Fstoppers Original Articles

When starting with photography, it is easy to be focused entirely on the technical side of the medium. However, paying close attention to your compositions is sure to bring your images to the next level.

Modern cameras have an amazing dynamic range. It allows the capture of all the luminosities between the darkest parts and the brightest parts. If you want more, a bracketing series can go beyond that. But do we need everything within the dynamic range, or not?

Fuji recently unveiled their Instax Wide photo printer, over 20 years after the format first made its appearance. So, why has it taken Fuji so long?

"Don't turn too much. It will ruin your photo!" This is what we have all learned about circular polarizing filters in our young days as photographers when we tried to get rid of glare. But how much polarization do we need?

My preferred targets for astrophotography are what we might call transient targets. In this article, I will identify three targets I will be aiming for this winter.

Before getting into the thick of this article, there is an important distinction that needs to be addressed when discussing the coloring of images (and video, for that matter), and that’s between color correction and color grading.

One light, no studio. This quick tutorial will show you how to add a gel backlight to your portraits.

It doesn't matter what kind of photographer you are, chances are your images will benefit from being edited in some way. If you are serious about your pictures looking their best, these six key Photoshop techniques are well worth mastering.

No matter how long you’ve been involved in photography or other creative work, you’ve probably been asked to do something for someone for free, or worse, for “exposure.” Is it ever sensible to give your time without some form of tangible remuneration?

Just about every important image I publish or send to a client passes through Photoshop. It’s an essential part of my workflow, and if you’re like most photographers, I’m sure it’s a part of yours. There are, however, a number of cases where I’ve just found a significantly better tool for the job, one that’s worth paying for. Want to see why you should consider snagging these programs that beat Photoshop at their own game?

Photo contests are often very divisive. You're happy when you win and furious when your work is snubbed. They can be so subjective yet they draw people in like moths to a flame. Why?

As I am knee-deep in production this week, I thought I’d take this week’s article to share an experience outside the normal photography realm that still has lessons to teach for every small business owner.

If money is of little concern and cameras are what you're interested in, then let us guide you through the realm of exotic and super-expensive cameras.

It's time to release the fourth episode of our 8-part video tutorial series about long exposure photography, and how different filters can produce dramatic results. Remember, each time we release a new video, we also give away some awesome prizes. Read through this post to find out how to enter this week's contest.

It is quite often overlooked when it comes down to creating a stunning photograph, although it has a big impact on the composition and even on the story of an image. We are talking about the right focal length. Avoid one of the biggest traps about focal lengths and find out how to impact your composition with the right lens.

One could easily say that nothing is what it seems because our minds create a subjective representation of the world around us. With memories, this representation may be even more complex. As scientists explain, encoding a memory in the brain is a biological event that begins with a sensory experience. Every memory we have captures emotions, and colors are one of those aspects that evoke and illustrate what we feel.

I’ve recently been trying out the new On1 Photo Raw 2022 software. I tested it out on some images from a recent fall photo shoot. Being a landscape photographer and Lightroom Classic user, I discovered that there are some differences that I like and others that I don't. Here are some of my thoughts thus far.

Now that the dust has settled on Nikon's big Z 9 announcement and pundits have chewed the cud over the raft of firsts that the announcement heralded, let's pause for a moment and consider some of the reality that will undoubtedly follow this.

Becoming a successful professional photographer requires more than just being able to shoot a pretty sunset or stunning portrait. It's about how you run your business.

Why does the world need another landscape photography competition? Well, the Natural Landscape Photography Awards, the first competition of its kind, aims to promote landscape photographers who strive for realism and authenticity in their images.

Transferring images from the camera to the customer is a complex process that — depending upon your genre — will require a greater or lesser number of intermediate steps. Irrespective of who you are delivering to, you need to get photos off your camera, and this is where the fun and games start. Nikon has released NX MobileAir as another solution to fix the problem. Has it missed a beat or taken a bold step forward?

I'm a Windows user, but I fell for the hype and purchased a $3,500 M1 Macbook Pro. Will it be good enough for me to leave my custom-built desktop?

Should I upgrade or shouldn’t I upgrade? It’s an age-old question. But perhaps the first question you should ask is: “can I buy?"

Whether you’re shooting macro subjects like jewelry and flowers or landscapes on the latest high-resolution bodies, controlling depth of field can be essential. Focus stacking, where you combine multiple exposures at different focus points, can completely change the game when it comes to tricky depth of field situations. When you don’t have to worry about stopping down or picking what’s in focus, you can be even more creative. Fortunately, it’s easier than ever to properly focus stack. Check out this guide to the best field and post-production practices.

Martin Palm is a commercial photographer based in Sweden. He strives to create clean minimalist images that offer a unique point of view.

It's a universal truth: wireless connections are rubbish. How many times has your tether terminated, have your maps been massacred, was Netflix nuked, or Zoom zonked all because your Bluetooth, WiFi, or 4G connection simply dropped, died, or was otherwise incapacitated? If you want a reliable connection, then the advice is to plug it in, so how do you get raw files from the camera to the phone?

The first mass-market drones were manufactured more than a decade ago. As with anything, being over 10 years late to it can create some hurdles to entry. In this article, I will share some of my experiences as a relative latecomer to drone photography.

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?

GuruShots is a photography site that hosts "The World’s Greatest Photo Game,” In their latest challenge, they invited participants to submit their best photos of "Beach Time." There was such a great variety of seascapes and ideas incorporated into the challenge set. There were thousands of entires and millions of votes but the winners of the challenge were decided. Check out the three winners as well as hundreds of top rated images below.

The idea of commercial use permits is ubiquitous in nearly every country. If you want to perform a commercial activity in a public space, you need permission, and probably a fee, to do so.

A wedding photo booth can be one of the most entertaining and memorable activities at your wedding. They can also be a total dud and waste of money. In this video, I share my top tips for building a successful photo booth for my wedding!

In 2019, a photographer from San Francisco designed, built, and launched one of the most innovative and bizarre cameras of its kind: the Idolcam. While GoPro and DJI rely on sensor stablization and digital wizardry to create smooth footage, Idolcam does something completely different.

In a few days, Activision will launch the 18th installment of Call of Duty, returning players to the Second World War. To market the game’s new photography mode, two conflict photographers were immersed inside the virtual world and tasked with photographing it. The resulting commercial portrays mankind’s most brutal act of self-destruction as little more than a game of football.

User experience greatly affects the quality of the cameras we use. How has this changed for the new Sony a7 IV?

Announced back in June, Nikon’s first macro lenses for the Z mount appeared to be typical successors to their F mount predecessors, covering 50mm and 100mm focal lengths. The Z 105mm, as before, is a more premium choice, offering a few more features and a more choice designation. I’ve finally gotten my hands on one, and after some thorough testing, I’m ready to share my thoughts on this recent entry to the Z lineup. Whether you’re a macro specialist or Z photographer, you’ll want to check out this review.

During autumn, mushrooms are appearing everywhere. These fungi are welcome subjects for the nature photographer and it can be a challenging task to photograph mushrooms in an interesting way. I have gathered some tips that can help and for some inspiration.

In-camera special effects are a great and fun way to emphasize a story in photography. Many of these special effects that seem high production are actually quite easy to accomplish using the tools we already have or are easy to get. Today, I'll be showing you how to create one of my signature portraits, the Day vs. Night.

Nikon has just recently announced the Nikon Z 9, a flagship camera with some incredible features. The autofocus, high-resolution sensor, and overall speed might put the Nikon Z 9 ahead of the competition. However, the most curious thing about this new camera is the fact that it does not have a mechanical shutter.

If you’re reading this, the likelihood is that you’re looking for better software to treat your images. The quest to find the best photo editing software is not necessarily an easy one, but it is a necessary one. While you may change camera bodies, lenses, lights, locations, and styles, the one constant that touches all your images is the software used to develop them.

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.

With modern HDR-blending algorithms making exposure blending so quick and easy, manual exposure blending may seem like an outdated skill for landscape photographers. However, automated software doesn't always produce the cleanest results. In this article, we'll discuss a foolproof workflow for manual exposure blending that will give you total control over your images and ensure results of the highest quality. The good news is that this workflow doesn't require any third-party panels or difficult luminosity masking!

Many landscape photographers love the use of high dynamic range techniques in their landscape photos. The lightest parts are reduced in brightness, and dark parts are lifted to become near midtones. Perhaps this is not the best choice to edit a landscape photo.

We are not always fortunate to have the perfect background that matches the total vision of a shoot. The same goes for having a huge budget to build the set, which leaves a few options. Spend the time with compositions or use a printed backdrop to complete the scene. To save time, at least in my case, I opted to go with a printed backdrop for the shoot since there would be multiple images.

Artificial Intelligence is a powerful machine-learning technology that's starting to seep into our image editing workflow and it'll soon render some manual editing obsolete, but which will go first?

Nikon has finally officially announced their new flagship mirrorless camera, the Z 9. The long-rumored specs are now confirmed, and the promise of the system has exceeded expectations.

As more mirrorless camera lines are announced from the biggest manufacturers in the world, does the DSLR run risk of being put on the sidelines indefinitely?

To go big or to go small, that is the question. In today’s article, I’ll look at a handful of pros and cons of each to try and figure out which is the best approach.

Enough about the “best lenses” for this kind of photography. Let’s talk about what is practical and what works.

There are 10 Lightroom features I use more than any other, and many of you reading might not even be aware of them, as they're often hidden away or require sneaky keyboard shortcuts, so read on to find out what they are.

The iPhone 13 Pro is here, and it certainly has the best cameras of any iPhone, but how much better? And is it really worth the upgrade?