Fstoppers Original Articles

One of my recent articles was on how developing a niche can help you make more money from photography. I received a lot of emails and questions over the next week and a strand that run through almost all of the contact was about making the transition to full-time professional. I was pleased with the interest in this question, but I wasn't overly surprised as I tackled the very same issue for several years. There's no exact formula, but there are some important tips I can give. Sadly, most of these I learned along the way, but hopefully some readers can use this to make that leap to professional feel more like a hop.

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.

Adventure, outdoor, and eco-sports photography has had a surge in popularity over the last decade. Rapidly growing social media outlets like Instagram have narrowed a spotlight across specific arenas of interest. Many photographers are making a living on the outskirts of the grid creating mesmerizing imagery of U.S. National Parks, remote foreign territory, and backcountry destinations only accessible by highly technical off-road transportation or arduous hiking. With the flux of imagery and surge of outdoor brands promoting a simpler lifestyle more closely connected to nature, more photographers are taking to the outdoors to create imagery that communicates a love for nature.

Given the choice, most of us would probably buy the latest and greatest camera bodies as soon as they came out, because hey, new toys are cool, right? But most of us don't have unlimited budgets, so it's important to know when you really need to upgrade and when it's just a case of gear lust. Here's what to consider when you're wondering if it's time to buy a new camera.

There are infinite ways of upgrading gear as a photographer. Moreover, camera companies market their next product as the next best thing in the industry. All this results in a lot of confusion, speculation, and simple ambiguity. If we could, we would all upgrade everything at once, but money is a limited resource that we need to allocate with a high degree of efficiency.

Before taking on the definition of "fine art photography," perhaps we would be wise to consider Einstein's words: "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." Having said that, pretty much every single photographer oft considers their work and career in the context of "fine art."

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.

One of the best things about window light is that you can find it almost anywhere. As winter approaches and chilly weather threatens to keep photo sessions indoors, photographers will face the choice of how to light their portraits. Strobes and flashes are a great option, but not all photographers own them. Almost everyone has access to a window though, and a window has plenty to offer any photographer who knows how to use it.

Smartphones offer countless useful resources for planning and shooting photos. With tens of thousands of apps, it can be difficult to know which are the best. Here are my top five.

Holiday season is officially upon us, and now is the time when we start searching the internet for what to buy your loved ones, friends, and family, or even a cheeky treat for yourself. In this article. I choose five items that I think are ideal for landscape photographers old and new.

Not every shoot goes according to plan; sometimes, everything goes wrong and nothing seems to fix it. Each time you look at the back of your camera, the photos just seem wrong. This isn't your work or vision. You just aren't on your game. But that doesn't change anything for your client! They still expect professional quality images that meet the standards of your portfolio. Rather than panicking and sending the entire shoot off a cliff of miasmic distress, take a moment to gather yourself and reorient the shoot so that it can still be successful, even if you don't end up delivering exactly the perfect images that you originally had in mind.

Once you learn how to make Parkinson's law work for you as a photographer, you'll be taking your career to a whole new level in no time.

A few years back, I managed to find a beater of a Hasselblad XPan for a song. I've tried to find a shooting style that would help me stand out from the crowd, and the panoramic format appealed to me. I didn't realize it at the time, but this purchase sent me down a rather obsessive path, trying to find the best panoramic cameras for news and editorial work.

In the world of photography, the allure of high-end gear is undeniable. From the latest cameras to lenses with almost impossible specs, the market is flooded with equipment promising to elevate the art of photography to new heights. This narrative often leads to a common misconception: that the key to achieving photographic mastery lies predominantly in owning the most sophisticated and expensive gear. However, this perspective overlooks the essence of what truly makes a great photographer.

The Micro Four-Thirds format was a pioneer of the mirrorless revolution. Initially adopted by Olympus and Panasonic in 2008, there is now a huge lens choice of zooms and primes across focal lengths from 7.5mm to 400mm. This is a guide to the best lens choices across a range of budgets for both photography and video.

If your subject is far away, you can use a longer focal length to bring it closer. When the subject is very large, a shorter focal length can capture it al at once. But did you know the focal length can also be used in another way?

Larger images provide a world of options for photographers, but if you're not careful, more pixels could mean more problems. If you're one of the many photographers finding yourself with a new high resolution camera after the holidays, here's a guide to wrangling that newfound resolution.

So, you shoot Fujifilm and need to achieve 16mm f/2.8 and you're not sure how to get there? Let this be your guide.

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.

Technical perfection, originality, environmentalism, story, aesthetics, and realism are all concepts or principles we as landscape photographers can value. What we value will define how we do our landscape photography and if those photos will ever be any good.

If you’re like me, you’re one of Instagram’s billion active users, and if you’re a photographer, it’s a natural choice to have a presence on the platform that has been synonymous with photography over the last decade. Instagram, however, doesn’t seem to care about photographers — only users. Should that change? Can it?

Waterfalls have been a favorite subject in my landscape photography. They are often some of the most beautiful and iconic sceneries in many national parks and mountain regions around the world.

The portable strobe wars are not over yet. Yongnuo is going after its own China based competition with its new pocket strobe, the YN200.

Work-life balance is like a unicorn: no one knows whether it really exists, but vague hope persists. Balance is particularly difficult for entrepreneurs because we wear so many hats. More often than not, work-life balance is like a seesaw, with life on one end and work at the other. One side is always either up or down, and time spent in the middle is fleeting. The seesaw will never be completely balanced, but there are ways to maximize the time spent in the middle. These seven tips will give you a start.

Over the years, Capture One has evolved tremendously in its feature set, and has steadily become one of - or arguably the best - raw processor available. Despite all it's advantages and praises, many remain hesitant to adopt it, largely due to its seeming complexity and the intimidation factor associated with a truly professional tool. In this tutorial I'll be guiding you through the key aspects of Capture One version 12, and demonstrating that it's actually quite intuitive and straightforward to use.

I have been shooting concerts for many years. These are mostly bands in small, dark, and obscure venues with not much light to work with. But eventually a lot of bands started to use lasers as a part of their show. That resulted once in a damaged sensor. I believe today there is a greater risk with mirrorless cameras and lasers.

You probably use Lightroom because of the efficiency in processing batches of images, which in turn frees up more of your valuable time. But why use the software without the convenience of its many shortcuts, which save you time and make your work easier?

In a recent article of mine, I discussed switching from a DSLR to a smartphone for casual photography. Recently, one of my friends reached out to me and asked what camera he should get for a trip he is going to. I told him: to use his phone and gave him some tips. Here are the top 7 tips that every smartphone photographer should know.

If you're a professional or semi-professional photographer chances are you've probably needed to get a lens calibrated or sensor cleaning from time to time. That's exactly what I needed last week when I noticed my Canon 24-70 f2.8 V2 was noticeably softer.

Online sales are based on trust. With that in mind, what kind of customer are you expecting to show up at your website, probably for their first time ever, likely for the first time hearing of you ever, and give up their financial information to buy a pretty picture off it and pray it actually comes? That’s a really tough sell.

Ten years ago, this month the Canon 5D Mark III DSLR was released; a month earlier, the Nikon D800 arrived. Their appearance heralded the crash of the camera industry. Were they, in some small way, partly to blame?

We would all love to become better photographers and make more money from our work. If you want to become a better photographer, make more money, and have more subject matter to shoot, you should consider shooting around your home area more.

It's common as professional photographers to spend so much time researching the latest technical tips and advice that the space within our mental hard drives originally intended for common sense runs low. We can become so focused on the latest and greatest that mundane day-to-day tasks sometimes suffer. Here are a few pointers (or reminders) that may help you free up some of that precious mental hard drive space and fill your calendar with the types of clients you want to be booking as we look toward the upcoming year.

Have you ever made up a reason for not doing something you should do? Maybe made up an excuse? Anyone can make excuses. It doesn't matter what it's about, whether it's an excuse for not going to the gym, not going out to shoot, skipping class, putting work off, etc.

The new Canon EOS R6 and the R5 in particular have generated loads of excitement with their powerful feature sets. However, Canon also announced four new lenses alongside the cameras, and I think those are just as much reason to be excited.

A photographer renowned for spending months at a time carefully curating his sets has just completed his latest project. He has now built a life-size replica of a local 1960s Chinese takeaway; complete with the original paintings and fittings, the series features genuine customers and the owner of the real takeaway. It debuts exclusively on Fstoppers.

Have you ever kept track of the amount of time that you spend editing each month? I was shocked the first time that I did. Realizing how much of my time that editing was consuming caused me to search out ways to be more efficient, and this is what I found.

Shooting mediocre photographs is as easy as can be. Modern cameras do most of the job on their own. To shoot outstanding photographs, there is much more to consider.

The Fujifilm X community of photographers are a loyal bunch, sometimes to a fault. It’s understandable, though, as Fujifilm provides consistent updates, even for cameras of previous generations. But recently, this seems to have become a crutch, and the X-T3 has inspired me to write this open letter.

The difference between good and great posing is all in the details. Whether you photograph men, women, or couples together, knowing how to make everyone look their best is 110% your job as a photographer.

Whether you're shooting for a client or just creating something for your portfolio, working with a team of people can be one of the most difficult and intricate parts of the job. Don't worry, because there is a simple piece of paper that can make your life a whole lot easier; it's called a Call Sheet, and I'm going to tell you why you need one.

Cool mornings and beautiful afternoons mean one thing: fall is knocking on our doorstep. Fall is my favorite season for photography as the possibilities are endless, from colorful trees creating reflections in the water to cool, foggy mornings. Capturing the beauty of fall doesn’t have to be hard with a few simple tips and reminders.

The UK voted to leave the EU and the British Pound plummeted, meaning this week might be the perfect opportunity to order equipment from the UK if you live within the European Union.

Most of us tend not to think too much about relative screen brightness and the appearance of our photos across the myriad of devices they may be viewed on. But should we?

In theory, crowdfunding seems like one of the beautiful perks of the Internet: any entrepreneur with an idea and the will to bring it to fruition can receive the financial support of interested patrons from all around the world, and in return, those patrons get early and/or discounted access to an exciting new product. The reality is rarely so rosy, and as a consumer, you need to be aware of that.

Being that I’m primarily a wedding and documentary photographer, it’s not every day that I get the chance to take a portrait of a celebrity. Add to this that I live in Northwest Arkansas, which isn't really a hub for celebrities, makes it even less likely for me — especially one as well known as William H. Macy. So I thought it would be interesting to line out how I pulled it off and got the final image.

In an era when working on 30 megapixel and higher images has become the norm, a Photoshop document with dozens of layers can quickly become a burden to work with often slowing to a painful delay after each stroke of a brush. The simplest solution is to constantly be crushing those layers down into a single flat layer but this method is the antithesis of non-destructive editing which can make future client feedback rather difficult to implement. Instead, lets focus on few easy tricks you can do to keep your computer running smoothly during the most complex of composites.

It’s always important to stop and smell the photos – but what happens when your stop is at night, in complete darkness without any lights to help you out? You improvise. There are a few things you can do to help you compensate for lack of proper lighting equipment.

I've been using both standard and programmable shutter release cables for ages. With the built-in interval option in modern cameras, these remote cables have become almost obsolete. Just remember one setting when using the interval option: the length of the exposure.

The tilt-shift lens is probably one of the most special lenses available. It allows the photographer to turn, shift, and tilt the lens in many different ways. In this article, I explain when and how to use the shift function.