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JT Blenker
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Articles written by JT Blenker

The Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III: An Eight-Year-Old Lens With New Paint?

Canon has announced their new top-tier 70-200mm telephoto lenses. The EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III and the EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II are finally here with their predecessors receiving updates eight and twelve years apart, respectively, but is the new flagship 70-200mm f/2.8 just a paint job?

Creating Panoramas With and Without a Tripod

If you’ve gone hiking out into pristine wilderness or to the tops of a mountain, bringing a tripod may not be at the right up there on your list of essentials. What do you do if you want to capture the beauty of the landscape in front of you, but also want a visually compelling image that is wider than any lens you may have?

The Megapixel Race: Why It (Mostly) Doesn't Matter

Do you really need all those megapixels in that shiny just-released camera, or is your current 20-something-megapixel camera still just as good as the day you bought it? Let's talk a little about why the megapixel race is great for some photographers and might not even matter for others.

Lights, Camera, Action: Why I’m Sticking with Speedlites

When looking at lighting, you have a lot of choices with companies like Profoto, Broncolor, Elinchrom, Paul C. Buff, Godox, and others. Have you asked yourself if the lights from those companies fit how and where you shoot? Does it makes sense to buy that $2,000 strobe or would a couple cheap speedlites achieve your vision?

Why Do You Suck at the Business of Photography?

As creatives, we tend to live our passions with every fiber of our being and eventually, some of us try to make money at this thing we once saw as an all-encompassing hobby, but what happens when you really try to make your passion a profession? Are you trying to make your photography a business or are you in the business of photography?

Michael Shainblum's New Time-Lapse: Glimpse of Cinque Terre

Michael Shainblum has been creating jaw dropping and memorable time-lapses for years and he has just released a new video centered on the Italian coast of Cinque Terre. Glimpse of Cinque Terre is a beautiful time-lapse that showcases the area and spans several scenes of day moving into night while capturing the surreal coast.

Is Compositing Nightscape Imagery Cheating?

When creating imagery of any night landscape, you are taking your camera and the other equipment you own and pushing them to their limits. With that in mind, should photographers be upset when their favorite imagery is put together in post?

What to Do When Your Photography Plans Don't Work Out

Being a landscape photographer means that the most meticulous or sometimes frivolous thing we do is pre-plan. Sometimes, these plans are our way to take the chance of making a mistake or they're so we walk away with what our mind has already created but our camera hasn’t captured. What happens when our planning doesn't work?

Filmmakers: Use Your RED Camera for Time-Lapses

You’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on a fantastic camera body that outputs 5K or 8K imagery, but the film you’re working on requires some time-lapse b-roll for transitions. Instead of breaking out that DSLR, you can set up your RED camera to shoot that time-lapse and use the near same post-processing as you would for the filmed imagery you are currently capturing.

Raising the Bar With Long Exposure Landscape Photography

Long exposure photography has a special place in my heart and arguably has been where I spend most of my time when creating landscapes as it allows a greater amount of control over a sometimes chaotic scene. Adam Karnacz from First Man Photography expresses similar sentiments and explains some great tips for photographers interested in expanding their creative options by adding long exposure photography to their landscape arsenal.

Lens Review: Samyang XP 50mm f/1.2 Lens

Last month, Samyang announced the XP 50mm f/1.2, adding to its lens lineup of premium glass for the high-megapixel cameras of today. There haven’t been any real-world examples of this prime Canon-only lens being used in the field until now.

Now or Never: Protect Your Rights With the CASE Act

It’s time to get involved in protecting your copyrights if you’re a photographer based in the USA. The H.R. 3945 CASE Act is a piece of legislation that has been winding its way through Congress since October 2017, and it would allow photographers to better protect and defend their copyrights, but it needs your help!

Printing Your Photos: A Workflow Start to Finish

Are you starting to print your photography? Are you looking to sell prints for the fans of your work? This new video gives a great rundown of colorimetry, papers, and the value of the print.

Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 Lens Review

Last month when Samyang announced the AF 14mm f/2.8 lens, it came as a delightful surprise to see one of the affordable third-party lens manufacturers finally adding autofocus to their Canon offerings at a much lower cost than the Canon 14mm f/2.8L II lens. So how does the new Samyang 14mm lens stack up?

Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG HSM Art Lens Coming Soon [Rumor]

Several rumor sites are reporting the same release coming from Sigma in the coming weeks: a new, fast ultra-wide zoom that may compete with Nikon’s legendary 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. Will this be a favorite of astrophotographers in 2018?

Zion Responds to Photography Workshops: Tripods Will Be Allowed on Some Trails for 2018

Two weeks ago I wrote an article concerning Zion National Park's even stricter guidelines for their commercial use authorization permits for photography workshops operating within the park and this spurred a great deal of debate in the photographic community as well as among other professional photographers operating out of the park. Many photographers were upset at the changes to not allow tripods on trails while others were confused as Zion had explicitly stated photography on a tripod was allowed in these areas. Zion National Park has finally officially responded to the concerns in the new CUA.

How to Find Your Landscape Photography Style

One of the toughest personal self-searching processes a photographer will go through is defining their style. Many of us will latch on to a composition or a color palette, sometimes by accident, that isn't really defining but is a part of our learning process as photographers. Eventually we learn what we like or value in a photograph and as we create, this becomes our style. But, can you define your style and explain it to someone else or even yourself?

No Tripods Allowed: Zion National Park’s New Rules for Photography Workshops

For landscape photographers, a tripod is essential tool for creating those amazing photos showing the movement of rivers and streams. When the dynamic range of a composition is in the double digits, a sturdy tripod will help to blend bracketed images in post. Also, for those who want to create incredibly large panoramas or nighttime imagery, the tool kit begins with an excellent tripod. Zion National Park has become even more restrictive for 2018 and removed the ability for photographers in workshops from using any tripods on any trails within the park.

Rokinon's New 14mm f/2.8 Lens Now Has Autofocus

Rokinon is adding to their line up once again with a new lens design that may delight many photographers.The Rokinon AF 14mm f/2.8 lens looks to be designed in the new style the lens family has adopted the past year. This new lens added to the lineup will hopefully impress not only the daytime shooters, but also the nighttime astrophotographers that have leaned on Rokinon lenses for Milky Way and wide-angle night sky imagery over the past few years.