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Austin Rogers
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Articles written by Austin Rogers

The Making of an Industry Standard: An Interview with WANDRD

There's a sort of running joke between the Fstoppers writers about the number of bag reviews we've published in the last couple months, and we've certainly caught our share of flack for it in the comments as a result. Despite all that, having had a chance to sit down for a brief interview with the people at WANDRD, I think we may have a new industry standard on our hands. If there's ever been a bag worth getting excited about, this is it.

Need for Speed: Fstoppers Reviews the Mitakon Zhongyi 50mm f/0.95 Lens for Sony FE

There aren't too many people in the f/0.95 club. Until fairly recently, it was a ludicrously expensive badge of honor, typically worn by Leica-toting physicians and hedge fund managers. After all, the legendary Leica Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 costs just shy of $10,000. Of course, there are some micro four thirds options. But those don't really count, do they? All that changed in April of 2014, when Mitakon announced their "SpeedMaster" 50mm f/0.95. After spending the better part of a month shooting it, I'm almost a believer... almost.

The Irrational Reasons to Buy an $800 35mm f/2.8 Lens

The current king-of-the-hill 35mm, the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 A DC HSM, costs $900. That's not too shabby for a lens that absolutely dominates its "L" and high-end Nikon competition, which both cost significantly more. Canon and Nikon offer budget 35mm options: a f/2.0 IS and f/1.8G, respectively, both of which cost under $600 and are no slouches themselves. With the availability of extremely well performing 35mm lenses at the sub-thousand-dollar price point, why on earth would someone buy a slow (f/2.8) 35mm for $800?

Adobe's Mobile Photoshop Application will be Released in October

Last May, Adobe gave the world a sneak peek of their forthcoming mobile retouching platform. While the video only showed off modest implementations of the liquifiy, paint, and vignette tools, it's clear that Adobe and their army of software engineers have been hard at work beefing up their iPhone and iPad apps.

Hiding Information in Your Digital Images

It’s no secret that image files have quite a bit of redundancy and wasted space — it’s part of the reason why I love the app JPEGMini which helps reduce unneeded information to decrease file size. What you might or might not be aware of is that you can hide information, even large files inside of your images. In this episode of Computerphile, Dr. Mike Pound explains two techniques of burying info in your pictures and the application for photographers. Warning, supremely geeky content ahead.

A Photographer's Journey to #FindTheGirlsOnTheNegatives [Interview]

Recently, Richmond Virginia-based wedding and portrait photographer Meagan Abell made a stunning find in a thrift-store box of old images. Among the half-century-old family snapshots she uncovered a set of jarringly beautiful transparencies (slide film) and a desire to find the women on them. The #FindTheGirlsOnTheNegatives campaign has, overnight, caught fire, garnering worldwide attention and press. Ms. Abell was kind enough to take a few minutes out of her schedule of NatGeo and BBC calls to chat with me for an exclusive interview.

Groupon Photographer Accused of Ripping Off New Parents

Photos of newborns are precious, once-in-a-lifetime moments. Now, some new parents in Denver are wondering where their images are. Photographer Amy Barlow under the name A MoMent Photography studio based in Lakewood, Colo. recently ran a Groupon promotion for newborn photography and is being accused of taking the money and running, leaving several families complaining that their images have not been delivered.

Instagrammers Fight Censorship by Photoshopping Male Nipples [NSFW?]

It's no secret that Instagram, and its parent company, Facebook, have some pretty old-school ToS in terms of censorship. Their policy, inconsistently policed at best, has given the boot to many otherwise tasteful images including, notably, an image by artist Ruki Kaur of a woman on her period. Now a trend is taking Instagram by storm wherein people are photoshopping male nipples over a females' nipples to stick it to the man and hopefully result in a meaningful dialog on Internet censorship.

Fstoppers Reviews the Nikon F100

There are hundreds of 35mm film camera options out there. Everything from cheap drug-store point and shoots to beautiful, bespoke-feeling Leicas, to the Canon AE-1 hipsters wear around their necks with a guitar strap. The Nikon F100 is, without a doubt, one of the best 135 cameras out there and is, in my opinion, is the absolute best choice for a digital shooter to experiment with 35mm film.*

Casey Neistat Axes Canon 70D... Literally

If you haven't been keeping up with Casey Neistat's daily vlogs, then you absolutely need to start. They're a great source of creative inspiration, lots of running cut-scenes, and the occasional viral video. In this particular vlog, Neistat tells a story on the importance of not quitting and, while filming, experiences an error with his Canon 70D. You may not believe how he solves it.

Fstoppers Reviews the Westcott Apollo Orb

Anyone who likes to bring a light or two on-location knows the frustration of wanting soft, controllable light that won't weigh you down or break the bank. The Westcott Apollo Orb is, without a doubt, one of my favorite lighting modifiers. As you'll see below, the Apollo Orb has just about every feature you could ask for in its unique, somewhat-brolly-box-style design, all at a modest price point.

Make a DIY Steadicam-Style Camera Stabilizer

If you're a filmmaker on a budget, you've probably lusted after the various camera stabilizing offerings from Steadicam. With this tutorial, some hardware store components, and a little bit of elbow grease, you'll be up and running with a DIY Steadicam in a flash.

Bert Stephani's First Impressions with the Fujifilm 90mm f/2 Lens

Photographer Bert Stephani might just be the luckiest guy on the planet as one of the first people in the world to use the much-anticipated Fuji 90mm f/2.0 portrait lens. The lens, officially known as the Fujinon XF90mm f/2 R LM WR is currently available for pre-order and will likely be shipping in mid-July 2015. In this video, Stephani gives a honest look at the latest and greatest portrait lens in the Fuji X-Series lineup and shares some really wonderful sample images straight out of the camera.

No, Facebook Does Not Own Your Images

It seems that a nasty little rumor has suddenly taken the world by storm. Namely that once you upload a photo to Facebook, according to their terms of service, it becomes their property. Thanks to an official message from Facebook we can rest assured that this is not the case.

National Geographic Talks Street Photography with Wayne Lawrence

In this episode of National Geographic’s fantastic series "Exposure," you go behind the scenes with street and portrait photographer Wayne Lawrence who describes photographing the “real Detroit.” Lawrence describes the challenge of shooting such a diverse city, one that includes familiar, comfortable suburbs and rundown, abandoned spaces.

A Look Behind the Scenes at Resource Magazine's Hysterical Spring Cover Shoot

The guys over at Resource Magazine really outdid themselves with this one. Their spring 2015 issue featured a really awesome shoot by photographer Natalie Brasington and two of the stars from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz. In this video we see the photographer work with these two exceptional actresses / comedians to come up with some genuinely funny work.

The Art of Photography Podcast: Ted Forbes Hates the Idea of Working for Free

Everyone's been there. A friend of a friend asks you to take their family portrait, a cousin wants you to shoot their wedding, a local business would really like some event photos — but nobody has a budget. Working for free is something every working professional gets faced with frequently. In this video Ted Forbes from The Art of Photography talks about the pros and cons of free work.

PhotoRec: The Free Photo and Digital Asset Recovery App

If you're a Mac user, stop what you're doing and download this. I'm serious. Digital asset management (DAM) isn't everyone's favorite topic but it's an incredibly important part of any professional's workflow. But when things go south, you need to have a recovery plan — that's where PhotoRec, the free text-based app by CG Security, comes in.

Instagram Adds New Color and Fade Controls

Good news for Instagram lovers: The quintessential social photo sharing platform has announced the addition of two new tools, color and fade, to the in-app editing capabilities. These new tools build on Instagram's version 6.0 release last year which added a number of creative controls to fine-tune your images and eliminated the need for other photo editing apps for making basic adjustments.

Meet Phhhoto: The Lo-Fi Instagram Killer

If you haven't heard of the app Phhhoto you're certainly not alone. Phhhoto is a mobile GIF/cinemagraph/image sequence creating and sharing platform that was released last year on iOS and will be coming to Android in the future. As of this week it now has over a million registered users and is really starting to take the world by storm. I'll admit I didn't really take it seriously myself until I saw Jeremy Cowart post a couple Phhhotos. After having messed around with it for the last week I can honestly say it has me pretty excited. I'm on Phhhoto and here's why you should be too.