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Alex Cooke
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Articles written by Alex Cooke

Is This the Ultimate Portrait Lens?

The fight for making the best premium portrait lens normally comes down to a few properties: a short telephoto focal length, a wide aperture, stellar sharpness (even wide open), and great bokeh. This lens offers all four of those things, often in spades. Is it the ultimate option for portrait photographers? This excellent video review takes a look.

A Review of the New Viltrox AF 75mm f/1.2 XF Lens

When it comes to lenses that punch above their weight, Viltrox is quickly becoming one of the photography world's favorite manufacturers, releasing many ultra-affordable lenses that offer decent or even good performance and image quality despite those rock-bottom prices. Their latest offering, the AF 75mm f/1.2 XF, offers Fujifilm users an ultra-wide aperture paired with a useful focal length. This great video review takes a look at the new lens and the sort of image quality and performance you can expect from it in use.

A Review of the Fujifilm X-T5 Mirrorless Camera

The new Fujifilm X-T5 mirrorless camera offers some of the company's most advanced features and capabilities, all in the popular and beloved X-T style body. This excellent video review takes a look at the camera and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in usage.

The Power of Smart Collections in Lightroom

Lightroom has a wide variety of tools for organizing and finding your images, and one of the most useful features is Smart Collections. If you have not yet taken advantage of Smart Collections, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you what they are and how to take advantage of them for organizing your photos.

Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (December 2022): Boris Martinez Castillo

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 2022, 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.

10 Useful Editing Techniques in Lightroom

Many people think of Lightroom as a place for cataloging their photos and doing some light edits and Photoshop as the destination for serious post-processing, but in recent iterations, Lightroom has come a long way in its capabilities. You can now do quite a lot in the application, and this excellent video tutorial will show you 10 such techniques to take your edits furthers.

5 Reasons Why Photographers Like Sony Cameras

When it comes to choice of camera, we have more options than ever, each with an array of powerful and useful features. Sony offers some of the most capable cameras on the market. This video takes a look at Sony's offerings and discusses five reasons why they are worth shooting with.

Another Canon Camera Is on the Way

Canon has continued to plow full speed ahead with their mirrorless camera and lens development. It looks like they have no intention of slowing down either, with a new camera coming in February.

5 Helpful Tips for Better Wildlife Photos

Wildlife photography is a challenging but rewarding genre that requires a lot of solid technique and specialized knowledge in order to create compelling images. If you are new to the genre and looking to improve, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will give you five helpful tips sure to put you on the right track to better wildlife shots.

Can the Fujifilm X-T5 Keep Up With Popular Full Frame Options?

Fujifilm X-T5 and X-H2 were major steps forward for the company, offering a brand new high-resolution sensor in tandem with a range of advanced features that help them compete with a variety of full frame cameras. This excellent video review takes a look at the X-T5 and how it compares with the Sony a7 IV and Canon EOS R6 Mark II.

Important Lessons About Being a Professional Photographer

Becoming a professional photographer takes a lot more than simply being good with a camera and having creative vision. In fact, a lot of talented photographers languish as professionals because they are not prepared for the demands that come along with tying your income to your images. This excellent video tutorial features an experienced photographer discussing some of the important lessons budding professionals need to learn.

5 Things That Will Improve Your Wedding Photography Business

Wedding photography is a challenging and competitive genre, and it takes a lot of steady work and commitment to build a successful business. This excellent video tutorial features an experienced wedding photographer discussing five helpful tips that will improve your own wedding photography business.

3 Creative and Effective One-light Portrait Photography Setups

When it comes to portrait photography, you might think that you need complex multi-light setups in order to create professional images, and while these certainly have their place, you might be surprised by how much you can accomplish with just a single light. This excellent video tutorial will show you three creative and effective one-light setups for portrait photography.

A Review of the Impressive New Viltrox AF 75mm f/1.2 XF Lens

Viltrox has established themselves as a manufacturer of lenses priced at extremely competitive levels, and despite those low costs, many of their options keep pace with much more expensive offerings. Their latest lens, the AF 75mm f/1.2 XF, offers Fujifilm shooters a nice portrait focal length paired with an extremely wide maximum aperture, all at a very affordable price. This excellent video review takes a look at the lens and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.

A Review of the Venus Optics Laowa 19mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lens

Fujifilm's GFX series of mirrorless cameras have made medium format more affordable and accessible than ever, but lenses for the GF mount remain fairly expensive. That is why, at $999, the Venus Optics Laowa 19mm f/2.8 Zero-D is a particularly intriguing option, especially when paired with its extra-wide focal length and maximum aperture. This excellent video review takes a look at the new lens and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.

This Forgotten Canon Lens Provides Professional Results for Just $300

Canon's L series lenses are legendary, known for rugged construction, reliable performance, and class-leading image quality. With all that comes high prices, however. Nonetheless, the L series has been around for over 30 years, and that means there are some gems from past years that cost a fraction of what the most current models do. This great video review takes a look at one such lens, the EF 20-35mm f/2.8L.

Why Mistakes Are Such an Important Part of the Photography Process

When you are new to photography, it can feel like professionals know exactly what they want and how to achieve it, but that is how social media can be quite misleading. The truth is that professionals make mistakes all the time; in fact, they embrace them. This excellent video tutorial will take you behind the scenes of a photographer's portrait lighting process and show you how mistakes can lead you to a great final image.

5 Lessons Learned From a Decade of Street Photography

Street photography is a challenging genre that requires confidence, solid technique, and fast instincts. If you are new to street work and looking to improve, check out this helpful video tutorial that features an experienced street photographer discussing five important lessons he has learned after a decade of work.

Proof That Almost Anywhere Can Be a Photo Studio

Of course, it would all be great if every portrait photographer could afford their own studio, but that simply is not feasible for most of us. That being said, you would be surprised how little space you need to make creative, compelling, and professional portraits. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to light and shoot portraits in a small hallway.