But aperture is not the only variable the affects depth of field, and in this article we will take a look at those other variables.

How to Drastically Speed Up Your Photoshop Workflow Using Customization
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When going through hundreds of photos, workflow processing can be a real pain. Tools like Lightroom can help speed up the process, but nothing can compare to the Adobe Photoshop. Here are a few tips that can help you speed up your workflow process considerably.

Five Instagram Alternatives for Photographers
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Instagram's popularity with photographers is incomparable. What is essentially a free portfolio building app disguises itself as a powerful marketing tool to connect with prospective clients, but it suffers at times due to its sheer size and scope. Maybe you're bored of sieving through lame #goals and #inspiration posts, and want to know what mobile friendly alternatives are out there? Well folks, I'm here to tell you.

Hands-On First Look with a New Lightroom Update that Promises Faster Speeds
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Adobe touted much faster speeds with the release of Lightroom Classic CC (essentially, Lightroom 7). However, results seemed inconsistent. Even so, these early inconsistencies seem to have gone away with subsequent updates and bug fixes. And thankfully, Adobe will soon release another update to Lightroom that promises even better speed increases. We’ve been playing around with it for a few days to get a better idea of what to expect.

How Do You Shoot The Same Subject Differently? The Tarantino Approach
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I often times hear that portrait photographers will only show 1 person in their portfolio and not to duplicate subjects on their website. I am completely against this idea and urge photographers to be more like Mr. Tarantino, who can transform characters and settings by use of wardrobe, color, and hair. This post is a call for examples of how YOU are shooting the same subject differently. Send me your images and I will post a follow up article with the best suggestions.

The Changing Shape of Cinema: The History of Aspect Ratio
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John Hess From FilmMakerIQ.com traces the evolution of the screen shape from the silent film days through the widescreen explosion of the 50s, to the aspect ratio of modern digital cameras. If you've ever wondered why and how the formats we use today came to be, this is something you'll want to watch. The topic is too broad to summarize for those that would prefer to not watch his video but, there is one piece that definitely stuck out to me.

17 Free Apps / Services that I Use to Run My Business
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I love free stuff, who doesn't. After going through the software and services I use to run my business, I was pleasantly surprised how many were free. I do not mind paying for software, but I also don't mind using software that may have ads running to pay the developers. Nothing is worse than having to pay that dreaded monthly fee to use a service or software.

Redbull's New Skate Film
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Redbull's newest short film truly is a masterpiece. Even if you are not a skateboarding enthusiast you should watch just to appreciate the cinematography. With Marc Ritzema as the cinematographer and Ryan Sheckler, Torey Pudwill, Ryan Decenzo, and Zered Bassett skating, the film is a visually stunning and rather remarkable. The slow-mo shots are beautiful and ramped so well. Marc is such a creative film maker and the personal touch he leaves on his films are very admirable. His story lines flow very well and never leave the viewer bored. Marc filmed this with a Phantom flex & epic.

Will We See the Canon EOS R5 Mark II This Year?
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Few cameras in recent years have caused as much of a stir as the EOS R5, which brought features like a high-megapixel sensor and 8K raw video, instantly showing the world that Canon was extremely serious about the mirrorless realm. The EOS R5 has been a highly popular camera, but now that it has been 2.5 years since its release, it is about time to start thinking about the second version of the camera, which we may see before the EOS R1.

5 More Photo Editing Mistakes to Avoid
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In a recent article, I shared a selection of easy-to-avoid photo editing mistakes. Today, it's time for five more. Some of them might sound obvious, while others are more subtle. What they all have in common: they can ruin an otherwise great edit.

The Irrational Reasons to Buy an $800 35mm f/2.8 Lens
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The current king-of-the-hill 35mm, the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 A DC HSM, costs $900. That's not too shabby for a lens that absolutely dominates its "L" and high-end Nikon competition, which both cost significantly more. Canon and Nikon offer budget 35mm options: a f/2.0 IS and f/1.8G, respectively, both of which cost under $600 and are no slouches themselves. With the availability of extremely well performing 35mm lenses at the sub-thousand-dollar price point, why on earth would someone buy a slow (f/2.8) 35mm for $800?

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro: A Review You Need to See!
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If you are looking for your first cinema camera or thinking of upgrading your current rig there are tons of options out there but if you are looking for the best bang for your buck. Then you will want to make sure you read this Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro review.

A Quick Tip to Improve Your Final Image
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As a family photographer, I often find myself pushing the limits with how fast I'm moving. Sometimes I'm trying to get a shot before the 2-year-old child decides he hates what is happening, and other times I'm rushing to make sure I accomplish everything the family wanted to get. It doesn't matter what situation I'm in. Anytime I'm rushing, my images suffer. Last year at WPPI while attending one of Jerry Ghionis' classes, he said something that really stuck with me, and helped improve my photography. Ghionis said to slow down.

Five Steps to Improve Your Creativity
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Creativity is not some mysterious, elusive attribute that only the lucky people get. It is a skill that can be learned and developed. A muscle that can and will get stronger with work. One of the most painful statements I hear from discouraged aspiring photographers is "I love photography, but I'm just not creative enough." It is akin to saying that you have a dream but no faith in your ability to reach it. The statement of "I'm just not creative" denies

Just Say No: A Photographer's Tale
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Getting to “yes.” It is the story of our lives. Whether pitching a client a new idea or nervously asking the woman you met at the corner store for a date, that sweet little three letter word can be pure music to our ears. But as we progress in life and the choices become more complicated, we realize that the questions themselves aren’t always so black and white. And, sometimes, our three letter friend isn’t always the right answer.