Fstoppers Original Articles

Creating soft light can become an expensive pursuit. A large, indirect softbox will cost around $2,000 and the cheaper ones are often badly built, are small, or generally lack good light quality. Being a tight git, I set about finding a way to create high quality, soft light for my food photography, although this set up will work for pretty much all genres.

Professional photography is a business, and like any business there are patterns and traits that exist when looking at what works and what doesn’t work. Here are a few traits every successful photography business shares that you can incorporate into your business.

A photographer's online portfolio is paramount in this day and age, but you already know that. However, we are at a juncture in which the caliber of a photographer's website can be the difference between being hired and being overlooked. Here are five essential tips for ensuring your website gives you the best possible chance of being hired.

Nature Photographer Kevin Ebi was tracking a young fox with his camera Saturday while it trotted with a rabbit in its mouth in northwestern Washington when he heard the screech of a bald eagle behind him. Knowing what was about to happen, Ebi focused in and readied himself to capture what has quickly become the most widely shared photograph of his career.

Before sending wedding galleries to clients, I like to add a black and white alternative of every photo. Clients love this! So, here’s a quick time-saving trick to create black and white duplicates of an entire folder or collection of images in Lightroom CC.

Videos are the next big thing, and it is happening already. With the advent of social media, the power of a video to touch minds and influence decisions is huge. We recently did a fundraising video for a children’s choir and were amazed by the response. This post is a quick recap of what we learned in the process.

In this article I'll share five tips on how I actually improved my photography. Here I'm not talking technicalities such as sharper images, shallow depth of field, using a tripod, or removing your lens cap.

Cameras are expensive. Anyone with a pro body and a few decent lenses won't have much change from $10,000. So how do we go about protecting them?

Images of a Phantom 5 with an interchangeable lens have been floating around the Internet for weeks. The recent addition of two new pictures is fueling the rumor mill, but who is behind these leaks and are they credible? What about the future Mavic Pro 2?

As I sit in my office today, subject of an unintentional silence, I am forced to reflect on the importance of communication in my ability to perform my job as a photographer.

Macro photography is a popular, albeit outlying and smaller genre of the medium. However, it is rich in useful and transferable skills that mean it's an important discipline, valuable to all photographers.

Every year, CreativeLive hosts an event called Photoshop Week that feature classes from world-renowned experts. These free classes range from beginner level classes to expert level education. While most people only get to see these classes through a computer screen, I got the opportunity to see first hand what goes on behind the scenes.

Stock photography websites can be a great way to get your photos out there and gain some passive income. Choosing what to shoot or submit can be simplified by sticking with what you enjoy and letting your passion shine through your work.

We've talked about this before on Fstoppers, but there still seems to be some debate about lens compression. Let's dive a little deeper into perspective distortion.

Take a look at this Lightroom CC fueled, wedding day sneak peak for iPad-equipped photographers.

Every day sees tens of thousands of copyright infringements on Instagram, and despite this vast number, reporting violations is very confusing — perhaps deliberately so. While my first attempt took almost 20 minutes, I can now complete a report in under 90 seconds. This quick guide walks you through the process and helps to make it as painless as possible.

This is a rallying cry for photographers balancing on the edge of failure: don’t give up.

As a Micro Four Thirds videographer, my most used lens has become the Panasonic 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. Today I will compare this lens to the cheaper Tamron 14-150mm lens.

We live in the social media era and it is the preferred the marketing channel. Why should we talk about blogs? Here are some thoughts on giving more emphasis on your blog than the social networks.

I bet you've always wanted to hold the crispiest glass yourself. Kai Wong is here with his selection of the ultimate lenses for Nikon full-frame cameras. Well, we have a couple of lists ready to compare Wong's choices with some other usual suspects. This is some expensive glass, and perhaps not surprisingly, most of the lenses in this list are prime lenses in the 50-100mm focal range. However, we've also compiled a list of our top choices according to your subject. But let's start by checking out Kai Wong's latest video.

The Kirlian photography technique is still one of the most spectacular ways to shoot different subjects. This method is a bit of a mystery, especially for those who are beginners in the art of photography. Here's how it works.

As I always discuss, I am looking constantly for every way to streamline every little detail of my workflow as much as possible. Today I want to talk about what you do after you run your actions. It's a very simple thing that I rarely see anyone do.

A video recently surfaced on YouTube showing a police officer pulling and pointing his gun at a man filming his activity. As a photographer, it would be easy to side with the cameraman but let’s try to see what happened and check both sides of the story.

What if I said there was something more useful for our photographic careers than any social network we've ever been on? With the ability to reach many more people than all your followers on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter combined; no restrictive algorithms, no paying to boost posts, no adverts. Do you want in?

Unless Gitzo has really changed up their tripod product lineup, I think something peculiar might happening over at Amazon.

Most of us reach a stage in our career (usually early on) where we feel a bit lost and like we are on the wrong train. If you are stuck in that rut, here are some great reasons to get out there and start collaborating on test shoots.

If you're an aspiring lifestyle, commercial, or fashion photographer who doesn't live anywhere near the large cities, can you make your business a success? Olivia Bossert, an established fashion and lifestyle photographer, gives you her insight on how she did it.

Ask yourself a pretty simple question: how hard do you work? If your honest answer is that you work pretty darn hard then it's important to come to grips with the idea that social media will never be able to showcase that hard work; you need to be printing your images.

Let’s not lie to ourselves and try to sugarcoat the issue -- in many circumstances, gear matters. There is no shame in admitting that despite all your talent, some shoots can’t be done without the appropriate hardware. Here is why.

Like many photographers out there, some days I look at my work and feel disappointed. There are a plethora of reasons you can feel down about where you’re at in your work, even if it’s completely irrational. I’ve found that one of the best things to help in such a slump is to look at my old work.

Time-lapses are an easy way to add spice to your video productions, but sometimes parts of your scene look awful when displayed over long periods of time. In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can use real-time video to improve objects with oscillating movements.

Is your pricing holding you back from your goals? In the second part of this series on wedding photography pricing, we will explain how to create packages that compliment your goals and how to add value to your photography.

It seems like a matter of when, not if, Canon and Nikon will enter the high-end, full-frame mirrorless market. But will any system they release accommodate legacy lenses?

Canon is definitely late to the party when it comes to developing a professional mirrorless system, however, being late isn't always a bad thing. There are advantages to being second or even third to market when it comes to new products. Unfortunately for Canon, Sony seems to have anticipated this with the a7 III and competing is not going to be easy.

You’re scrolling through your Instagram feed when you see it: the disembodied hand or indiscernible part of a skyline. It’s not a mistake, you’ve just discovered the Instagram #setofthree.

When the general public picture photographers, they tend to envision a creative individual who goes out and snaps away at anything and everything that inspires them; architecture, nature, sports, or whatever assignment they've been put on. It's likely that they never think of the hours we spend marketing, writing proposals, editing, doing book-keeping, etc.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a problem with the camera on my Mavic Pro. It seemed to have a few spots that were blurred and because of that I couldn't use it for work. This was my excuse to buy myself a new drone that I could have some fun with.

Consistent photo editing can be a huge factor in ensuring that your brand is cohesive. Knowing how to achieve consistency on a regular basis is a handy tool every photographer should have in their skill set.

It’s not often that a product comes by that revolutionizes the way we work and pushes humanity forward. Well anyways, let’s talk about this Capture One Pro webcam cover.

Imagine a world that, wherever you traveled, you were the first to capture an image. That was the ten year experience of John Thomson, but it was 1862 and he used the wet collodion process with photographic requirements that are about as far removed from today as imaginable. So what were his achievements?

Last year we released Photographing The World 3 with Elia Locardi. To film this tutorial we traveled around the world with Elia for 3 months, and in the process, we used a ton of new gear. In this video, we talk about everything we used to produce this tutorial.

Pricing your work is tricky. Whether you're a commercial photographer, portrait shooter, or selling prints of your artwork, your career depends on your ability to price yourself well. Does your rate sheet have any of these mistakes?

When shooting tethered, it’s easy to get lost in files and make things more complicated than they should. However, with Capture One there is an easy way to stay on top of things and cut your image selection time drastically.

If you have ever photographed the auroras you know how important it is to know when they will explode in the sky. We actually have data available making that prediction easier than just following the Kp number.

With all the incredible new 4K cameras — BlackMagic’s new pocket cinema, Sony’s mirrorless line — anyone remember last year’s excitement when Magic Lantern shipped 4K raw for the 5D Mark III on April Fool’s Day? Only it wasn’t a prank.

Stock video marketplaces are handy little operations. They provide a smorgasbord of top-quality footage and graphics all in one convenient place and all for one very reasonable price. But earlier this month, one marketplace took things to a whole new level.

Hey, who doesn't like a good vacation? If you're anything like me then a big part of the vacation is not just going to be what you see and what you eat, but a good portion of it will be what you get to take home with you.

For those of us trying to expand our social media presence, Instagram has been the king for quite some time. So what happens when you put a little money into promoting yourself on Instagram? I tried it and here are the results.

My studio has become a second home, and I invest a lot of time and money into it. Recently, I have been restocking a few essentials I can’t live without while trying to make my shooting more efficient.

Flickr has been acquired by SmugMug, and the official date for the switchover is looming. Here is why now might be the time to back up everything, reach out to all your followers, and maybe think about deleting your account forever.