Fstoppers Original Articles

As my grandfather would have said, it’s better to be pissed off than to be pissed on. I guess he was right in some regards. For the most part, being rubbed the wrong way never becomes comfortable, and even photographers have a breaking point.

If you try to pinpoint a single reason that the D850 is creating as much buzz as it is, it would be nearly impossible. This isn’t an amazing camera that has a singular standout feature. It’s the precisely and perfectly juxtaposed array of many new features, big and small, that culminate in the D850's success as a standout camera. Here’s a quick dive into some of the top, more obscure tricks the sold-out D850 brings to Nikon’s top line, how much they’ll really help your photography, and what limitations these features have.

Being a professional photographer is an expensive game. Even really basic equipment is hard on the pocket. A lot of us (myself included) get this nagging doubt that our current kit is holding us back. I'm also guilty of getting gear envy when I see other photographers behind the scenes shots on instagram. However, professional photography is a business just like any other and it needs to make a profit, meaning spending on kit needs to be proportionate to your profit.

I started using Syrp for time-lapse and motion control almost a year ago and I find the system very good for what it is; a way for photographers to step into motion control at a relatively low price point. The first piece of Syrp kit I purchased was their Genie Mini and having the ability to pan was a way to add more interest in any time-lapse I wanted to create. After a month I went ahead and purchased the rest of their 3-axis kit including the Syrp 5.2' Magic Carpet Long Track Slider which has been great to use. The only issue is if you want a longer slider, Syrp doesn't make a way for you to connect two of their metal sliders together. With very little ingenuity, you can connect as many metal sliders together as you'd like at a relatively low cost.

Scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed this week brought up something interesting. Dan Fable, a Manchester musician turned photographer/videographer, was offering an insane deal for bands. What’s more insane is that people weren’t taking him up on the cheap offer.

Since the beginning of time, humans have been drawn to the mountains. Naturally, if you’re a photographer and have a taste for adventure, the mountains seem like the best place to go shoot. Dramatic landscapes, beautiful colors, and natural majesty of the great outdoors is the perfect recipe for compelling imagery. However, we must prepare properly and to be aware of the dangers in these places because a mistake in the mountains could be fatal. If you take the time to research and know the variables that Mother Nature presents there is no reason your shoot won’t go as planned.

In 2013, a small quadcopter flew close to German Chancellor Angela Merkel who was attending an outdoor political meeting. A year later an inebriated federal agent crashed his Phantom in the White House perimeter. Fortunately, the drone did not damage Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden, but following this event DJI implemented the no-fly zone feature on its entry-level drones. However, this measure is not completely effective to prevent rogue flights and authorities are looking for solutions to counter drones from flying in restricted areas. Let’s review the current anti-drone solutions and challenges associated with neutralizing a small UAVs.

When you rely on creativity for work, a battle with the absence of these abilities can be detrimental, especially when you’re freelance. No matter what type of creative work you do, there will come a time when you feel like your powers have dried up and you are no longer capable. It will seem like the ability to do anything is gone forever, everything you make is crap, and no good ideas seem to be coming to you. To understand this problem as universal and cyclical is a step towards understanding what it is that drives your creative abilities. There are ways to elevate past these woes and continue creating your best work. Here are five easy practices that can help you in your woes next time you are met with a creative block.

I absolutely love flying my DJI Phantom 4 Pro. This is my first quadcopter, and from talking with other pilots, the Phantom 4 Pro clearly evolved from previous generations. I am continuously implementing my Phantom in my still photography work and by no means is this a desire for obsolescence. The Phantom 4 hasn't been on the market that long and there are a ton of great accessories available that make it even better, too. This is part review of the Phantom 4 Pro and part feedback for what I hope inevitable future updates bring for so many pilots. While there is still time ahead of the next release, here is my wishlist for features that the Phantom 5 Pro might carry.

We all wonder what Nikon or Canon’s next camera is going to be like or how will social media channels that affect our business evolve in the near future. But what about the distant future of photography? Let’s see some predictions about the photography, gear and business.

There are often things that are helpful to workflow, no matter how minor they are. One of my favorite customizations to a new install of Photoshop is the cursor customization. When watching a tutorial and I see the instructor clicking through a menu instead of using a shortcut key for something as simple as duplicating a layer, I can understand the reason why. When demonstrating to people, it's valuable to slow things down and make sure they understand. It may seem subjective to flat out say that changing the cursors is the best thing to do, however I believe that once you try it you will agree.

Do you have images or films that are sitting on your file servers and nobody, except for your team and the client, knows you did them? Even if you don't, you will eventually have a few some day. How would you handle such requests to not publish images and can you take any advantage of that?

Super recognizers are people with extraordinarily good face recognition ability. It is estimated that less than 2 percent of the population are super-recognizers. Are photographers any more likely to possess this superpower?

Cleveland, OH: A local shooter recently switched from Canon to Sony and was pleased to discover that he awoke the next morning as a master photographer.

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.

In August 2015, I quit all working commitments and took the leap in to full-time photographer. In March 2016, I wrote an article of advice about being a photographer I wish I'd known earlier after I began to scrutinize my performance under the new, professional microscope. Well, time has elapsed, shutters have shut over 100,000 times, and more things have been learned. My photography business has grown in this interim and I found myself thinking about this aforementioned article again. Here are seven of the most important things I have learnt about being a professional photographer that I wish I'd known earlier.

In case you aren't tired of looking at photos from Monday's incredible solar eclipse, I've put together another list. This time I tried to some find photos that maybe everyone hasn't already seen. The eclipse was not only a spectacular natural event with worldwide attention, it was also one of the most covered events via the photo community itself. Browsing the popular hashtags for the solar eclipse produced results from professionals, amateurs, hobbyists, families, and a ton of everyday people armed with nothing more than a capable cell phone excited to share what they had witnessed.

I think most photographers understand the desire to continuously acquire piece after piece of equipment. Looking back at my trip to Yellowstone, of course there are several lenses and at least one other camera body I wish I would have had for that trip. However, at the same time, I am pretty pleased with the images I was able to capture with the gear that I had while out exploring that beautiful place.

A little over a year ago, I came to a point of wanting to take the next step in growing my photography business. To me, opening a studio space made the most sense. The ability to have a dedicated place to work, meet clients, and sell prints out of, as well as wanting a way to make my business appear more legitimate, all factored in to why I believed a studio space was the next step. I recently finished up my first year of having a studio, and although it has been successful and definitely worth it, I wish I would have had a better idea of the costs you can forget about when budgeting for a space.

If there is anything photographers can agree on, it’s that we are obsessed with quality. This is a good thing when dealing with business, clients, and even personal projects. How many times though has this caused a glitch in documenting your personal life? I can personally say that I’ve let this get the best of me.

If there is one type of photograph that you could call universally appreciated, I would say a properly executed cityscape ranks right up there at the top. While New York City often comes to mind when you think of skyscrapers and iconic views, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates now makes a very strong case for being the most amazing city to photograph in the world. Of all the photos coming out of Dubai on a regular basis, I'd say Daniel Cheong's are hands down the best of the best. He is ready to share his skills in an upcoming class on September 8 put on by 500px called "Shooting and Stitching Vertical Panoramas." Best of all, the class is free for 500px premium members.

Picture the scene: you’re at a party and end up chatting to a stranger. In amongst the friendly chitchat, your ears prick up as you realize this could be a potential photography client. But you don’t want to pull out the full sales pitch, you’re at a party after all. This is where having a premium business card can go to work for you.

If you touch my hair I will hurt you. In life, we take many chances. Like, riding our bike with no hands, getting minimum coverage on our car insurance and petting stingrays. However, for the chosen few who have the superpower of catching our eye with their beautiful hair, there is no chance to be taken. The following is meant only for a lighthearted fable for this Friday.

When it comes to photographers, there seem to be those that dabble in a bit of everything and there are those that shoot one and only one genre. It's a difference of mindset and of perspective, but is either better than the other or does it boil down to a matter of preference? Is there a clear cut benefit for either stance? I'm a one-track mind type of guy and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't bother me one bit.

One of my biggest pet peeves is working with wedding videographers that treat their craft like it’s photography. In doing that, a lot of talented people sell their art form, and the art form of their peers, short. So what can you do to focus your videography and cinematography skills and make your wedding videos more refined? Think like a filmmaker.

I often think back to what it must've been like being a photographer before the birth of the Internet, the social media craze, and the hunt for likes, shares, and follows. Photography was less convoluted before the dawn of the digital age, with specialist magazines and museum and art gallery submissions showcasing only the cream of the crop. Browsing through old magazines and reading the articles, it's clear that the top-tier photographers stood out amongst the rest of the crowd for their raw skill in their art form. Their images meant something to many of those who took the time to stop and look at it for longer than two seconds.

A good portfolio is never finished. Portfolios, books, albums, or websites, however a photographer's body of work is contained, it should be ever-evolving and developing even after a photographer has started working on professional projects. Any perception that a photographer can leave a portfolio static once work starts flowing in is a dangerous one. For a number of reasons, developing and improving is an on-going process.

As photographers, we’re often on the bleeding edge of technology, and these days, the bleeding edge often includes an app for that. However, manufacturers are increasingly relying on apps to control their hardware at the expense of dedicated physical controls — and it’s a practice that must stop.

When I first decided to try converting some of my photos to black and white, it seemed very hard to get good results. I would often rely on using the desaturate adjustment in Adobe Photoshop that I learned in high school 20 years ago. This makes for some very flat and gray looking images. From there I found better results by using tools like Photoshop actions and Nik Silver Efex. This method still lacks control a bit, and in my opinion anytime you have to leave Adobe Lightroom, your workflow speed is taking a hit. Once I learned to emulate the monochrome photos I was attracted to and impressed by, my work started getting better.

You’ve got a solid website, your photography skills are on point, you’ve been around for awhile, but you still aren’t getting any clients. Peers’ businesses are booming, you know there are plenty of clients to go around, and yet, you’re still struggling to get by with your photography business. There are a ton of factors that go into why a business fails, but here are a few reasons why your photography business may be failing.

There is such a variety of plugins these days it is hard to know which ones are the most useful. Each user will find ones that work better for their own needs, however, these few choices here are perfect for everyone using Lightroom at any capacity.

Like the Nikon D750, the Canon 5D Mark IV is the parent brand’s attempt at making what’s arguably the most versatile professional full-frame camera system that fits the needs of most professional photographers, except that it beats the D750 on nearly every metric that matters, as it should for a newer camera. Still, Nikon’s D850 easily strips the versatility title from Canon for plenty of reasons, not the least of which is resolution. The 5DS line, however, isn’t the only thing at which Nikon is taking aim with the new D850.

Who out there captured the eclipse this week? Did you plan ahead, travel hundreds of miles, purchase the right gear, and capture the phenomenon that is a total solar eclipse for that perfect shot? The photos are coming in by the thousands and each seems to be better than the last. Here is my photo capturing 90 percent coverage of the moon over the sun and also a little behind-the-scenes on how I shot and edited it completely with my phone.

After eight months of work I finally finished this project: an aerial tilt-shift hyperlapse of Miami. The idea was to produce something different. Time-lapse videos are very common these days and most drone operators can make a decent hyperlapse with their drones. In this video I wanted to replicate the out-of-focus look normally associated with macro photography to give a miniature effect of the city of Miami. Here is how I filmed this video and what I learned during the process.

An updated version of the Biotar 58mm f2 will join the already announced Biotar 75mm f1.5, as the first two pieces in Oprema Jena’s lineup of modern remakes of classic lenses, the company announced today. Oprema is offering 58 people the chance to get the Biotar 75 and Biotar 58 – both originally produced by Carl Zeiss -- as part of a special rewards bundle in the current Kickstarter campaign for the Biotar 75. The 58 Biotar 58s will be pre-production models with serial numbers between 1 and 58. A pledge of $1,999 USD would allow someone to get both lenses at $2,500 less than the combined projected retail price for the lenses. The Biotar 75 is expected to go on the market next summer at a projected retail price of $2,499, with the Biotar 58 following by the end of 2018 at a projected retail price of $1,999.

I still remember the first time I heard the word. Senior year of high school. Sitting lazily squeezed into a metallic desk-chair combination unwillingly decorated with the carvings of amateur graffiti artists from years past. The boisterous post-recess classroom went quiet as my favorite teacher, and apparently everyone’s favorite teacher, Mrs. Wallace entered the room. With an ever-present sense of flair, she strode to the chalkboard and wrote out eight letters in big bold type. P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M. I didn’t know what it meant. Heck, I didn’t even know how to pronounce it. But, in that moment, I was introduced to not only a new piece of vocabulary, but given a dynamic tool to develop as an artist, and as a person.

CrashPlan is a popular cloud-based backup solution that many (myself included) use to backup their computers and external drives. But the company's announcement this morning to focus on business-to-business services leaves consumer customers hanging, despite their promise not to do so. Those of us with particularly large backups on CrashPlan's consumer service have a problem that raises a greater question about cloud-based backups in general.

Just like everyone else, my social media feed was flooded with solar eclipse images yesterday. While there were a number of truly amazing shots and at least one potentially politically controversial one, my hands-down favorite was the remarkable photograph of a silhouetted climber at the moment of totality, captured by professional Outdoor and Commercial Photographer Andrew Studer. I spoke with Studer and Ted Hesser, an adventure photographer who envisioned and planned the shot, to better understand how they pulled it off.

There's a lot more to creating unique and edgy content than keeping a camera fixed to your face. From eating scrumptious tacos and filming rock-busting, high-horsepower off-road race trucks in Baja, Mexico to cruising the scenic Rubicon Trail in the Sierra Nevada creating content for some of the motorsport industry's biggest names, it's all in a week's work if you're Matt Martelli, the creative director and CEO of one of the fastest growing media companies on the U.S. West Coast, Mad Media.

Photography requires repetitive tasks that can often become habit forming. When we find a way of doing something that works, we repeat those steps to get the desired result. We get locked into certain styles and certain ways of thinking. This can be valuable because it makes us dependable, but these habits can also have an undesired effect: they can make us predictable, bland, and stifle our creativity. What can a photographer do when their creativity starts to atrophy? The answer is play.

Endless traffic jams, millions in lost U.S. productivity, and a ton of glasses, but it grabbed the unified attention of millions for just a few minutes. I have to admit I wasn't into it; I didn't care to observe or capture this phenomenon at first, I can't stand crowds or doing what everyone else is. Then I realized this is the only event where millions of people have the chance to photograph the same beauty as one another without being in the same location. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I know many of you had the same feeling of obligation I had to photograph it. As photographers, we have this unspoken duty to be present at events like yesterdays. Whether we wanted to or not, we pick up our cameras and head for the crowd. Now, what do you do with it to avoid capturing an identical image as the next photographer?

Life as a freelancer is different. People with "normal" jobs don't usually understand what we do, how we do it, when we do it, or why we do it. But, we do what we do, and it's not always easy. It's not consistent, it's not stable, but it's a great way to live your life if you do it right. Here are some small ways you can make it easier. They've helped me, and maybe they'll help you as well.

About a year ago I was drinking in a bar in Leicester, England. I got chatting to a gentleman who I sort of recognized from various events I'd attended in the past. After a few drinks, I discovered he owned a helicopter. At this stage, I was a bit worse for wear and thought it would be a grand idea to ask if he'd like to fly me above our hometown to take a sunset cityscape. We agreed, in our inebriated state, that this seemed like an excellent idea. So, just a few days later we met again (without beer) in a field; Me with my camera and a sickness in the pit of my stomach and him with his helicopter. We were all set for our flight.

If you didn't realize there was a massive solar eclipse yesterday across the United States, then you probably didn't spend much time on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and for all I know maybe Snapchat were buzzing about the eclipse. Photos mainly looked like a blurry tipped crescent moon on a black sky, or a photo from the inside of a viewing contraption. Some people were a bit more prepared though. Much more prepared in fact. Check out these top 10 captures from today's solar eclipse.

When I first found out a full solar eclipse was passing through Charleston, South Carolina, I marked my calendar hoping I would be able to photograph it. Today the eclipse passed through the final stretch of America, and even with a full year of forewarning, I was not prepared to photograph it at all. With only two hours before totality, I decided to take a huge gamble and aim for two unique photographs that would be done 100 percent straight out of camera. The results are pretty interesting.

One of the challenges wedding photographers encounter is how to structure pricing for their services. One common mistake is to include a free engagement session in all wedding packages. There are a few reasons why you should offer engagement sessions only as an add-on to wedding packages.

For freelance creatives, earning passive income is a great way to increase your annual profits, but getting a large library of images uploaded can be a daunting task. Plus, which agency should you use? When will you find time? The simple answer is the time is now, and the sooner you jump on, the sooner it will pay out.

My passion for photography stemmed from a series of trips I had taken overseas and a desire to capture the beauty of those places with more finesse. Landscapes were a natural draw for me and it didn’t take long to come across the concept of exposure blending.

Unless you live on another planet (or in a different country), you probably haven’t missed the announcement of the upcoming solar eclipse that will take place on Monday when the moon passes in front of the sun, casting a shadow on the United States for less than three minutes. While I am confident that the eclipse does not mark the end of the world, I will probably stay in my office catching up with accounting tasks at that time. Here is why I will miss the eclipse party.

It doesn't matter if it's a scheduled business meeting, job interview, or you're cold calling potential clients, the items you bring along with you can dramatically affect how things play out. Here's what you should be taking to each and every meeting to maximize your chances of success.