Enjoying the Holidays May Mean Putting Down Your Camera and ‘Clocking Out’

For many of us, the holidays are about spending time with family and friends, exchanging gifts, travel, and leisure. If you’re the photographer among your family and friends, chances are it’s expected that you’ll capture the love and joy and all of the genuine smiles with your professional camera, because after all, it’s what you love to do, isn’t it?

New HDMI 2.1 Will Allow for 10K Video

While cameras haven’t yet caught up the standard, the HDMI forum has no problem pushing the envelope out and looking far off into the future.

How to Prepare for a Restaurant Photoshoot

You’ve been commissioned to photograph new images for a restaurant, but there’s a lot of spinning plates and moving parts. In this article, I share my essential steps for preparing for and running a photoshoot at a restaurant.

LeBron James Photographed For GQ Magazine

Recently LeBron James was photographed for GQ Magazine. The video below is really just a promotion for that magazine but if you keep a sharp eye, there is some really good information to be learned. The lighting for most of the shots appears to be pretty simple; a single light above the camera. The size of the light changes from shot to shot from a huge parabolic reflector to a simple bare bulb held by an assistant.
Retouchers Unite to Restore Damaged Photos From Hurricane Harvey

With all the destruction hurricane Harvey left behind from its rampage against the Texas coast, we have a tremendous number of people who affected with enormous lost. While most things can be replaced over time, there are some things that can’t be which many might overlook, like family photos for example.

Is Crowdsourcing Right For You?

Having ambition, creativity, and passion are not enough to make an independent documentary or photo project a reality. To see the movie play or hang the photo project in a gallery you will need money. It is a cruel reality for creatives, but money is needed to make large and ambitious projects happen. So what does one do?

Twelve Photographers Come Together to Create a Heart Warming Fantasy Book For Sick Children

The Get Well Tree is the latest touching project from the talented collaboration The heART Project. Many of the previous projects have been featured here. Each one brings amazing artists and sponsors together to help bring love and smiles to a family that has experienced some form of hardship. This time the project follows two childhood cancer survivors on a fantasy journey through a dream-like world. 12 photographers came together to create a 14-page photo storybook staring these two heroic little girls.

Apparently Phase One Backs Can Take The Weight Of An Elephant, Hasselblad Can't

Don't you hate it when your camera can't stand up to the weight of your pet elephant stepping on it? Ya me too, that's why I only buy Phase One (I mean I will after I win the lottery). Although this stupid test is fairly impressive, I would much rather see a drop test, as that will be the real issue for photographers and the durability of their gear.
Freefly Announces the Availability of the MoVI Ring Accessory

To make handoffs and a more ergonomic experience, Freefly, makers of the popular MoVI, have announced the MoVI Ring Accessory for the M5, M10 and M15 handheld 3-axis stabilizers. The MōVI Ring is a rigid carbon fiber, hoop-shaped frame designed to enhance ergonomic handling of MōVI stabilizers.

Photography Changes, Lighting Doesn't

Have you ever seen "How To" photography videos from the 80's and 90's? Most of these videos are so cheesy that it's hard to take anything of value away from them. In the video below Dean Collins teaches a workshop on the properties of light and instead of focusing on current trends, he sticks to the fundamentals. This video was shot in 91 but it is still completely relevant today. <
The Best Fstoppers Posts From October 2011

Your "Likes", "Tweets", comments and clicks all help us know which are our best posts of the month. And because we don't want anyone to miss any of Fstoppers' goodness we put "The Best of" in a monthly newsletter for you. So, if you missed anything this October check out the top posts of the month and sign up for our newsletter here

Three Tips to Find Your Own Style

As a photographer, you’re attracted to everything that catches your attention, which sometimes leads to a very disparate amount of files. When you observe your portfolio, you can’t get a sense of coherence from it. Here are three tips that might help you identify a pattern in your photography and find your style.

[Video] "Lets Colour" Paints The World

Let's Colour is a worldwide initiative to transform grey spaces with colourful paint, and the results are quite incredible! This film was shot by Adam Berg over four weeks in Brazil, France, London and India. Every one of these locations has been transformed by a palette consisting of 120 different colours. The people in the film who rolled up their sleeves to transform their community with colour. I love this unity through art. Enjoy!

Why Framed Canvas Is the Preferred Method of Delivering Photo Prints

In today’s world of photography where we are spoiled with choices, selecting the ideal method for delivering photo prints can be a daunting task. With an array of options available, photographers often find themselves constantly in a dilemma of choosing the perfect print method that is not only capable of showcasing their work in the best physical form but also provides an exceptional experience for their clients.

Fstoppers Reviews the CRM Platform Bloom IO

If you've been running your photography business for any amount of time, you have quickly discovered that being successful requires you to spend an inordinate amount of time doing things that have nothing to do with a camera. Things you probably loathe. Suddenly, you find yourself needing to acquire skills in accounting, web development, project management, copywriting, contract writing, and countless other fields. A newcomer has entered the CRM space: Bloom IO, and they are on a mission to alleviate many of these burdens, allowing you to focus on what you truly enjoy.

Know Your Subject, Improve Your Photography

It's a phrase I've heard countless times, and I doubt I'm the only photographer to hear it: "Wow! Right place at the right time, huh?" Whether it's a photo of my children, a wildlife shot capturing a decisive moment, or a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime landscape, viewers often think we just got lucky to capture an incredible photo. In their minds, they only see how they would have gone about capturing that shot, which often is the simple three-step process of raise camera, point, shoot.

Easily Age and Erode Objects in Your Composites With These Apps

Photographing toys can be a lot of fun, but they don’t always look like the most realistic subjects. Here are a couple of quick and dirty ways to add an aged, eroded look to your composited playthings to up the realism of your toy photographs.

Memories of Overdevelopment and 9/11

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, many NY based photographers and film makers found themselves documenting one of the most traumatic events in American history, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers.

3000 + Hand Cut Pictures in Stop Motion

Every now and then you have to stop and recognize a piece of work not only for the creative thoughts put into it, but also for the sheer amount of effort involved in pulling off the project. Vu Hoang and a small team managed to come up with this clever stop motion music video using over 3,000 hand cut pictures stitched together in a clever guy meets girl music video. The final product was shot with a Canon 7D and Canon 17-55mm F/2.8.

Real-Time MLS Soccer Coverage With the Sony a9 III and PDT-FP1

Get an inside look at what it takes to cover an MLS soccer match at the Seattle Sounders, featuring Sony's flagship a9 III global shutter full frame mirrorless camera, and the PDT-FP1, an all-new portable data transmitter for creators.

Learning to Embrace Hard Light

Early in my photographic career, I was really into hard light in my photos, but at a point, I started opting for really soft, diffused light, that is until recently. I’ve recently revisited using hard light, and here’s how it has shifted my photography.

Tourbox Elite: A Great Holiday Present or Something to Regift? We Review

The TourBox Elite is a popular device. It saves on switching between keyboard and mouse and scrolling through adjustment panels in software such as Lightroom and Photoshop. We discover whether it speeds up a photographer's workflow and is a worthwhile Christmas present.

Free Workshop On How To Be More Efficient

If you suffer from self-diagnosed A.D.D like most creative professionals, then you need to tune into this free workshop with Jared Platt. From the moment you book the job to the final delivery of the images, Jared will show you efficient techniques that will help improve your workflow. This 3-day workshop starts tomorrow December 6th - December 8th at 9AM. As with all creativeLIVE workshops, the LIVE event is FREE.

[Contest Submission] Dramatic Portraits Of The University Of Indiana's Track And Field Team

There are just less than 7 weeks left to submit your behind the scenes contest video. Submissions are starting to come in and it's amazing what our readers are doing through their photography. As the video submissions come in we are going to feature the standouts here on the front of Fstoppers. In Zach Hetrick's behind the scenes video, he shows how he created commercial sports portraits of The Hoosiers's track and field team. Zach takes some time at the beginning to talk a bit about the lighting setup he used and shows how you can give your group shots a punch with some nice light thanks to a few Alien Bee monoblocks. Leave your comments below if you have any questions about this shoot or simply want to give some friendly support to Zach. You can check out all the entries on the BTS Contest Forum Thread, and remember to get your submissions in early so we can share your work on the front of the site.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 Mirrorless Camera Review

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 is a fine camera, if unassuming. But that quality might make it something you’d really enjoy using -- it’s a certain stealthy quality. At the very least, you’ll want to give this one a second look.

[Deals] Canon USA Instant Lens & Speedlite Rebates

Canon USA has launched a new instant Lens & Speedlite rebate program. It’ll run from November 27, 2011 until January 7, 2012. Check out the full post for full details then head over to B&H to capitalize off these rebates.

Learn How to Quickly Add and Manipulate Realistic Snow to Your Videos in After Effects

Through Premiumbeat.com's Vimeo channel and blog, motion graphic designer Kevin Gater did the world a huge favor by recently providing a tutorial on creating realistic, falling snow with RED Giant's After Effects plug-in. There are a ton of settings in After Effects, let alone in the RED Giant Trapcode Particular plug-in, that would take forever to navigate; but Gater does a great job going through which settings to ignore and which ones to pay attention to so you'll know exactly what to tweak for your needs. Thankfully, in 15 minutes, you can be ready to add great snow effects for the holiday season or that high-mountain horror short with just a few careful clicks.

Sigma Unveils Latest Compact Camera in the DP3 Merrill

Sigma has unveiled the latest iteration of their extremely powerful compact camera series in the DP3 Merrill, a 46 megapixel monster with a 50mm f/2.8 macro lens (a focal range equivalent to 75mm on a 35mm SLR camera) and Sigma's signature Foveon X3 sensor. It includes an advanced user interface and the capability of seven-frame continuous shooting. It is designed to be paired with its DP Merrill predecessors, the DP1 and DP2, as a complete compact camera tool set.