Broncolor Gen NEXT 2018 Is Now Open

If you are under 30 and looking to step up your photography game, here is your chance: Broncolor is launching this year again its Gen NEXT contest.

Review: PRO EDU Starts Podcasting, and It's Brilliant

PRO EDU, a company known for producing photography tutorials, has come to the podcast game nearly a decade after they became popular. Late to the game or not, the podcast should not be quickly dismissed. In a world bombarded by media, this broadcast is refreshingly analog in nature.

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (October 2020): Kevin Morefield

The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2020, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.

Polaroid's New Instant Print Socialmatic Camera is Coming Next Month

Yes, the instant print camera popularized by the one and only Polaroid is back and in a new form factor for 2015. The long awaited Socialmatic doesn't use film but rather snaps and shares your photos via the web and social media options along with delivering nifty adhesive prints of your photos. Wrapped in an Android based OS that shares to Facebook, Twitter and of course Instagram, I'm interested in seeing how people respond to its release come January.

RAW Timelapse Tutorial Part II: Preproduction Preparations

The next chapter in Preston Kanak's 'The RAW Timelapse Tutorial' series is now available for free on Preston's Vimeo page. In this chapter Preston goes over the importance of planning your timelapse (pre-production) in three different sections: Story, Scheduling and Scouting. This tutorial will help you plan your production accordingly to help your margin for error decrease, so that your shoot runs smoother.

Baseball Portraits With 400 Pounds Of Plexiglass

Robert Seale is a high end sports portrait photographer who was recently commissioned by Sports Illustrated to photograph Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays. His attempt to create something unique and a bit off-kilter involved using a huge 8'x5' piece of Plexiglas that was 1.25 inches thick and 400 pounds. He then set the huge piece of Plexi on a 5 foot tall frame of scaffolding. Using a couple of Profoto Pro-7B strobes and a unique 'below the player' angle, Robert was able to create this photograph for the magazine. The concept and image are fantastic but unfortunately the BTS video is just a timelapse. If you have a hard time imagining what is going on in this video, head over to Rob Galbraith's post for a traditional write up.
Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (July 2023): Marc Lamey

The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2023, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.

Review of the Ikelite Underwater Housing

Underwater photography is becoming more popular as technology progresses. The use of an underwater housing dates back to the mid-1800s when William Thompson was utilizing a watertight box over his camera to photograph seaweed near Weymouth, England. Since then, underwater photographs have become an incredible way to explore and understand the life under the surface.

Stop Hating Your Favorite Shots

Some of my favorite photos are starting to feel old to me after looking at them so many times. Don't forget this is only a personal perception and often not shared by your audience.

Fstoppers Reviews: Masters of Photography: Albert Watson

The Masters of Photography courses are aimed at offering instruction from those who have mastered their genre, to those who are entering it. The Albert Watson course covers his whole career, working in portraiture and commercial advertising as well as shooting landscapes and personal projects. Here’s what I thought after giving it a go.

Paris In Motion: A Tour de Force of Various Timelapse Techniques Set in the City of Light

Check out this way-cool timelapse video by Mayeul Akpovi. Set in Paris, Mayeul used a number of interesting techniques to add an incredible range of motion to a timelapse video. Add in a variety of twilight and dusk scenes, and the city comes to life in a way that I haven't seen before. This video reminds me of one of our most popular posts of all time, "Can Anyone Figure Out How This Timelapse Was Filmed?" Let us know how you think Mayeul did it!

Photography Podcasts Are an Insightful Journey: Part Two

In late 2017 I shared the photography podcasts that constituted my listening rotation. Thanks in part to our awesome community, 2018 has been even more insightful with these updated podcast additions.

Storm-Proofed Bags With Innovative Design Announced by Miggo

Last year Miggo launched Pictar, a revolutionary iPhone camera grip, but they haven’t stopped working on innovative designs since then. They return to Indiegogo with a brand new line of storm-proof camera and drone bags called Agua. Every single product of this upcoming collection is IPX3 standard storm-proof while retaining quick-draw ability.

Learn Product Photography For Free From June 21-25 On creativeLIVE

Product photography can be one of the most difficult facets of photography. Everyone expects organic objects (like a human) to have imperfections but clients want their products to look flawless in the finished image. Your choice of lens, angle, lighting, color, composition, and retouching must all work together or your shot won't hold up. In the past photographers would have to assist for years to learn the tricks of the trade but today, you can learn them for free from your laptop.

Fstoppers Reviews the Fujifilm GF 250mm and GF1.4x Teleconverter

After years of Fujifilm lens reviews, the term “broken record” now comes to mind when describing the quality and craftsmanship in the glass they produce. The GF 250mm F/4 R LM OIS lens paired with the new GF 1.4X TC WR Teleconverter are no exception and are welcomed additions to the Fuji GFX lineup.

[BTS Video] On Location In SC With Tim Macpherson

It's crazy to compare todays advertising campaign's to those of 30 years ago. They are becoming more involved, creative and technically advanced than we could have ever imagined. In this video, Photographer Tim Macpherson takes us behind the scenes on the new campaign for the fabric company 'Sunbrella' which was shot and filmed in South Carolina! While this video lacks technical information, it is still really awesome to see how much planning and time it took just to film and shoot one simple scene.

[Video] Be the Next Big Viral Video (creative/LED)

I'm starting this one with a disclaimer: this post is oriented towards the trending, creative use of LEDs. Like the L.E.D. Surfer post or the Invisible Car post. So, watch this video if you have an open mind and a creative urge, cause it's not photo/video specific.

Now that I got that out of the way... We are seeing more artists taking advantage of the LED tech as it becomes less expensive to work with. Light painters being early adopters of LED use, have opened our minds to the seemly unlimited and magical potential they have to offer in the creative arena.

The Wedding Photographer Dilemma: To Share or Not To Share?

In my nine years as a wedding photographer, it was commonplace for other wedding vendors to request access to the entire wedding gallery. They often wanted to use my photos to showcase their work at the wedding. This practice has left me with mixed feelings, and I'm eager to hear your opinions.

[Video] 4,748 Self-Portraits And A Very Inspiring Story

Meet Jeff Harris, photographer, who in 1999 decided to start a personal project of taking a self portrait every day, and continues doing it even today. He wanted to make it different than most of the 365 projects, and make it more like a documentary. “I didn’t want 365 images of me sitting on the couch each day," Jeff recently told TIME.com, "There could have been that tendency, especially during the cold dark winter months to stay inside all the time, but this project inspired me to get out there and seek out interesting things”. There is a twist in the story, which makes it even more interesting and inspiring so I recommend watching the whole video and not skip or stop in the middle. Do you know anyone who's doing this kind of a project? share it with us on the bottom. Jeff Harris (via Time via PetaPixel)
Submit Your Best Photos On Our Flickr Page

We want to see your best photo(s) for our Picture of the Day! Submit your images to our Flickr for consideration and check back to our Picture of the Day section daily to see if your photos have been featured. (Horizontal images are preferred and must be at least 750 pixels in width.)

Fstoppers Reviews the Kandao QooCam 8K: The Holy Grail of 360 Cameras for Photographers?

In the automotive world, there’s a saying that there’s no replacement for displacement — a bigger engine is a bigger engine, and that’s all there is to it. One can say that this is the approach that Kandao is taking with its new QooCam 8K: more resolution and larger sensor sizes that make for quite an appealing 360 camera on paper and, as it turns out, in real life too.

[News] Wedding Photog Sued Over Music: A Cautionary Tale

When Dallas Cowboys' quarterback Tony Romo’s wedding video went viral on YouTube, wedding photographer Joe Simon found himself getting sued for having used Coldplay's "Fix You" as the background music. To avoid a costly lawsuit Joe was forced to take down the video and to pay a settlement along with an agreement to not talk about the incident. Just something for you all to consider when using music for your next wedding videos or while entering contests such as our Fstoppers 2011 BTSC. Don't get caught with your pants down. As wedding videos increase in style, quality and attention, more and more music producers, artists and composers are taking a more serious stance on their copyrights.

A Guide on How to Photograph Rainbows

A rainbow is arguably the most beautiful optical light effect created by sunlight. It is formed by millions of raindrops that break the sunlight into different colors. Shooting a rainbow is fairly easy, but there are some nice things to know about.

Watch This Gorgeous Time Lapse Video of an Iceland Expedition

Yesterday I posted a great aerial video over New York, and today I stumbled on this gorgeous time lapse/environmental piece by videographer Eric Hines. The project, called Expedition Iceland, is a collection of shots from a 17 day adventure around the country during the midnight sun in June 2013. It was all shot on a Canon 5D Mark III, a few different Canon lenses and Kessler equipment (such as the CineDrive).

[Contest] Peter Hurley to Judge Headshot Facebook Contest

Last week we announced our headshot photography contest, where the winner would receive the The Art Behind the Headshot DVD. I said that you readers would be picking the winner. However, when Peter Hurley calls and offers his services, you don't say no. It's time to impress Peter!
A Tour Of Ansel Adam's Darkroom

One of our readers just emailed us this great video of landscape photographer Ansel Adam's darkroom. Michael Adams, Ansel's son, gives us a full tour of Ansel's home studio and shows some of his prints as well as much of his equipment. I currently have Adam's Moonrise, Hernandez hanging in my kitchen and it's really fun to see what the untouched negative looked like before all the dodging and burning. What's always amazing to me is that these prints were all done before the days of the computer, and every area that was altered had to be done by hand and with extreme precision. If you don't already own some of Adam's work, head over to the Ansel Adam's store and pick up a book or print.
Canon Patents More Interesting Lenses

Canon has produced some incredible RF mount lenses thus far, and they have shown they have no plans of slowing down. A new set of patents have emerged, and they show quite a versatile lens in the works.

Fstoppers Reviews the Ugreen 2-in-1 Lightning and Micro USB Cable

This is a quick review of something very simple: a charging cable. "A charging cable?" you may wonder. "Now, why would anyone care about that?" Well, the cable reviewed is a special kind of cable: it combines an Apple Lightning connector and a micro-USB connector. That is nothing new, but it is done well here and actually a much more useful thing than you'd expect.