Magmod has become a household name in the strobist community. Their easy to attach modifiers that hold strong to your flashes through the use of magnets have quickly become the go-to modifier for a lot of professionals. Their newest release goes by the name of Magbeam and is a Fresnel lens light modifier that packs some tricks up its sleeve.
Jianmin Huang is a fashion and street photographer born in village in China. He can now be found chasing moments throughout the streets of Amsterdam, which has earned him the nickname of Jimmy on the Run. In this seven minute video portrait, we learn how he got his start, what his aspiration as a photographer are, and about his struggles to earn the respect of his family.
It happens at basically every wedding I shoot. I walk into the room to start taking images of the bride getting ready, and the bride offers me a mimosa. After I leave to take images of the guys getting ready, I walk in and the groom offers me a beer. Then, the ceremony is about to start, and a groomsman offers me a shot out of the flask he has in his jacket. Lastly, we are at the reception and both sets of parents and the entire wedding party are offering drinks. I have to assume that most wedding photographers are faced with at least one of these events at every job. So, the question is: do you accept?
HoldFast is known throughout the photography community for their amazing and well-made dual camera straps. What most people don't realize is that they also have a camera bag. The Roamographer bag has the same attention to detail as their straps and is also constructed out of the same great-looking leather. It's designed to look like a vintage doctor's bag and provides both style and function.
Flatland is a project created by the Turkish photographer Aydın Büyüktaş. These images resemble scenes from the hit movie Inception, where the city seamlessly curves upward into the sky. Each image takes months of planning, and because of the complex scenery, Aydin must constantly reshoot locations in order to get the perfect alignment.
When talking about the differences between full-frame cameras and crop sensors, one of the biggest arguments in favor of full-frame sensors is the ability to produce images with a shallower depth of field. This was always my understanding of the subject as well. But after watching this video, I have seen the error of my ways. As it turns out, if all the variables are the same and the only thing changing is sensor size, the smaller the sensor, the shallower your depth of field.
Since its release, the Nikon D750 has been praised as one of the best full frame cameras that money can buy. It has features that outperform cameras that are twice the price. One of the little frustrating elements of this camera though, that I still see being discussed to this day, is the finicky hot shoe.
As a wedding photographer, the ability to upload multiple cards at one time has always been intriguing for me. The problem has always been that the price for these multi-card readers have always been a little steep in price. But with this DIY enclosure, it seems to be a little easier and cheaper than I thought.
More and more companies are incorporating Wi-Fi into their cameras in an effort to make it easy to download and share images without the need to upload to a computer. The apps from camera manufacturers also allow you to remotely trigger the camera from your phone and see what you are taking a picture of before you trip the shutter. The problem here is that if you want to change any camera settings, you need to physically make these changes on the camera. Enter the Case Remote Plus. This device promises to give full access to camera settings, live view, shutter release and a host of other added functionalities that may not even be available on your camera.
One of the more popular styles on Instagram is urban photography that sports a high contrast look with some desaturated colors. When trying to reproduce this look though, a lot of people run into problems. When adding contrast to an image, oftentimes the colors become more saturated, which is the opposite of what is needed for this look. When you try and use the saturation slider to fix the problem, you end up taking out some of the color that you need for the image.
When talking about bokeh, the majority of the photography community instantly thinks of those nice creamy out of focus backgrounds. This is because most of the photographs we see only involve a subject and a background. Once you start to incorporate foreground elements though, you will quickly see that bokeh in front of the subject can be just as important and impactful as having bokeh behind the subject.
Over the years, camera companies have been going head to head in the battle for the best camera sensor. This battle has always focused around the amount of megapixels a camera has to offer, and as of lately, how high the ISO can go. Because of this most consumers, including a significant amount of photography veterans, think that megapixel count is the end-all be-all of sensor technology, with ISO following up as a close second. At this point in the game though, I wish the sensor battle would switch gears and focus more on the dynamic range.
I love taking ring shots. I usually take them during a slow time on the wedding day when there isn’t a lot going on. I have full control of where I put the ring, how I light it, how I pose it, and how I frame it. This leaves a ton of options to really get creative. So it confuses me when people just place the ring on a bouquet of flowers and call it done. These shots are not bad, but they are average. I already did an article on how to get away from the average ring shot, but I didn’t explain how to take one of my favorite ring shots. The ring silhouette.
Photo editing is something that is completely subjective and depends on the personal preference of the editor. Pretty much everyone knows this, but despite this fact, people are always interested in how popular photographers get their final results. In this video, we not only get to see how Conner Franta goes about taking his images, but we also get to see which apps he uses to achieve the final result.
Periscope is a social media app that turns your life into a live broadcast. Instead of updating your Facebook status or sending a tweet, with this app, you start a live broadcast similar to any live broadcast you see on TV. The difference is that you get live interaction with the people that are tuning in to watch you. Now that the app is available on both Android and iOS, it’s starting to pick up some steam, and like any social media platform, it’s good to get in on the ground floor. Before you do, I have a list of positives and negative you may want to consider.
Adam Elmakias is one of the most popular concert photographers in the world. Most known for his work with punk-style bands and touring with the Vans Warped Tour, he has a bigger following then a lot of the bands he works with. In this point-of-view video, we get to see how Elmakias shoots an entire show while he talks about his thought process and explains the many intricate details that go into this type of photography.
In the world of off-camera flash, there are two sides: the full manual side and the TTL (through the lens) side. I have always been on the full manual side, because when it comes to triggering a TTL flash off camera, things start to get complicated. In order to trigger the flash, you either need to have an expensive on-camera flash, an expensive TTL radio trigger, or a cumbersome TTL cable. Then, I found the affordable and feature-rich Yongnuo TTL system and instantly fell in love.
Instagram is a great way to promote your photography business. Not only can you make yourself seen by potential clients in your area, you can also be seen by millions of users across the world. With more than 300 million users though, it can be easy to get lost within the massive crowd. There are a lot of things that you can do to help grow your following, but there are also a lot of things you can do to hurt your following. If you want your business to be the next Instagram sensation, then don't make these seven Instagram mistakes.
Success is something that we all strive for no matter what we are doing. Everyone wants to feel like they are doing well in their work and that they are accomplishing something. The advantage with this is that the line is constantly moving. Once you reach a goal, there is a bigger and greater goal to start reaching for. This causes us to continuously move forward, but because of this, our definition of success is always changing. I asked a handful of industry leaders, “At what point did you feel like a success?” Their answers are something we could all learn from.
The process of culling is used in every type of photography and is used by professionals and amateurs alike. Culling is simply the process of selecting the best images from a shoot to be edited and delivered to a client. When photographers first start out in the editing world, this process can seem like a waste of time or hard to figure out a best practice. So I’m going to explain why we cull and some of the best ways to do it.
