Fstoppers Original Articles

A few weeks ago I published an article here on Fstoppers about handheld focus stacking. In this article I share my in-the-field workflow, as well as the automatic stacking option Photoshop offers to put all images together during photo editing. This option has its limitations though and because I lately had to work on some very complex stacks, I had to look for a better solution. And with Helicon Focus I found it.

I didn't ever intend to be a professional photographer, I didn't even intend to be a part-time photographer. Nevertheless, I am approaching 10 years of making money from my camera, and I took the time to write down some key lessons and takeaways.

The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2021, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.

When starting out in photography, we get busy trying to understand the basics: shutter speed, aperture, composition, etc. As we progress, we start to care about much subtler things, such as color reproduction, sharpness, and, of course, color accuracy. But is color accuracy just a myth? Let’s find out.

I have had an Instagram for a while now. Having tailored my account to photography, Instagram has been the backbone for my social media presence. But I, as well as most creators, don't like using it. We still do, though.

Technology moves quickly, and it only takes a few generations for there to feel like a profound divide between age groups. What do you think the next generation will not know about the photography of today or will be surprised by?

March brings the Spring equinox, hope for improved weather, and the possibility of a marathon road trip through the sky via the Messier list of astronomical objects. Note: it’s not supposed to be a “messy” list.

Photos are, at their essence, about acting as a witness to a feeling or emotion. Neal Treadwell and Hugh Nini's accidental collection, 100 Years of Men in Love, is a witness to love and hope. Showing on HereTV, David Millbern's documentary about Nini and Treadwell's collection is well worth the 60 minute investment.

Whether you are just starting your journey or are a seasoned veteran, allowing yourself to fail can be difficult as an artist. Yet, it continues to be the absolute best way to improve your work.

Everyone knows that photographing small children is extremely challenging. But you haven’t lived until you’ve attempted to photograph your kids.

It’s important to have a subject in your photo. Without a subject, a photo may be less interesting to look at. Sometimes, the subject is easy to spot, but at other times, it might be more difficult. You can get some help from Lightroom to check if your photo has a subject.

Do you consider yourself a successful photographer? Is that something you want to be? How do you even measure that? There are certain things that all top photographers have, whether as amateurs or professionals. The Canon R5 isn’t one of them.

As a photographer, you inevitably meet a lot of other photographers in the industry. As much as I am not a fan of putting anyone in a box, it is still lots of fun and can make for some great jokes. In this article, I will do just that: list the seven most common photographer types I met.

Have you ever struggled with getting creative in your photography, but whatever you have tried, it didn’t solve the problem? Artists think in a very special way. Knowing how can massively change your photography.

There are many staple lenses in portrait photography that are recommended to beginners and professionals alike. However, there is something of an unsung hero lurking in a different genre entirely that could complement your gear arsenal perfectly.

I've had a lot of Macs over the years. I remember the old PowerPC Macs, which performed OK against Intel-based PCs, but did have some heat issues under heavy loads. I went along with the transition to Intel in the Mid 2000s, and had a Mac Pro Intel-based machine, which replaced my identical-looking PowerMac G5. That served me well for many years because it was so upgradeable, but eventually, that machine no longer supported the latest versions of macOS, so reluctantly I bought an iMac in 2019, sporting a 3.6GHZ 8-CORE INTEL CORE I9 chip, and 8GB of memory. Like many...

You can only be profitable as a photographer if you have clients. Clients are the good and bad about being an artist. On one hand, you are paid to do what you love, but on the other, they usually don’t care about the same stuff you care about. In this article, I will tell you exactly what your clients want from you.

Portrait photography is one of the biggest genres in the industry. It's also one of the most competitive types of photography. If you plan on staying ahead of the competition, then having a great workflow will drastically improve your performance.

Photography may seem like a very glamorous career. The entry point is very low, and you can start with 0 investment: just use your phone. However, as you progress further and further, you may encounter that there are several things you didn't expect photographers to do. In this article, I will go through some of those.

Our reasons for finding our way behind the lens of a camera are as various as the courses we choose to take with our lives. Here are just a few of mine.

I love when a plan works in landscape photography and this was the way I was doing for more than 30 years now: planning and going to the spot, for "harvesting" the photographs. This led to fantastic results though, but there is one more way to get outstanding photographs, you had maybe never thought about before.

I picked up a Fujifilm X-T4 about five months ago to use primarily as a backup camera and for street photography, video, and family use. Although I shoot with a Canon system in my studio, I fell in love with Fuji’s cameras years ago when I acquired an X-Pro1 and a few X lenses. In this article, I offer a friendly critique and some suggestions for Fuji to improve an already great camera system.

It happened again. My DSLR has failed on set. While being used to it and calling in for repairs right away, I caught myself thinking whether the time has come to buy a mirrorless. Here are some points that I brought up while having this debate with myself.

Growing a business can seem like a nebulous task. It can feel like there are too many ways to do it, with each way being a crap-shoot. Before I made the switch to being a commercial food photographer, I ran a successful marketing agency. Let me share with you some tips to reach your ideal client and grow your business.

With the release of Apple’s new Studio Display, the new creative standard may be here. Are the specs and price good enough?

Given the number of big name photographers and huge brands jumping on board the NFT bandwagon, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the plethora of problems surrounding the NFT market had evaporated. You’d be wrong. NFTs are a still terrible idea, riddled with problems.

Have you experienced photographing the wonders of the edges of land? Here is a guide to different approaches to seascapes and how to capture them.

Photography is an art, and like all art forms, seven basic elements comprise our images. Although, I challenge that number, I think there are eight. Understanding these elements helps us to take our creativity to the next level.

If you search the internet, you will find a lot of landscape photos that include a human element. Often, a person will be in the frame, sometimes the photographer themselves. In this article, I want to take a closer look at the reason why you should sometimes use a human element in your landscape photo.

Retouching photos is as much an art as a skill, and portrait photographers must understand the proper way to retouch images, even if they prefer to have a retoucher do this work for them. Although there are a variety of ways to retouch an image, using frequency separation is the most common method and is considered one of the best. In this article and the accompanying video, I detail the process I use to retouch my headshots and portrait work.

Is there anything finer than a monochrome silver gelatin print shot on film? Should we even attempt getting close to that with digital? Black and white are either misused or underused in many genres, and it’s time for a change.

Jordan Blake is a black artist originally from Nigeria. He has lived in Baltimore, USA for several years. After finishing college, he made the move to New York to better figure out and explore who he is and what type of images he wants to create. Of course, it doesn’t go unnoticed that New York also offers greater opportunities for collaboration and sharing of work.

Covering the world’s greatest athletes at the Olympic Games is nothing more than a dream for many photographers. For Getty Images’ Bruce Bennett, photographing the Olympics is just another day at the office. I spoke with Bruce about his experience covering hockey at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.

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

"Chimping" is a term used by some photographers to describe the habit of other photographers who they deem to be looking at their rear LCD screen on the camera too much. But the information on the back of your camera can be really useful, especially if you are someone just starting. Here is my argument for chimping and some ways you can use your LCD screen effectively.

Have you ever had to sort through a box of photos, perhaps from your parents’ collection of vacation photos? An all too common question is: “When was this photo taken?”

There is a lot of advice on what gear you should buy in 2022. But, if you look beyond the marketing of companies, is there gear that you probably don’t need in 2022? The answer is, yes, there is a lot of gear you don’t need. Here are my top picks on what you should not get.

These are six of the most common mistakes I see photographers make in their editing regardless of skill level. This part will cover white balance, getting caught up in your histogram, and not spending enough time cropping.

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?

You have checked the weather maps, you have a clear idea of what you could photograph to get a masterpiece, and then, things are different, and you have no idea what to photograph? That’s fantastic, because this is the best starting point to become a better photographer.

If you like shooting your muse in a night-like environment, you might run into some difficulties. With flash, it is also possible to create the night during daylight. This way, it becomes much easier to shoot your muse, without all the difficulties you encounter while shooting in the dark. On top of that, it isn’t difficult at all.

These are six of the most common mistakes I see photographers make in their editing regardless of skill level. This part will cover how heavy your edit should be, controlling your saturation, and fixing halos in your images.

What essential tools have you always wanted to mount onto your camera setup?

DJI’s Mavic 3 is an amazing drone, but DJI’s pricing for their filters isn’t so amazing. Fortunately, companies like PGYTECH have made a range of filters compatible with the Mavic 3’s unique mount and camera setup. Are they worth pairing with the high-performance camera the drone is equipped with? I put PGYTECH’s Mavic 3 filter series to the test in this review.

As a photographer, it is easy to get bogged down in creativity, without really thinking about how effective your process is. As time is the most valuable resource that you have, you need to use it most efficiently. In this article, I will break down a few tips that helped me become a productivity master.

As landscape photographers, we are used to leaving our warm bed in the early morning, being on location, and also having a composition before the sun starts to rise. But what if we arrive after the sun has come up? Is there still a way to go home with strong photographs?

I own a ton of photo and video gear, but if I had to keep only what I could fit in a single backpack, this is what I would choose.

A week into the war, many start to ask about the long-term impacts of the war. As a Ukrainian-born writer with family and friends in Ukraine, I am keeping a very close eye on the news surrounding the war. A war on such a grand scale will have a profound impact on most industries, photography included. Here is my analysis of how this war will echo in photography.

I have been using a square filter system for many years. It proved to be a flexible system that allows one filter to fit on every lens I own. A magnetic filter system is a great alternative, though. I tried both during my recent travels over Lofoten, Norway and I want to share my experiences.

Apple just held their Peek Performance event. How does the newly announced Apple Hardware compare to the existing lineup and the competition? What does the future hold for creatives using Apple hardware?