Fstoppers Review: Lensbaby's Velvet 28, Your New Favorite Creative Tool

Since 2004, Lensbaby has been an industry innovator, designing outside-the-box creative lenses and accessories. While other manufacturers chase the expensive, high-tech, spec-fixated market, Lensbaby pursues something entirely different: helping artists find a new creative approach through unique effects delivered by fully analog products.

Here's A Look At The First Issues Of Various Famous Magazines

Mental Floss posted this great article that gives us a look into how the first issues of magazines such as Time, People, Wired, Playboy, ESPN, and more looked like. It even gives a brief summary as to what each issue was about.

Nikon Announces a 32mm f/1.2 Lens for Mirrorless Camera System

Fans of the Nikon 1 series mirrorless cameras will wake up to a nice little bit of news today with the announcement of the 32mm f/1.2 lens. The lens itself equates to about an ~86mm field of view, finally giving the 1 series a great portrait lens to use. It also features silent wave motor technology, making it the fastest autofocus lens Nikon has ever made.

Instagram’s Ban on Self-Harm Imagery Is Meaningless

Instagram has just announced that it will remove images of self-harm from its platform. The social media giant is under increasing pressure to find better ways to moderate users’ content, but this new announcement seems unlikely to address the major challenges facing both Instagram and Facebook.

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (November 2019): Juhamatti Vahdersalo

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 2019, 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.

Ecommerce Photography: Fstoppers Interviews Ella Grace Bell

Ella Grace Bell is a commercial photographer based out of Vancouver British Columbia who has worked with brands like Bootlegger Jeans, Poppy Finch, and Mobiado Watches, but freelancing isn't her main gig. She has a nine to five photography job that pays her bills, which seems to be a vanishing commodity outside photography studios.

Curiosity Rover’s Landing On Mars - Now In Amazing Homemade Ultra-HD Version

Independent video producer Bard Canning spent 4 weeks trying to improve the footage of Curiosity's landing released by NASA last month, and the result is insanely amazing. He used thousands of tracking points in a technique called motion-flow interpolation, and added sound effects to make it look and sound even more realistic. The original video was made out of 297 frames, and Canning's version looks like a real video with thousands of frames. Check out his result, and also a side by side comparison. NASA - watch and learn.

24 Hours Only: Save $100 Off Peter Hurley's Headshot and Lighting Tutorials

As announced in yesterday's sale, Fstoppers is having a 24 hour sale on our tutorials every day leading up to Christmas. For today's deal we have persuaded Peter Hurley to offer $100 off both of his acclaimed tutorials The Art Behind the Headshot and Illuminating the Face. This sale even beats our current "Buy both for $450" sale and marks the lowest price you have ever been able to buy both at one time. You can find the discount code

Today Only: Refurbished Nikon D7000 For $580

The D7000 is an amazing camera. I shot weddings with it exclusively for 2 years and during that time we also filmed every Fstoppers video with them as well. Today only Adorama is selling refurbished versions of them on eBay for just $580! If you need a mid level DSLR, don't let this deal pass you by.

Making Films And Photographs Of Africa's Wildlife For 30 Years

In a recent 60 Minutes special, CBS Reporter Lara Logan spent time with Dereck and Beverly Joubert in Southern Africa. The Jouberts have been shooting images and video of the wildlife there, for over 30 years. They have produced countless amazing images and have even created documentary films from the content they captured. Embedded video inside.

Your First Editorial Photography Assignment: Part 3

Editorial photography is a wonderful place to flex your muscles and test your abilities. You don't often get to shoot such variety and have such control on a single assignment. Over the past couple of weeks, we've discussed ways to approach the photography of your first assignment. Check those out here and here. This week, we'll be taking a look at getting your foot in the door and what to charge.

Use An iPhone To Record High Quality Audio For Your Videos

As a photographer with a new DSLR, you might be trying your hand at video production. Most people completely overlook audio and they shouldn't. If a video sounds cheap then in most people's minds, it is cheap. If you don't have enough money to afford fancy lav mics, don't worry, you can record clean audio with a number of devices that you may already own. In the video below I will show you how we did it for the first year we filmed videos for Fstoppers with a simple (and free) iPhone app. If you don't have a smart phone then you can buy one of these for $16.
Using the Healing Brush and Patch Tool: An Fstoppers Post Production Tutorial by Sean Armenta

Hello Fstoppers! My name is Sean Armenta, and this is my little spot on Fstoppers called The Post Production Tutorial. If you enjoy these videos, feel free to subscribe to my new Fstoppers PPT Youtube Channel for the latest updates. This time around, we will talk about how I use the healing brush and patch tool in Photoshop. They are definitely staples of any retouching job and while they are pretty straightforward to use, I would like to share a couple of tweaks I discovered to make them work even better.
Fstoppers Reviews the Tether Tools Case Relay System

From time-lapse photography to video, many photographers need more battery power than their camera system can adequately hold on board. Whether it’s due to weight of the system creating three-axis time-lapse, the size of the camera with a grip, or the need for uninterrupted shooting, there is an answer for those looking to create images and video: the Case Relay from Tether Tools.

Using Gels, Strobes, Constant Lights, and ACDSee's Gemstone on One Photograph

In this behind the scenes video, I'm going to walk you through a pretty complex photograph I shot in our garage studio. Using strobes, LED lights, a crazy light modifier, and ACDSee's new photo editing software, Gemstone, this final image turned out much more interesting than I originally thought.

16 EISA Photo Award Winning Items

Our friends across the pond at the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) have announced the winners of their 2011-2012 photo awards. To see what 16 items came out on top jump in to the post. And if that list a gear doesn't impress you, you can alway check out the detailed list of gear we here at Fstoppers.com are giving away to three lucky winners of our 2011 BTS Contest.

Dogs Jumping Underwater in Slow Motion (1000fps Phantom & Fastcam) with BTSV

This video, reminiscent of Seth Casteel's photo series depicting dogs diving in water, is making it's viral rounds. Produced by Daniel Harmon and Kaitlin Snow with direction and edits by Devin Graham it was created to promote Orapup dog breath brushes. But if you're watching it here, on our site, then it's likely you are more interested in the behind the scenes video, which we got.

A Beginner's Guide to Capturing Winter Nature Photos

A winter frost can give the most amazing nature photos, from dewy spider webs to seemingly diamond-encrusted berries. Find out how to capture those frosty shots with this method that can help you get great shots every time.

We Interview Photographer Myra Holt: Connection and Photo Series

Myra Holt is a fine art photographer and educator currently based in Kansas City. Her work explores a range of concepts, but they all stem from the broader idea of connection to places, people, and nature. I spent a morning chatting with her to learn more about two of her bodies of work and what advice she has for newer photographers wanting to create photographic series.

Drones Helping Firefighters Find Source of Canada's 'Costliest Natural Disaster'

The news is filled with stories about people who use drones in ways that endanger lives. It wasn't long ago that drones kept firefighters from fighting life-threatening blazes in California. But firefighters battling an Alberta firestorm that could prove Canada's "costliest natural disaster," according to Business Insider, are looking to drones to help answer the question of how it started — something that is still unknown for this fire that is estimated to take months to extinguish.

Is the Digital Image as Special as the Film Image?

In Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay, “A Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” he argues that the reproduction of an art object diminishes its "aura," or unique position in time and space. What this means is that if you make something with your hands, you only have a singular of that thing, so that makes it something special. It is "one of a kind."

Why Competition is Good For You

I keep seeing Community Over Competition everywhere. People get upset at another photographer for "stealing" a client or undercutting their prices, and go on tangents about how creating community is more important than competing with one another. While I do agree that community is extremely important, (I mean who else is going to listen to us gripe about the industry and let us bounce ideas off of them?) I also believe that competition is healthy for the industry, and for you.

Get Creative Using Composites

If you're like me and love spending time both shooting and editing your images, why not get creative and refresh those deep-etching Photoshop skills when you've got a few hours in between projects? Composites look really neat, but there's a lot of work and patience that goes into it behind the scenes and if done correctly, it would look amazing and really take your conceptual photography to the next level. In this article, I'm going to talk about creating a composite step-by-step and to finish it off, I've recorded a retouching time-lapse of the process.

Canon Patents More Interesting Lenses

Canon has produced some mightily innovative and unusual RF mount lenses in the last few years, and it seems they have no intention of stopping. New patents show the company is dreaming up more lenses with extreme designs.