Capturing The Sorrow And Humor In A Natural Disaster
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Photojournalists have always struggled with balancing subject sensitivity with truthful documentation after horrible moments in history. Almost six years ago to the day, the United States was hit by Hurricane Katrina resulting in the most costly natural disaster the country had ever witnessed. Photographer Richard Misrach went down to New Orleans to capture the devastation and the human response from the terrible event. This documentary gives an interesting perspective into the eyes of a photojournalist in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's pretty amazing to see both the reoccurring responses from those affected within the community as well as humorous responses after such a life changing event. As a photographer it was also interesting to see how a 4 megapixel point and shoot camera came to be the main storytelling tool throughout Richard's documentary.
VLC Media Player Goes 360-Degrees for Video and Photos
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VLC, created by VideoLan, is a free and open source media player that is both extremely lightweight and can play almost every video format on the market. What makes VLC one of the best options is the fact that it is also available on almost every platform. Now the company is taking a big step forward with its cross-platform compatibility by introducing 360-degree video and photos.

Three Video Tips to Try Before State Fair Season Winds Down
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It’s state fair season, and that means it’s time for corn dogs, funnel cakes and video opportunities. If you’re the type that goes every year, though, you might be struggling for new ideas, and so here are three ways to mix up your state fair video shooting.

Premiere Pro and After Effects Templates That Help You Grow Your Audience
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Premiere Pro templates are one of the few quick solutions that can help elevate your video production. Graphics, text, typography, and animations can help you illustrate your points far more effectively. Unfortunately, trying to get all of those elements into your video, especially if creating them from scratch in a software like After Effects, can be expensive or time-consuming. A company called Videvo has a great solution.

The Pros and Cons of User-Submitted Editorials
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Having your work in a print magazine is seen as the goal for many, but are all print magazines created equal? With the boom of on-demand printing, there has been an increase in user-submitted editorial magazines. But are these magazines for real?

Snap Inc. Looking to Start Paying Top Creators
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Snap Inc. is still alive and well but they begin to look at new ways to revive its social presence with Snapchat. Snapchat has been getting some bad press for months in the wake of Facebook and Instagram essentially stealing their entire platform and adapting it to their own social networks just over a year ago. Though Snapchat still continues to grow, every so slightly, each quarter with monthly active users they are no match for Facebook and Instagram Stories. Their answer, to begin paying top contributors to the app like YouTube has done with their biggest creators.

The Sound of Inception: Making Photos Come to Life
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Fstoppers is a blog mainly geared towards videographers and photographers. However, sound engineering is another field that will soon be of interest to photographers who are jumping into film or video projects. In the case of full length features, many of the images we see on the screen would not have the same impact without the music and sound-effects that accompany them. I love all behind the scenes videos and this one really made me appreciate the guys behind the soundboards. Watch as Richard King and company unveil some of the sounds they used for the movie Inception. Check out Sound Works Collection for more videos on this sort of thing.

"Inception" Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

She Dies Tomorrow: An Interview With Cinematographer Jay Keitel
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She Dies Tomorrow has been celebrated for its unsettling sensibilities and unorthodox filmmaking techniques. Independent Spirit Award-nominated cinematographer Jay Keitel's work on the film is one of the main factors in the film's moody success. I recently had the chance to ask Keitel a series of questions about his approach to filmmaking on She Dies Tomorrow.

[News] Lexar Releases First 1000x CF Cards Plus the World's First 256GB CF Card
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On the heels of Sony's XQD announcement comes Lexar's first 1000x compact flash (CF) cards. Available in February in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB sizes, these cards now promise speeds of up to 150MB/s, even faster than the Sony XQD's 125MB/s. Prices are slightly higher, too, but it seems as though the premium paid for top-of-the-line, professional, solid-state storage is dwindling, making it more affordable, finally. Lexar's cards, in theory, should also support the Nikon D4's massive 100-frame burst possibility (200 frames in JPG). Additionally, Lexar has released the world's first 256GB CF card, running at 400x (or 60MB/s). These will be available sometime in the first half of this year. Full press releases and prices in the full post.
Motorola Zoom Commercial BTS With Amazing Moving Sets
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Telstra, an Australian wireless carrier, recently produced an ad for the Motorola Zoom tablet. Instead of creating everything with computers in post, the team created most of the moving sets by hand. The question then becomes; was their effort worth it? Can consumers even tell that much of this is real or does the average person consider everything to be fake these days? Although this was an amazing accomplishment, I'm not sure it was worth the extra effort.
We Review the PanoX V2: Capable, but Is It Competitive?
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I’ve often said there’s not a bad camera on the market today. At this point, that logic is starting to apply to 360 cameras as well. Though there are no bad cameras — and the PanoX V2 is included in that — there are also cameras that may be more worth your hard-earned money.

Identifying with Your Niche Is More Important than Targeting a Niche - TogTools Podcast with Sarah Williams
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Next up to bat on the Fstoppers TogTools podcast series is our very own Sarah Williams, half of the wedding photographer team at Val & Sarah. Jess and Stephen interview Sarah about the importance of identifying a niche and how she goes about booking the type of people she would want to hang out with, the ins and outs of partnerships and connecting emotionally to her work.

Nikon Releases Firmware Version 5.00 for the Z9 Mirrorless Camera, Enhancing Sports and Portrait Photography Features
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Nikon has announced the release of firmware version 5.00 for its Z9 mirrorless camera. This update, being the fourth major revision since the camera's launch, introduces a series of features aimed at refining the experience for both sports and portrait photographers, while also addressing feedback from the professional photography community for enhanced operational efficiency.

Using ACDSee Pro for iOS and Mobile Sync to Edit and Manage Photos
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In a market saturated with mobile editing apps, ACD System's combo of ACDSee Pro and Mobile Sync for iOS stands out as one of the best options for editing your photos on the go with features ranging from quirky filters to advanced editing functionality that can provide professional results. In this article, we will be taking a look at how you can leverage ACDSee's mobile tools as part of your editing workflow.

How To Sync Your Video And Audio The EASY Way
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As a photographer getting into DSLR video, I love it when a reader of ours emails us with a question we can answer or better yet a question we have not thought of before. Well FS reader Christian emailed us about how we sync our DSLR audio with audio we may have recorded in a separate unit (zoom, iphone, computer, etc). Until recently we used to just do it manually by lining up our wavefiles from both sources in Adobe Premiere. But there is a much much easier way now thanks to Plural Eyes by Singular Software. Plural Eyes simply analyzes each waveform and automatically aligns each and every camera angle and audio clip right there in your timeline. It's brilliant software and extremely inexpensive for what it does. Check out this little demo from the 2010 WEVA Expo and click the full post to see a well made tutorial on how to sync your files step by step.

WEVA News: Singular Software PluralEyes demo from WEVA on Vimeo.

Cybersecurity: Saving Our Photographs From Attack
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President Biden brings sanctions against Russia for cyber-attacks. As cyber-attacks become ever more sophisticated, we photographers need to tighten our security and awareness of the risks, with twelve hints to keep you safe.

Fuji X-Pro 1 and Olympus OM-D E-M5 Discounts
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Our second-place mirrorless camera, the Fuji X-Pro 1, is discounted up to $600 with the purchase of a lens on B&H, where the body is $300 off its original price and adding a lens takes an additional $300 off (that's essentially a free 18mm f/2 lens over the price a few weeks ago). Just add the items to your cart for the automatic deal. Additionally, the weather-sealed, durable and overall awesome Olympus OM-D E-M5 kits (our first place winner) are up to $100 off at B&H.

WPPI Is Bigger and Better Than Ever!
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WPPI is one of the biggest photography conferences in the world. But after COVID, the show struggled to make a comeback. Thankfully, WPPI is now as good as it ever was, and getting better each year.

A Year of COVID in Two Minutes
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Just a year ago, as the pandemic spread around the world, the lives of billions of people changed dramatically. Here is a short video that shows the most impactful moments of the crisis through an emotional narrative.

We're Giving Away a $1,200 Workshop Today on CreativeLIVE
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Today, tomorrow, and Saturday RGG Photo will be teaching a commercial photography workshop LIVE on creativeLIVE. We will be giving away ROSCO Lite Panels, a 2 day workshop to the Fstoppers Bahamas workshop, a hard drive from OWC, and a lot of other stuff. Tune in and like us on Facebook to win.

Want to Master Photoshop CC? Enter to Win an Instructional Book!
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Fstoppers has partnered with the awesome folks at ViewBug to bring you sweet, sweet contests weekly! This week, master Photoshop with Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers, 2014 Release by Martin Evening! All you need to do is share your best photos showing human faces. Be creative!

Follow Fstoppers On Periscope For The Bahamas Workshops Behind the Scenes
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Were you not able to attend this year's Fstoppers Workshops in the Bahamas? Well if you want to check out some of fun behind the scenes action live follow us on Periscope. Basically Periscope is a live video streaming app that will allow you to shadow some of the top photographers in the biz including Peter Hurley, Pye Jirsa, Julia Kuzmenko, Aaron Nace, Mike Kelley, and more.

How to Use Adjustment Layers in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018
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Recently Fstoppers reviewed ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018, the newest version of their all-in-one editing flagship. If you are not familiar with ACDSee’s platform, it is an editing suite similar to Capture One Pro or Photoshop, but also includes photo managing tools and quick editing capabilities similar to Lightroom. This gives ACDSee a unique combined platform that simplifies the average user’s workflow and eliminates the costly need for multiple programs.

The School Sessions - Photographers Raising Money for Children in Haiti
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The School Sessions is a novel idea and concept started by the photography community in an effort to help raise $200,000 on April 12, 2015 for building a school in Mellier, Haiti. The students of this community were greatly affected by the 7.0 earthquake that occurred in 2010. They are asking photographers from all over the world to sign-up and donate their session fee from one or more of their portrait sessions on that day.

Danny Cooke Shoots Blurry Video... On Purpose
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Sometimes videos don't require a BTS because although they are a unique idea, they don't necessarily have to be complicated. Danny writes "Everyone has experienced fireworks. It is truly a magical sight. I set out to capture them, not as we know them normally, but in a way that many of you may not have seen them before. For this, I used Bokeh, which originates from the Japanese word "boke", which means "blur" or "haze"."

Bokeh from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.