The largest ring light I've ever seen consists of 27 bulbs and is four feet in diameter. Six months ago, I built it. With so many questions left unanswered, I put together a short film that explains how I built it, why it was built, and why it's the most amazing light I've ever used to date.
Photography is a marathon, not a sprint, and each person's journey is unique. Although your path may evolve, photographers' stages can be similar.
In this article I would like to share some of the basics and tips for those of you who enjoy shooting beauty portraits with controlled artificial lighting.
Make sure to check out my previous articles of this series: Secrets to Crafting Top-Quality Beauty Portraits: On Location Lighting and Composition and visual balance.
Sony's new a9 III camera is set to revolutionize professional photography. With the world's first full frame global shutter sensor, this remarkable technology eliminates historic limitations to unlock astounding new creative possibilities.
Together with the EOS R7 Canon released the entry-level EOS R10 mirrorless camera. Although I didn’t expect that camera to be special, it turned out to be a surprisingly capable camera. If you want to step into the Canon EOS mirrorless world, you can’t go wrong with this little gem.
Today, we are going to have a debate! And the subject is TFP (trade for print), something which I have had a fair few debates on already in photography groups on Facebook.
Instagram is a fantastic tool for photographers. It has almost single-handedly ushered in the age of the mobile photographer, and has served as a creative platform for millions of people who want to share their images with the world. Unfortunately, there has never really been an easy and intuitive way to get your non-mobile photos onto Instagram; until now.
The resolution of camera sensors is still increasing. Over the last decade it has grown from 3 megapixels to 50 megapixels and more. At first the increase in resolution was a significant one, but not anymore. Do we really need more resolution than the cameras that hit the market today?
Having the right gear as a photographer can get quite expensive. We spend all our money on the camera and lenses only to find out later we need all kinds of other gadgets and gizmos to run our business. Often we invest in something that we use a few times and then it gets buried in our bag never to be touched again. As I was thinking about all the gear I have the one thing that came to mind as one of my most valuable was a gift from my wife and cost her just $35. Read on to find out what it is...
This is the second part of the article on how to learn to "read" lighting in photography. If you haven't read the first part yet, please start here: How To "Read" Light In Photography - Part 1.
And for those of you who have been waiting for the second part, let's jump right back in and see what other cues we can use to breakdown lighting in other photographers' work.
Adobe Lightroom is a program full of many different little tips and tricks just waiting to be discovered. In this short video I show you one of my favorites which allows you to apply a selective focus technique to your photo without having to open it in Photoshop. This technique is especially useful if you want to draw your viewers attention somewhere specific in the photo.
How many of you have old memory cards, USB sticks, or even hard drives lay around doing nothing? Of those that answered yes, how many of you still haven't worked out a decent backup strategy for your images? Here's a quick and free solution to securely encrypt that unused storage so when a disaster strikes your most important work isn't lost forever.
Almost a year ago I posted The Ultimate Guide To The Frequency Separation Technique article and soon after that I created our Retouching Academy community group for retouchers and photographers who retouch their own work. We have been seeing a lot of before & after images posted there by artists of all levels from complete beginners to seasoned pros.
And in there we all have been witnessing that one of the most abused and misused techniques by those who work with images of people is Frequency Separation (FS). Mainly by beginners, of course....
The shoot done by photographer Ana Dias is a Playmate of the Month pictorial for Playboy US (Miss March 2019). The model is named Miki Hamano, and she comes from Japan. The whole photoshoot was done in a modern villa in Malibu, California.
You gotta love a good copyright blunder and horrid damage control story. Thankfully, there's a new one still in development (totally unintentional photo-pun, I'm sorry). What makes this one even better is not only the completely intentional watermark removal, but the colorful email the photographer received after asking that the photo be taken down.
Prominent rock musician Ozzy Osbourne now faces a lawsuit related to photographs of himself posted on social media platforms.
Adobe made a significant update to your ability to tweak colors in the recent version of Lightroom by swapping out Split Toning for Color Grading. Here are five things buried in the interface that you might want to learn about.
As Instagram evolves, copyright violations don't seem to be an issue for this social media giant. More images mean more views which mean more ad revenue, and there is zero incentive for Instagram to take any serious action against reposters, lost as it is in this huge gray area of what constitutes a breach of intellectual property.
For the last couple of decades, a prime lens wasn’t professional grade if it didn’t have a maximum aperture of f/1.4. Times have changed, however, and now, you have to look past the aperture to really understand where a lens is positioned. Want to know what drove this change?
Instagram announced a new feature today specifically involving the gallery option for posting multiple photos at once. When Instagram first introduced the gallery option, they introduced it in true old-school Instagram fashion, allowing users to post multiple images at once, but requiring all photos to be in a square aspect ratio. Now, however, Instagram added the ability to preserve your photos' original aspect ratio, even within galleries with multiple photos.
Running a photography business is hard work. As many of you know, it's usually more pencil pushing and email writing than standing behind a camera taking photos. With it being among the art community, it's incredibly easy to find excuses on why your business isn't reaching its full potential. But is it your business thats lacking, or your motivation?
Photography is undoubtedly the art with the lowest entry point. You can just pick up your phone and snap away. With billions of images created every day, they sometimes follow trends. Many beginner photographers start following pages on Instagram that “repost bangers.” However, those bangers are very far from what photography is about. In this article, I will talk about some of the worst photography trends that have become memes.
Pegged to be the mirrorless equivalent of the 6D Mark II, the EOS R6 could fall at the first hurdle when it comes to stills resolution and extra features that is simply lacks.
On December 14 the Federal Communications Commission will almost certainly be voting in favor of doing away with net neutrality. If you’re not familiar with net neutrality, check out this article we wrote earlier this year on the topic. It is the idea of a free and open Internet. As it stands right now, users are able to access the Internet freely, with no speed or data caps regardless of the websites they visit. If the plan the FCC is proposing passes (and it probably will in a three versus two vote), the Internet as we know it may well be on its way out.
They say the best camera is the one that is with you, but what if that particular camera is lacking in megapixels? Here's how to take advantage of the camera you already own and make some giant image files and extra large photo prints.
Most of us check social media like you might check on an infant left in your care. It's a problem, but I'm not here to counsel you through it. I am here instead to alert you that Instagram have decided to make your habit, public knowledge.
It’s August. And if you’re anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, you’re warm - hot even. So why not sit back and relive the good old days, back when our cameras were new, the exposure triangle was confusing, and the idea that photography could be something that could to take us to the ends of the earth and make us a lot of money in the process was still a far off dream.
A camera bag can carry a lot of stuff. It fits a camera and lenses, but also other things that may or may not be helpful for your photography. Sometimes, there’s too much stuff that seems to be essential at first, but isn’t used at all. How many things have you collected in your camera bag?
As a working photographer, I often receive messages from beginners who need camera-buying advice. While I do write for a photography outlet, I am not as updated with the latest camera tech as you might first assume.
![How Ana Dias Shot Playmate Miki Hamano for Playboy Magazine [NSFW]](https://cdn.fstoppers.com/styles/med-16-9/s3/lead/2019/08/c82ad726580a5725ae135d0bacc48a5f.jpg)
