Fstoppers Original Articles

When shooting assignments in the past, whether portraits, weddings, or journalism, I’ve always been one to carry two bodies to give myself options. I like to be able to access two different focal lengths at a moment’s notice. In the past, it would not be uncommon that those bodies would be two DSLRs of the same brand, usually Nikon or Canon. But now it’s something that is uncommon for me. You see, I now roll with a DSLR and a mirrorless body to allow myself maximum flexibility. And perhaps it’s something you should try, too. Here are a couple of reasons why.

A few days ago Patrick and I posted two images and asked you to vote on your favorite. What we didn't tell you was that one was taken with an iPhone and the other was taken with a Nikon D850. The majority of you chose the iPhone shot as the better photo.

While a quick trip to do some shooting in the city might involve little more than throwing a body or two in a duffel bag and heading out — an odd overlap with your average serial killer’s check list — heading off somewhere exotic can require a bit more planning. What else should you throw in the bag?

Few of us will ever become truly great photographers, but giving yourself the best chance of it is still very much worthwhile. There is one method that is certainly a key ingredient, but it's often overlooked because it's not as interesting as buying new equipment or traveling to new places.

The M10 Monochrom was the first high-resolution M series camera that Leica had produced. As the name would suggest, this camera only produced images in black and white. Leica recently released the M10-R, which is now the highest resolution M series camera that shoots in color.

Although everyone has a different "favorite" lens, the 24-70mm 2.8 lens usually ends up being used the most. It's standard zoom range and fast 2.8 aperture makes it usable for almost any type of photography. Today, I'm comparing the three most popular 24-70mm lenses to determine which one is best.

They may not cost a lot. But these are two lenses that punch well above their weight.

Technology often follows a path where it begins life large, slow, and expensive, and then gets smaller, faster, and cheaper as time passes. Digital cameras have not followed this trend for a number of reasons, and every time I think I can predict where the industry will go, a curveball is thrown.

The love for mirrorless bodies and pancake lenses is bottomless, but what about heavier setups? I can't be alone in my appreciation of them, surely.

Over the last year, a fair number of very impressive cameras have been released with lots of new features both for photographers and videographers. Companies like Panasonic and Fujifilm have released feature filled exciting cameras, yet the original mirrorless full-frame camera manufacturer has been seemingly dragging its feet.

Gear isn't always about megapixels, dynamic range, or pixel-peeping. This piece of gear has changed nothing about the quality of my photos, but it might be my favorite purchase ever.

Nikon Ambassador Dixie Dixon got the chance to shoot with a pre-production D850 for a few days. She used a few fashion shoots to break in the D850 and shared some of those images with us here, explaining her experience "shooting in beast mode," as she called it in a recent live stream with B&H.

Photoshop is a veritable spell book of amazing and seemingly mystical tools that empower any digital sorcerer with the potential for creating visual magic. Adobe has done a pretty great job over the years at adding in tons of optimization and shortcutting that can make for a more pleasant workflow. Unfortunately, they often treat these workflow enhancements like Easter eggs by not making them obvious at all. In this article we will go through a few hidden spells to help you optimize your Photoshop workflow.

Zoom lenses are wonderful things. With one lens, you have a large number of focal lengths at your disposal. The adjustments are infinitely variable. But in reality, you can often shoot everything with only three different focal lengths. You may even benefit from it.

This exciting shoot came about when photographer Aaron Anderson was tasked to creating content for Elinchrom’s new ELB 500 TTL and Lifted Up Fitness’s web page, making it a multiple clients shoot.

I just got a new camera! Well, sort of.

While sharing drinks with a friend, he started inquiring as to how I’m able to supplement my income with video editing projects. The more we talked, the more I realized that a lot of people have the ability and skill to do it, but they don’t understand the small things that can make or break being successful at it. In this post, I’ll share what I’ve learned about being a freelance editor.

It’s a simple question with a (not so) simple answer: can Adobe Lightroom on the iPad give you everything you need to edit your photos?

In an instant, one can feel as though they are in another world. As a landscape photographer you have the power to transport someone in the blink of an eye and send them on a journey into your photography to see the incredible world we live in. Creating amazing landscapes goes far beyond just snapping photos using the HDR setting on an iPhone. Landscape photography can seem daunting, but after reading these secrets to landscape photography, there will be no excuse to why you can’t take mesmerizing landscapes yourself!

In the last 10 years, manufacturers have introduced a new level of control to cameras: auto ISO plus the option to set a minimum shutter speed. If you’ve never tried using your camera with this setup, you may want to give it a go, as it could completely change how you shoot.

Mastering natural light can take a lifetime of practice, but there is one type of natural light that will produce amazing results in almost any situation: I call it "cave lighting."

It's probably happened to you: you're shooting away and someone, usually the venue owner, approaches you. You get that sinking feeling hearing those dreaded five words: "Can I get a copy?"

Welcome to "Photographing The World 4" Behind the Scenes episode 2. In this episode, we visit one of the most crowded photography locations in the world, Antelope Canyon.

Daniel Dean knew the total solar eclipse would be an incredible opportunity for him to capture something amazing. A few months prior to the eclipse, the idea of being able to photograph the celestial event became a blip on his radar after seeing in the news that the first solar eclipse crossing the U.S. since 1979 would be happening again in August. Here is the story of how this awesome time-lapse solar eclipse video came about and how it was made.

No landscape photographer is as iconic to the genre as Ansel Adams. But can someone who worked primarily in black and white and whose heyday was over half a century ago still teach us anything today?

What started as a quiet local story in Louisville, Kentucky is quickly becoming national news. Early Saturday morning, USA Today published an opinion piece written by wedding photographer Chelsey Nelson in which she proclaimed herself a victim of Louisville’s Fairness Ordinance.

This is the third part of The Ultimate Guide to the Dodge & Burn Technique. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 where we talked about the fundamentals and tools. Today we finally get to one of the actual setup variations for the Dodge & Burn technique in Photoshop. But before we begin, I'd like to share a few words of caution with you.

Form my teaching practice I have found that knowing the technique - the HOW-TO - never guarantees its successful implementation. In fact, when it's only the technique that a...

Photographers and filmmakers probably spend more time on their computers that behind a camera. We own thousands of dollars in gears, yet some of us waste a considerable amount of time struggling on a sluggish PC. However, for the price of a good lens you could dramatically improve your productivity by speeding up the entire post-shooting phase. Here is a short guide to help you navigate through the current offerings and avoid the marketing traps in order to build the perfect machine based on your budget.

If you've ever wanted to create more dramatic portraits with minimal effort or even completely in-camera with no Photoshop, this video is for you. In this photoshoot, I set out to create a dramatic editorial image that looks like it was shot late at night. The catch: I'm actually going to be taking the photo at 4 pm.

The Orton effect is a popular effect in many other genres than landscape photography. It is used to soften the images with a slight glow, which can give a beautiful dreamy effect. However, I do see one mistake repeated again and again.

After years of waiting, Sony fans finally received news that the Japanese manufacturer has launched a 35mm f/1.8 prime lens, plugging a huge gap in its lens lineup. You can get your pre-orders in now but many are balking at the price.

There are a lot of sayings bandied around in photography that sound impressive but are meaningless. However, an image being greater than the sum of its parts is something we should heed as it is the basis of how our minds perceive images. Here are seven ways to achieve this.

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.

I thought I'd never understand this one photo series I saw over a decade ago; it was so popular but seemed so bland to me. What I realize now is the content of images aren't the most interesting part and in fact, the project has a lesson all photographers could learn from.

On the never-ending camera buyer’s merry-go-round? Here are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way.

There are photographers who rely on adding lens corrections in Lightroom for every shot, while there are others who never add them. Why is it so divisive, and should you be adding them or not?

The game of landscape photography is 90% the quality of the light. It is the most crucial and uncontrollable factor in your shot. Here are some tips to make the best out of it.

Luminosity masks are well known amongst landscape and nightscape photographers but often underrated by many other creatives. They are an incredibly powerful tool and can help you apply adjustments only to certain areas of an image according to their luminosity. In past articles I wrote, I’ve shown different ways to create these masks. However, with time, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is one way that seems to always be the most effective and yield the most natural-looking results.

You probably don't need someone to tell you to pack your camera, lenses, and a few spare batteries (if you do, we need to talk). But there are some little accessories and non-photography items that can make your shooting life vastly easier and often save you a lot of time. Here are 15 such items to keep in your bag.

If you're serious about improving your Portraits, then pull your seat in a little closer. Because in this article you’re about to discover 7 compelling reasons why, using flash is much better for your Portraits than just regular natural light. But first, can I ask you a question?

Artificial lighting can be overwhelming, there are thousands of options to modify one single light source and there are dozens of companies that claim they have the best product and best bang for your buck. Regardless, photography equipment is expensive and I know I'd rather not waste money on a gimmick product when the same result could be achieved with just the right strobe placement or accessory.

The film era was a cash cow, with cameras being high-precision instruments from specialist manufacturers and because they used film that needed developing and printing, a huge service sector that surrounded it. From the 1960s onward, the sector innovated and grew at breakneck speed. And then, it fell apart. Is that about to happen for digital?

We had spent several hours hiking and arrived at the viewpoint. You know the score: unholster the camera and start shooting the bucket images. You've got to go through those inspiringly uninspiring captures to allow you to work the scene, gel with your mates, and see if some of the magic of the setting flows. I try to work towards something a little different; more dramatic, less dramatic, unveiling something new. We came back together as a group in order to compare how three very different photographers imagined the scene. Two of us were shooting Nikon, one Canon. And damn, those Canon images were just singing off the screen.

Selling cameras is a tough business and it's only getting tougher. The market for digital cameras is contracting at a dizzying rate, so which camera manufacturer is going to fold next?

How many pictures do you average per day while traveling? I often shoot between 500 and 600 frames. That’s one picture every two waking, semi-caffeinated minutes. On our last trip, however, I hardly took any. And the results were enlightening.

Rewind back to 2013. Mirrorless cameras are in full swing, gobbling up the low and prosumer ends of the market, and amidst all the fuss, Canon puts out its prosumer offering, a seemingly tepid update to the 60D, the 70D.

The photography landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, particularly in the field of lens technology. As we approach 2024, two key trends have become increasingly evident: the emergence of revolutionary lens designs and the rise of high-quality, affordable lenses. This pivotal shift is reshaping the choices available to both professional photographers and enthusiasts, setting the stage for what could be a landmark year in photographic equipment.

Remember when GoPro was the innovative camera company? The fight was taken to the skies, and as we look back, it’s clear that DJI took over.

Recently, I visited the stunning Argentinian Patagonia. I want to share some simple photo editing techniques that photographers of every skill level can appreciate.