Fstoppers Original Articles

The eclipse is coming. You know the one — it’s been the topic on most photographers’ lips for weeks. Have you thought about how you’re going to shoot it yet? On August 21, 2017 (this coming Monday), North America and some parts of South America, Africa, and Europe will get to experience one of the most spectacular sights available to us down here on earth: a solar eclipse.

Packing for a shoot in your town can be a pain, but packing for an extended shoot in another country brings a whole new set of complications into consideration. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of extended trips for my personal project “Tattoos of Asia.” Over the few trips that I’ve done, I’ve managed to pare down my kit to what I absolutely need. It has been a long process, but I’ve learned quite a bit, and I’d like to share that with you as I prepare my kit for my upcoming India trip.

"Which camera should I buy?" This is one of the most common questions I hear. Whether the question comes from an aspiring indie filmmaker, a television production student, or a parent wanting to capture some memories of their children, the answer is never that simple. It’s the equivalent of someone asking what kind of car they should buy. Do you want to carry your kids to soccer practice? Drift around tight corners in a parking garage? Save on fuel costs? The point is that this question leads to more questions. Here are a few things to ask when you’re deciding on a new camera.

After the release of the new DJI Spark and its ability to fly without a remote, it is believed that DJI has the technology for anybody to fly. Steve Kampff and I decided to put this concept to the test comparing DJI's Intelligent Flight Modes to the Manual Capabilities of the user. In this video, we see that flying can be pretty challenging, but DJI definitely steps up to the plate allowing users to achieve more complex shots with little to no skill or experience.

I find it interesting how often I see new photographers make the exact same editing mistakes I made when I started out. Every photographer who has at least a few years of experience can look back at some of their first sessions and find a number of things that they continually did wrong. I recently took a look at some sessions from my first year of photography, as well as asking a few other photographers to do the same, and continually found the same common issues.

Instagram has been a strong tool for many photographers and creatives around the world for nearly seven years, but many still get confused by all the small details you sign yourself up for. The terms of service for many social platforms are a daunting and simple to bypass when clicking to sign on for the first time. Take this as a simple reminder: you want to make sure to at least read through the major bullet points before joining any social platform, as you are signing yourself up for a lot more than you think. Control of who you follow and unfollow could be one of those things you bypass.

It's been several years since I first had the chance to visit Yellowstone National Park, but I can honestly say that it was an incredible experience throughout and I can't wait to go back. The trip to the national park was honestly a game-changing experience for me and how I approach my own landscape photography. I learned so much on that trip, not necessarily about my gear, but about what to shoot and how to capture it in a way that would help me really remember what it was like to see things in person.

I often get asked about my lighting setup for wedding receptions. Receptions can be an unruly beast to light properly without good equipment. You never know what you’re getting into with things like ceilings, available light, and even the white balancing nightmare of the DJ’s LED light system. Don’t assume that these setups are going to make you a better photographer over night.

In person sales (IPS) have been a part of the photography process for years. With the onset of digital, it died down a bit, much to the disservice of both photographers (who are missing out on sales) and clients (who are missing out on memories). Thankfully, it's started to make a comeback, along with the value of printing images instead of just letting them live in the digital world.

Darkness is one of the most difficult situations to work with. Cameras have come a long way towards improved performance in low light but no light is an entirely different can of worms. Unless your goal is to create more ISO snow than Christmas in Alaska you need to introduce light. Flash is great at pouring some much-needed illumination into the frame but it isn't so great at making sure that your camera is in focus when you do so. Even the best autofocus system in the world continue to struggle in the darkness so, as photographers, it is our job to stack the deck in our favor by leveraging strategy to give our focusing systems a leg up.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail," but then again Franklin wasn't a photographer. Photoshoots with humans, animals, or even some objects are dynamic and even active situations that are at the same time part inspiration and part performance. Finding the right balance between planning and improvisation can help take your photography to the next level.

Photography is not only a creative outlet for the photographer, but it also can provide healing to your clients. Most boudoir sessions are sought after in order to gain confidence, many family sessions are there to capture generations for preservation, and even underwater sessions can provide a healing to clients who are in need of the surreal emotions that come with being submerged.

DaVinci Resolve is a fantastic tool and has everything most videographers need to create perfect looking videos. However, the playback can be a bit slow and thus make the whole workflow a pain. But there is a one-click solution that will make your life much better. When I found out about it, my editing process became much faster.

If you’re making a film, obviously the focus needs to be on the story. It seems that’s become the popular counter to a lot of debates about the fine-tuning of an image. While Roger Deakin’s mentality of “the type of camera doesn’t matter” can hold true on most levels, if we’re going to take ourselves seriously as creatives we need to be actively making decisions about how and why we create. Why do you choose this over that? And how does it affect story? One of the most important decisions you make as a director of photography or cinematographer is about lenses.

Shooting live music appears to polarise photographers, with some enjoying it and some disliking the lack of creative control. While it isn't my favourite genre to put my camera to work, I do get some satisfaction from the atmosphere, unusual lighting, and singular poses. I noticed, however, that I had a bad habit: I didn't move very much and simply reframed the images using different focal lengths of my 70-200mm. So I decided to take a risk.

Recently as I was looking into some backlink research on Google, I realized that one of the first links that comes up when searching for my business is my Yelp business page. This isn't surprising. Yelp is an established business and has an established website with high domain authority, of course it's going to rank well within search engines. What was surprising, however, was how the title of the link read, "The Amberlight Collective - CLOSED."

You may have heard Morten Rustad’s name being bandied about alongside words like “time-lapse,” “Norway,” and “that’s-so-fricken-cool.” That last one might not be an actual word, but you catch my drift. Morten’s pretty good at what he does, and he’s teamed up with film equipment company Syrp to let you in on how he does it.

Singapore Airlines' latest safety video mixes the regular safety video you'll see just before take-off with the dream of exploring Singapore. It's beautifully executed and shows how they'll push barriers to give you the travel experience you desire. Why is this important? Because it shows that the travel industry is really getting creative with their approach, and they are pushing the boundaries of just what's needed to evoke that curiosity and excitement of travel.

“A picture is worth a thousand words”, so goes the idiom.They can recall memories so profound; the song on the radio, the light in the room, or the laughter that surrounded you.They can make you feel the joy that was in your heart all over again in an instant. If I close my eyes, I can transport to the very spot where I felt truly alive. I can recall the smile spread across my face when I took a moment to look at the image I had just captured. I’m enthralled with my memories and photos as much as I was the day I was there. As I gazed down Tunnel View at Yosemite National Park, I truly found my paradise.

There are many paths in professional photography. I have gone down the route of commercial photography, and whilst I am nowhere near where I want to be in professionally, I thought I’d share a few points that can go a long way to making it as a professional commercial photographer.

The idea of discounting our work is something most of us don’t even want to consider. We’ve spent a ton of time honing our skills and have more invested into our work than the consumer can possibly understand. That’s why mini-sessions are perfect — if you have the time.

We often aim to capture great expressions when cueing and posing subjects, but we sometimes overlook basic elements that may distract our viewers. In particular, natural pointers like our arms, hands, fingers, legs, and feet command a strong presence within images, but we don’t always recognize the power of their presence in the moment. While we surrender some control during truly candid moments, we should make every part of an image purposeful and keep natural pointers in check when posing.

It's important to remember that we are here to analyze and understand, but not be overly critical. While these tips/techniques are great in understanding the visual weight and posing elements within an image, they are not reasons to throw out what would otherwise be a great photograph.

Sharing your content is probably one of the best and fastest way to grow a community and a base of potential customers. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media platforms are some of the most common places to start pushing out pictures to the largest amount of people possible. However, when you get into video, you soon realize that sometimes things get a bit trickier. One of the issues I recently encountered was when sharing a YouTube video on Facebook, the thumbnail simply wouldn’t appear. In this article, I’ll show you how to solve this problem and what to do to avoid it in the future.

Most of the successful photographers and videographers that I know are effective at constructing a plan and making it a reality. And for the most part, this works, and when it doesn’t they usually have a backup plan. This is the base expectation for most people that have actually put time into developing their career. If you've worked long enough, you know that the odds are pretty great that things won’t go exactly as planned, so you prepare for that. But what I find is overlooked so often is not necessarily the forethought to make a Plan B but the forethought to consider how you will handle yourself when things inevitably go wrong.

It's a huge risk to not ask the right questions before giving a prospective client a price. Not only does it make you look like an amateur, but you could end up agreeing to a job which really isn't worth the time or money. Here's what you should be asking when someone wants to know how much it will cost to hire you.

There are many things that go into the final mood of an image. My intention was to have a California-like warm sun with a heading-to-the-beach kind of feel for this car photo. The challenge was that I had to shoot it in the high desert. We have pine trees and some lakes, but the ocean is far away. So we found a windy road heading down to one of the small lakes and planned out our session.

The rumor mill is going strong with the potential release of the Phantom 5. Forum experts and unverifiable sources estimate that DJI will announce the new version of its best seller drone sometime in September of this year. Due to the lack of official information, we can only speculate at this point. However, we can analyze DJI's past strategy and actual technological development to estimate the possible specifications and features that may end up in the Phantom 5.

Photographer Tony Ross and Designer Nephi Garcia imagined what Disney princesses would look like as fully grown queens, and the concept resulted in this wonderful series that captures the imagination and unites daughters and mothers and mother-in-laws. Check out the final images and go behind the scenes of this Disney-themed shoot.

ACDSee Video Studio 2 is a software specially designed for those looking either for a simple video editing tool or a way to record their screen and create content out of it. In my recent review, I mentioned a couple of times how effortless the process is. However, I thought it only be wise to show you through an example how it works and how simple the app truly is. People just getting started in the video world or those of you looking for a way to record and edit educational content, be sure to read the full article.

There seems to be a surprising amount of contention relating to whether or not you should watermark your images. Some people are adamant that yes, you absolutely need to put your stamp, so to speak, on images that you're putting out there online. Other people feel that a watermark is tacky, or that somehow it's presence cheapens the quality of the image that it has been applied to. As I have found with most things in life, context is king when it comes to watermarks.

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.

Have you ever had that gut-wrenching feeling of being defeated after a wedding reception? Let’s be real, it happens. There comes a point where photographing wedding receptions get so frustrating that you either dive deep into off-camera lighting, or you get out of shooting weddings altogether. I can relate 100%. Despite the terrible lighting, there are a couple ways to pull this off without just turning all the lights on in the building and compromising the receptions atmosphere. These are a few of the ways I light a wedding reception.

Over the years of using my personal set of studio lights, I've found I've become increasingly frustrated with the growing cost of equipment such as softboxes and scrims. While these are necessary when shooting in a studio, I couldn't justify spending all that money for a massive softbox when it's actually quite easy to build one yourself. All it takes is a bit of time and effort, but once you're done, you're left with a solid sense of achievement and a light modifier that has a lot to offer.

After about two years of doing aerial photography, I have decided that I will share one of my little secrets for finding a location to shoot. A lot of people tell me that my aerials are really cool, but not too many ask how I find these places. It is funny to answer and say I use Google Maps, but honestly that is the truth and it's the one and only thing I really use when looking for something new to photograph with my drone.

In part two of our Micro Four-Thirds lens guide, we focus on some of the best telephoto lens options. The 2x crop factor of this format offers photographers and videographers some seriously impressive reach which is compact and affordable compared to full-frame alternatives.

Humidity, sunlight, water, and most of all, time, are just some of the culprits in the damage most printed photographs will endure. However these memories of loved ones do not need to be thrown away or thought to be unrepairable. A few layers in the digital world can bring it back for your clients.

Multimedia professionals rely on solid tools to get the job done, and those tools have typically been Apple’s Mac lineup. But as Apple shifts its focus more to its MacBooks and iPhones, it’s neglected a tiny, but important product: the Mac mini.

After every trip I go on, I always end up with a favorite image. Maybe it’s the one with the best story, or the one that was the hardest to get, or the one with the nicest person I met on the journey. In 2014 I headed to Bolivia to shoot a wedding, and a few weeks later found myself wandering around on an island in Lake Titicaca. And there, my favorite image of the trip was born.

Ah, the Internet. I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet. On one hand, I view it as my own personal world of opportunity providing me with free education, marketing, and entertainment. On the other hand, I view the Internet as a cold dark place full of criticism. But alas, I think of myself as a weenie. As a person, I’m emotionally driven rather than logically driven. It can be one of my greatest weaknesses, and sometimes one of my greatest strengths.

As photographers, we often pour endless hours into every possible method of learning to become better through the study of our craft, practice, and an ever increasing collection of supposedly quality redefining gear. In this dogged pursuit of photographic excellence, we often forget about the far more simple aspects of our lives that can have a tremendously profound impact on the quality of our work. By forcing ourselves to take a step back and focus on the foundational aspects of our selves that allow us to maximize our performance, regardless of the task, we are able to expand the potential of our work to new levels.

When people talk about finding their “voice,” you might get the impression they looked down one day and there it was — lying on the ground, fully formed and functional, just waiting to be used. In my experience, though, finding your voice is more about hard work. And time. Lots of time. Our voices are built, not found. It seemingly takes forever. A decade or more. And here’s the frustrating thing: you can’t rush it. There are no shortcuts to finding your voice. You have to go the long way — slowly accumulating influences, trying on different styles, finding a voice that feels natural — and then refine it slowly, project after project, year after year. The good news is that while there isn’t a shortcut, there is a path.

Getting to “yes.” It is the story of our lives. Whether pitching a client a new idea or nervously asking the woman you met at the corner store for a date, that sweet little three letter word can be pure music to our ears. But as we progress in life and the choices become more complicated, we realize that the questions themselves aren’t always so black and white. And, sometimes, our three letter friend isn’t always the right answer.

Living in the live music capital of Texas, there is no shortage of opportunities to experience incredible shows while taking some memorable shots. Capturing the excitement can be tricky, however, as dim lighting and moving subjects don’t usually play well together. Here are some tips for making the most of your next concert.

Adam Hamwey has all the skills a videographer ought to living and working in New York City. However he doesn’t work for a production house, or in a marketing department — he follows somebody around all day and vlogs for them. That’s right, he’s the personal camera crew for one John Henry, a young entrepreneur based out of NYC.

Careful selection is the first and most important step in our creation process that is often left out of conversation. Nearly every client I photograph asks me "How do you choose?" It's actually a great question. After perfecting this process, I guarantee your solid and confident answer will blow their mind.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from the website-building company, Wix, asking if anyone at Fstoppers wanted to be a part of a zero-gravity photoshoot. Um, yes please.

Photographer Monica Jane Frisell has spent the last four months living out of a renovated 1988 Toyota Seabreeze, traveling across the United States with her scrappy terrier Lou and a Zone VI 4x5 camera for her project “Looking Forward/Portraits from an RV.” I caught up with her to talk about the project, life on the road, and the process of shooting large format film.

I am sure most of us look back on our lives and think, “You stupid idiot, what on earth possessed you to do/think/try that?” I am certainly no exception to this, especially in the professional arena. During my early years as a photographer, I made a heap of mistakes and I worried about all the wrong things.

One reason why I gravitate to photographing pets and children is that their unpredictable nature lends to capturing more genuine images that portray their true personalities. In my experience, the parents’ favorite portraits of their children are the candid photos in which the children are completely unaware of the camera and can just be themselves. Here are a few tips on how to create better candid imagery of kids.

Since moving into my new house about a month ago, I've been thinking more and more about creating my own studio setup using as little resources as possible. As much as I'd love to own a huge Profoto Octa in my house, it's just not always possible. So why not build your own lighting rigs using equipment readily available at your nearest hardware store?