Fstoppers Original Articles

The end of the year is always a time to both make one final push to close the business year strongly and to reflect on the current state of affairs. As a photographer, it’s also a good time to look back on where you stand as an artist and where you still want to go.

Ever gotten your images off the camera, zoomed in to 100%, and been a little disappointed with the results? Ever had a hard time figuring out what went wrong? In this series, we’ll look at the primary causes of poor clarity and how to address each. With a little practice, you’ll be able to glance at an image and know how to fix it.

Adobe made a significant update to your ability to tweak colors in the recent version of Lightroom by swapping out Split Toning for Color Grading. Here are five things buried in the interface that you might want to learn about.

Black Friday sales are here and we at Fstoppers want to keep the photography community informed of noteworthy deals. Some of these savings are only available for a very limited timeframe, so if there's something that piques your interest, make sure to act on it now!

There is something uniquely hurtful about being mocked. In Sia’s attempt to empower neurodiverse people, she’s hurt and offended many. Was she wrong to try the way she did, or is the world just trolling her?

White balance is very important in many areas of photography, but what about landscapes? In this week's article and video, I dive into why you shouldn't worry about white balance out in the field, but I also go over best practices in deciding how to edit your images.

Update: The results are in. Patrick and I are once again competing to see who can photograph the same model best. It's up to you to decide.

Pre-owned gear can be a great way to save money and enjoy a brand new photography experience. Yet, a good deal also includes proper quality. Here you get to know how to check a second-hand camera body.

The Holidays are here and we are celebrating with our best sale of the year! Right now, all Fstoppers photography and video tutorials on sale to kick off the season. Every course is automatically 30% off but when you add additional products to your cart, you can get up to 60% off each tutorial.

There has never been a better time to stay home and explore your own country. That is what I did and what I found was incredible!

What are the things that hinder you from being a better landscape photographer?

I'm a gadget guy. I always appreciate anything that can make my life easier, safer, or more enjoyable. When I recently acquired a Kywoo3D Tycoon 3D printer, I thought it would be an excellent time to make my photography life easier.

Learn how to become better at landscape photography fast by following these 10 simple steps.

It took the best part of four months to get my hands on the new Canon EOS R5, but the wait is over. After a few days of playing with it, I have to say I'm stunned by its brilliance. Here are my first impressions on a number of topics.

Lightroom isn’t as powerful as Photoshop when it comes to retouching portraits, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use it to get good results. This guide will get you started using Lightroom and also give an idea as to why it can be faster and more effective than diving into Photoshop.

I don't know about you, but many of us, your humble author included, had a pretty horrific upgrade to Big Sur, the latest and apparently, not the greatest OS from Apple.

Anyone with a camera can call themselves a photographer, sure. But how many of you can really say you're a professional? Follow along and find out.

Some mistakes you make as a photographer over and over again, learning a little bit each time you make them. But this is one mistake I can't afford to make again.

Lightroom is about 13 years old now, and over the last few major releases, Adobe has added a number of tools you’d previously need Photoshop for. While it’s great to see new features like color grading, luminosity masking, and more make their way to the program, their implementation still leaves them falling far short of just using Photoshop. Here’s why I couldn't ever use Lightroom without Photoshop.

Today, I’ll share with you a brief review, not of a camera, but of the life of a professional photographer.

It’s about the time of year where many people are looking for gift ideas. This list outlines multiple options for a film photographer at multiple price points.

The dynamic range of a camera is something that is considered to be important. A large dynamic range is often preferred. But how can you make use of this in your photography? In this article I will explain how you can use your camera’s dynamic range in post processing.

Whether you want to speed up your computer, or simply keep your photo archive safe and secure, check to see if you're making any crucial mistakes that you may come to regret further down the road.

For many photographers, power is a major struggle. If you're shooting video or working in live-view, a battery charge never seems to last, so you're stuck carrying 3 or 4 batteries in your kit. X-tra battery is here to solve that problem and simplify your kit with one revolutionary accessory.

Producing a promotional video is one of the tougher kinds of content to produce as a videographer. These types of videos tend not to be super long; however, the impact they're required to make is what put them in that challenging category. In a recent video, we offer up some valuable tips to help you edit your promos more effectively.

In this week's article and video I go over my process of capturing an image from start to finish. Everything from how I found my location, captured the photo in the field, and my entire Lightroom editing process.

Your external disk is filling up with all the digital files, but before you buy additional memory storage to hold more of your photographs, consider doing something with the ones you've already created so far.

I have done some dumb stuff in my life — like really dumb. Ask any of my friends. And photography has been no exception. Here are some of the worst mistakes I have made as a photographer.

I love doing photoshoots for musicians. I get to be creative, think outside the box, and make something that will be seen by an audience outside of my bubble. So, when Toronto singer Tafari Anthony approached me to shoot his EP cover, I was all in.

If you haven't made any bad choices, then that just means you haven't been shooting long enough.

Not all that doesn’t glitter isn’t gold. For non-professionals and professionals alike, a second-hand camera or lens is often a cheap way to upgrade one’s own photographic toolbox. Here, you find some tips for making a good bargain.

Forest photography can seem overwhelming, chaotic, and hard, but if you follow these seven steps, you ought to improve a significant amount.

Despite the headline, I’ve always thought that Final Cut Pro X was cool. It still is, and it’s still my favorite non-linear video editor. That said, industry inertia has always pushed me to use Adobe’s bloated Premiere Pro, but Apple’s new Macs using their own silicon in the form of the M1 processor may have just given the industry to come back to an old favorite.

I started my digital photography with a Sony compact camera, and after a few years I upgraded to the Canon EOS 20D. I loved this camera and used it shoot many great photos. How does it compare to our modern cameras?

If you’re at all like me and you shoot film primarily and shoot digital only occasionally, the Sony a7 series cameras are a terrific system to consider.

Nikon dropped the price of its legendary D850 by almost 15 percent last week, and retailers have rapidly run out of stock as a result. Given the demand for a DSLR that’s more than three years old, is the idea of a D850 successor looking like a smart move for the Japanese manufacturer?

Sometimes, we like to frame and hang our vintage snaps of the family around the home, but the photos are torn or faded. Here, we'll be going through some steps to help restore the photos so they're ready for display on our walls.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Okay, not really, but choosing a camera these days when that same camera can change so much from year to year can make buying decisions all the more difficult.

There has been a flurry of reports about Nikon as the second quarter results hit the press, which show the manufacturer fighting to turn around the business but struggling under the impact of COVID-19.

Ever wonder how Google manages to render everything from bushes and boulders to bridge trusses and skyscrapers in amazing three-dimensional detail? In this article, we’ll find out how. It involves a high-tech lawnmower, a lot of computing power, and thousands of terabytes of data.

How many times have you had to buy a tool while on the road or borrow one from a building manager during a photoshoot? Over the years, I have built this small, lightweight kit so this wouldn't happen anymore.

There's a tool in Lightroom you have likely never touched or maybe just don't understand its purpose. The calibration panel is something I use in nearly every single photo I edit; let me show you why.

Images rule the world. Photo essays can visualize the rise and fall of the rich, the misery and struggle of the poor, the talent and creativity of artists, or the great work of average people, which makes our daily life possible. This structure can help you organize your first photo essay.

For as long as photography has existed, the art of deception has been front and center of the craft. You change photos, I change photos, we all change photos. Who cares, as long as the viewer is happy?

The cameras in phones aren’t working with much. Between small sensors and simple lenses, it’s impressive they can produce the level of quality that the most recent flagships phones are capable of. But there’s more to an image than just pure image quality. Do you want to know the 5 things cameras could learn from phones?

The age-old adage has served me well in most areas of my life, with cheap alternatives to products being short-lived and inferior. But one domain that I have noticed a shift is in photography, and I'm starting to wonder if it's even good advice for photographers anymore.

When we do a search on the internet, we will find an enormous amount of tutorials and videos about photography. It is about settings, equipment, lenses, post-processing, and much more. These videos can be very helpful to achieve an end result. And that’s what matters.

You buy a camera as a purely functional object: you want to produce images, and it is the tool of choice. Yet, as photographers, we become brand loyal partisans, identifying with the manufacturer. So, who has the best logo?

We’ve all been there – you have multiple lenses and sometimes there’s one or two that you hardly ever use.

Photojournalists usually pack a pretty standard kit in the field. A full frame camera is usually a must, along with the requisite 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses that can cover 90 percent of situations a photographer might encounter. For some of that other 10 percent, a really good idea might be to pack a 360 camera in the bag as well.