My First Post As An Fstoppers Contributor - Douglas Sonders
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First of all, I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Douglas Sonders and I am a photographer and filmmaker. I'm excited to share this first post as an official member of the Fstoppers team with you. I have loved this site as a reader since its inception and am honored by the opportunity to share with you loads of new original content, much of which will come from behind the scenes of my own crazy shoots.

Myspace Re-Aims Its Sights On Creatives
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Lunch time here at work which means it's time to set the stylus down and lurk Facebook. Once upon a time I would have been saying "time to lurk Myspace," and it looks like that time could be coming back. Myspace is rebuilding itself from the ground up, and it honestly looks stunning.

Interview With Nicolas Bruno The Sleepless Photographer
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Our dreams are often wildly confusing with imagery many of us don't understand and memories which seem to fade the instant our eyes open. Photographer Nicolas Bruno suffers from a condition called sleep paralysis which keeps him in a halfway state between being asleep and being awake. Through his incredible and haunting images Nicolas Bruno recreates the experiences from his dreamscape. This week we interview him to get a better idea of the struggle and the process behind his art.

Hardware LUT Calibration for Dell Wide-Gamut Monitors
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Reading Bill Peppas' recent article here on Fstoppers got me thinking about calibration again. For the most part, it's a fairly simple process to improve the accuracy of colors on your display. A good many of us simply need to invest in a Spyder or ColorMunki system and allow it to do its job. Correctly calibrating a monitor with a hardware Look-Up Table (LUT) is a little more involved, and I wanted to share the procedure for calibrating a Dell Monitor with the X-Rite i1 Display Pro.

Fstoppers Old Gear Review- Radiopopper PX
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I am the type of photographer that doesn't stay up to date on the latest gear. Instead, I find what works for me and I use it until I hear about something that works better. This is why it was so hard for me to hand in my Pocketwizard Plus II's for the Radiopopper PX system. But boy am I glad that I did.

Plus II's are tanks. They are virtually indestructible. I used them for years with nary a misfire. But there was one thing they couldn't do. High speed sync.

Photographer Jack Dykinga Celebrates 100 Years of Grand Canyon National Park
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2019 marks the 100th anniversary of The Grand Canyon’s designation as a National Park, but for Arizona resident and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, Jack Dykinga, that’s not the only milestone to celebrate this year. For Dykinga, this summer also marks the 5th anniversary of his life-saving double lung transplant. Both occasions are being celebrated in the summer-long exhibition Jack Dykinga: The Grand Canyon National Park (1919-2019) at Tucson, Arizona’s Etherton Gallery.

The 500px RAW Mobile Photography App Review
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500px just introduced their RAW app. It uses the new iPhone raw image capabilities to make editing on the go easier and as intuitive as possible. The app gives you the capability to export to your social networks as well as your 500px profile, where you can sell the images and make 60% of the profit. It also has an Assignment section, which I believe will be used to give photographers paid projects depending on their location. Is editing raw images on mobile devices the future of post-production? By the looks of what Lightroom has done with their mobile apps in which you can edit your raw images by using a smaller proxy file, it might be the way the industry is moving.

BTS "Year of the Horse" Shoot with Profoto Gear
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I'm a huge fan of the Profoto gear. When I came across this behind the scenes video on Profoto's blog, I just had to share it with you guys. To kick off the "Year of the Horse" Tokyo-based photographer Irwin Wong came up with a creative shoot in the middle of the forest.

Photography Couples - Part 1: Combining Romance and Photography
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So how do you balance a romantic relationship with a life that revolves around photography? In this series, I explore the benefits to shooting and running a photography business together with your better half. Of course we'll tackle the common pitfalls and find out how you can shape the perfect photography holiday. Let's start by introducing the eight amazing creatives in landscape photography who will make you want to buy your romance a camera for Christmas.

Dell Unveils World's First 32" 8K Monitor
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Dell recently introduced their first 8K monitor at CES 2017 last week. This new monitor has 7680x4320 resolution with 280 PPI. However, the price will also be as high as its resolution.

Why You Should Keep Your Wedding Photography Brand Separate From Your Other Work
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A few months ago I wrote a two part article on branding for photographers. In this article I will continue with branding for photographers, and why you should keep your brands separated. The most common thing I see are wedding photographers combining their wedding work with their family, baby, senior, and even commercial work. While I completely understand the tendency to not only simplify your marketing, but also the concept that by showing your multiple talents you will increase your value to clients, combining genre's is one of the biggest things hurting the growth of your business.

3 Fun Ways to Brand Your Business for 2017
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I remember one of my first introductions to branding. I was sitting in a workshop and the Nike logo popped up on the screen and then Mercedes and then Coca Cola. It’s the most common way to explain branding. Showing popular logos and letting the audience realize they have a connection to that logo, good or bad, and therefore a connection to that company and their product. That is branding, but that’s not all that branding is.

This Is Why I Love Living in Japan
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If ever one day perfectly encapsulated the reasons I’ve lived in Japan for 15 years, this was it. From kindness, to kimonos, kids, and ancient culture, these images tell the story of why I love living in Japan.

Will Macro Photography Make You a Better Photographer?
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Close-up and high-magnification photography is like turning everything up to 11. Depth of field is minimal, shutter speeds must be fast, and ISO has to be perfectly balanced to even get a clear shot. So, does this incredibly hard discipline make you a better photographer? Or will it just leave you confused and frustrated with your kit?

Celebrity Covershoot at Amazing Locations in Las Vegas You Need to See to Believe
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Late last year I was contacted by one of my magazine clients to shoot their upcoming cover with Panic At The Disco front man Brendon Urie and it had to take place across the country in Las Vegas in about a week (I am NYC-based by the way). I scrambled to find some cool locations in the region, knowing full well I did not want to shoot in some cramped hotel suite. Little did I know that with some good researching and shrewd negotiating, I would find some of the coolest locations I have ever photographed, and just moments from the Las Vegas strip.

Rolling Stone Publishes Yet Another Controversial Cover
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Rolling Stone magazine is receiving a sizable amount of backlash over their decision to use a "selfie" of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon bomber, on the cover. One of the more shared opinions is that this is glamorizing and creating a celebrity out of an [allegedly] horrible individual; Rolling Stone is typically fond of using musicians and actors on their covers. Perhaps, though, the more troubling complaint is that the cover was "uninspired."

My New Best Friend for On-Location Photoshoots: The Collapsible Wagon
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As a photographer who shoots primarily on location, I have a lot of stuff to haul. I shoot both film and digital and frequently I'm bringing a small lighting kit as well. I also tend to go it alone, especially when I'm shooting personal work. Up until recently, I've been doing it the hard way, taking multiple trips back and forth to my car, in order to get the shot set up at my chosen spot. And of course, the best spots are nowhere near the car. My deodorant is doing overtime before I've even squeezed off the first shot. Being a sweaty mess while shooting is no fun, especially when you're shooting people. I'd rather not be known as "Hans, you know, that one photographer with the pit stains."

15 Top Magazine Covers Then and Now: From Marilyn Monroe to Caitlyn Jenner
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From Vogue to People, including Playboy and National Geographic, all these popular magazines are familiar to us and instantly recognizable, but just a few of us know what their first editions looked like decades ago. As time passed by, bringing forth new faces, new fashion, and a whole new way of thinking, magazines needed to evolve with their time and adapt. Some have stayed faithful to their initial visual identity, having only undergone minor changes because they knew what worked for them. On the other hand, other magazines covers have changed drastically, their covers being a far cry from the original design.

Facebook Just Bought Instagram For 1 Billion Dollars
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Facebook just purchased Instagram for 1 billion dollars. Who would have ever thought that an app that simply takes an image, makes that image square, puts a retro filter on the image, and then posts the image to a blog could be worth $1,000,000,000.00. To all of the Instagram users out there; are you excited or terrified about this merger?

Fstoppers Reviews the Panasonic Lumix S5 Mirrorless Camera
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Everyone is talking about the Canon, Sony, and Nikon full frame mirrorless cameras. But there is another brand that isn’t getting a lot of attention: Panasonic. It released the Lumix S5 last year and now I got a chance to review this camera.

The Best Slider Money Can Buy - The Rhino Slider Evo and Arc
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The Rhino Slider Evo and Motion Controller is in my opinion the best slider system on the market. It's incredibly robust, shockingly simple to setup and use, and best of all, it's all powered with an internal battery in the controller itself. The new motorized pan head Rhino Arc takes this system to the next level.

Tips for Moving Your Lightroom Classic Data
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Upgrading your computer or hard drive can be a stressful experience, regardless of your knowledge level. Whether you're installing a larger drive or moving your data over to a new machine, you'll want to make sure you do it properly. Here are some tips if you need to move your Lightroom Classic data.

Tamron's New Telephoto Zoom Sports a Sexy New Design
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This morning Tamron announced the development of a new lens to replace their current 200-500mm model on the market. It has "cutting-edge eBAND Coating and three LD (Low Dispersion) glass elements, [it] delivers superior imaging performance while the latest built-in VC (Vibration Compensation) system broadens users' horizons in achieving sharper handheld photographs." The new SP 150-600MM F/5-6.3 DI VC USD also sports an all-black, classier design.

37 Million Photographers Might Want to Make New Passwords
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As user privacy abuse and data breaches become more and more commonplace we are being conditioned to be less and less surprised. If you had an account at popular photography sites 500px or EyeEm, you might want to read this.

What’s the Difference Between Actions and Presets?
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Actions and presets are incredibly useful ways of speeding up your workflow when processing photos. Instead of individually re-creating your settings for each photo in Photoshop or Lightroom, you can essentially copy and paste all your preferred adjustments. Let’s check out the differences between the two.