Why Professional Photographers Should Work For Free
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Free? Working for free? When I started out, being asked to work for free made my blood boil; Didn’t people know I had bills to pay, rent to make, black T-shirts to buy, rounds of beer to shout, girls to woo? These things cost money, and it still makes my blood boil when I’m asked to work for free. And yet I often work for free. Confused? Here’s how working for free is a good thing and how to ensure your blood doesn’t boil in the process.

Do Not Be Lazy in Landscape Photography
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Predicting the weather is next to impossible, but you can optimize your chances of a successful shoot quite a lot. Do not be lazy about that optimization. I was lazy and it lead to one of my biggest fails in my career as a landscape photographer.

Essential Twitter Marketing Tips for Photographers
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My name is Nico, and I'm a professional urban/street photographer based in London. In this article, I will show how you too can use Twitter to get more photography jobs, develop your network, and get your work seen by the right people. At least 90% of my paid photography work, including Adidas and Amazon, has come from interactions on Twitter, and anybody with a high-quality portfolio can do the same by following my simple tips.

The Top Five Nik Color Efex Pro Filters For Superb Landscape Photos
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The Nik Collection by Google carries some of the most powerful image editing applications for photographers. One of these applications, Color Efex Pro, has the ability to dramatically enhance the stories inside your landscape images. Out of the 55 filters available in Color Efex, there are five that I come back to using time and time again. In this article, I will show you what these essential filters are and explain how they make processing my images much less draining.

Five Ways to Progress in Photography
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I derive motivation as well as enjoyment as a photographer by seeing continuous improvement in my work. In this article, I’ll share five factors that have pushed me further along in my photographic journey.

My Gear and How I Use It to Affect Emotion
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Photography is a game of emotions. Think about some of the most powerful images that you’ve ever seen. The ones that have left a lasting impression on you. Sure, they might have gorgeous tones, light, or composition, but the reason they have stuck with you for so long is probably the emotion or mood that the image evokes. Our job as a photographer is to control those moods and to decide which emotion we want our viewer to feel.

Go Ahead, Use Your Old DSLR Flashes on Your New Mirrorless Cameras
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When I first started out using speedlights for flash photography, there weren’t many options aside from Canon and Nikon. As a result, I’ve amassed a large collection of Speedlights (and Speedlites), but now that I also shoot mirrorless bodies, are my SB-700s and 600EX-RTs any good?

Record-Breaking 320 Gigapixel Image Taken of London
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By stitching together 48,640 individual frames, a new image, taken for the BT Tower in London, has broken the record for the largest panorama in the world. The image was taken using a rig of seven Canon 7D cameras, each equipped with a 400mm lens plus extender. What does this mean? Well, if you live in London, it means a lot of people are going to be able in look into your window.

Using Flash To Fake A Sunset
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Every morning I wake up and walk out to my living room. I sit down on the couch and bask in the sunlight coming through my sliding glass doors. I love how the light cutting through the vertical blinds creates a pattern of lines going across my living room. I have often thought how cool it would be to shoot a photo with the light like that, but at sunset when the light is real golden. The only problem? I can't shoot a sunset like that because my door opens on the eastern side of the house...

The L-Mount Alliance: Too Little, Too Late?
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The L-Mount Alliance marked the culmination of a remarkable period in the history of the (digital) camera. However in five years time, will we look back and see this as the beginning of the end? Was the L-Mount Alliance simply too little, too late?

Does the Profoto B2 Have Enough Power at 250Ws?
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Recently announced at the head of WPPI a couple weeks ago, was the Profoto B2 strobe system. The unit, small in comparison of its competitors, was arguably the most exciting product announcement this year at the popular photography convention. However, the burning question everyone has been asking is… is 250Ws enough for on location work like Profoto suggests?

Fstoppers Reviews the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock
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In today’s computing landscape, laptops are replacing desktops for many on-the-go creative and business professionals. There are still, however, a few things that make a desktop setup more productive for many. A Thunderbolt Dock, such as the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock, can help to bridge that productivity gap when you return home or to the office. Let’s take a look at how it stacks up in today’s article.

Fstoppers Reviews the Fujifilm VPB-XT2 Camera Grip
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The Fujifilm X-T2 has been in my hands since the day it was released here in Korea, and I have been really enjoying all the new features and speed upgrades. For all intents and purposes, it has become my primary camera now. It is responsive enough that unless I'm working with families, I'll use it for everything I do. However, it still has a couple of flaws in terms of battery life and size. After a full day of shooting, I've been noticing that my fingers ache, and I've changed batteries more times than I can count. To address both of these, I thought I would check out the vertical battery grip (or Vertical Power Booster Grip as Fuji calls it), VPB-XT2, to see if it was worth the hefty price tag.
The Pain of Shooting Film and Why It's Worth It
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When you're shooting film, especially large format film, you have a lot of time to think. When your hands are in a bag and you're loading or unloading many sheets of film, the mind tends to wander and probably the subject that crosses my mind the most is "why?" Shooting digitally would be so much faster. I could be out having a beer somewhere! I could be editing some images in Photoshop from an editorial gig that I've been putting off. Hell, I could be practicing my juggling skills (or learning to juggle). So, why am I instead up to my elbows in this bag, enduring the necessary tedium of film life? Here are some common doubts I have and the reasons I push past them!

Why Fear Is the Enemy of Great Photography
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If I had a nickel for every time I witnessed a photographer missing out on a great photographic opportunity in the name of fear, I'd be a rich man. Fear is one of the most powerful forces that holds us back in our lives. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of embarrassment, or fear of injury all play a huge role in our decision making by clouding our rational judgment. By letting fear control us we let it define the limits of what is possible. Never let fear play a key role in the creation of your art.

Mastering Headshot Photography With the Canon EOS R5 and RF 100mm Lens
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Want to get great commercial, headshot photos using the Canon R5 and the Canon RF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM lens? The following advice will help you produce the best professional headshots and show you how to interact with your clients for stunning, natural results.

We Review the Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 II Mirrorless Camera
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Back in 2017, I received the Panasonic Lumix DC-G9 for review. My experiences with this mirrorless MFT camera were positive. Now, six years later, Panasonic sent me the second version: the Lumix DC-G9 II. I used it under extreme weather conditions at the Opal Coast in France.

[Rumor] Updated Specs on the Canon T4i
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It looks like the sleuths at CanonRumors have culled some more information regarding the impending Canon T4i. We reported that Canon was probably going to release at least two cameras in June, and the T4i is looking more and more like one of those. What's it have that's new? Likely a touch screen.

Fstoppers Interviews Photographer Victoria Will, Creator of Captivating 'Moving Portraits'
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Even if you've never heard of Victoria Will, you probably have seen her awesome moving portraits of celebrities. These captivating images give a new take on celebrity portraits. Some might say they are simply amazing, but others might give a different opinion. We sat down with Victoria to give you this exclusive interview and discussed the inspiration behind these images.

A Before And After Look Of How Beauty Retouching Is Done In Video
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As a retoucher, I'm always fascinated by the world of video and how retouching is done in beauty commercials. Foton Inc. released a video a few months ago showing how to make someone look younger with their “Age Reduction FX” technique. Now, here's another video showing how retouching in video is done in 4k format for a typical beauty video.

Mirrorless Camera Roundup: So Who's the Best?
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Fstoppers Mirrorless Month really got me rethinking the entire small-camera strategy. I’m normally someone who doesn’t mind lugging a camera mounted to an 18th-century cannon, so long as it can take better photographs than the thing before it. But holding so many small cameras every day gets me thinking, is there another, better way to do this? And if so, what’s the best...?