If you've been hired to photograph a wedding, there's a very good chance your clients will also want you to take engagement photos. Recently we released our 14 hour long wedding tutorial How to Become a Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer which covers everything about how to start a wedding business. Lee Morris previously released a sample called How To Light Posed Photos In a Church but today I wanted to share a free excerpt on making the most out of your client's engagement session.
UPDATE: CONTEST ENDS TOMORROW! After 2 full years, it is finally done! Our digital download, How To Become a Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer "DVD" tutorial is ready to be released. Lee and I have spent countless hours in filming, editing, and producing this 14+ hour tutorial, and we want to give three lucky Fstoppers readers a free, pre-release copy in its entirety. And to top it off, we are giving each of those 3 winners one of our secret light modifiers currently in preproduction.
There was once a photographer who said the best camera is the one you have with you. Today that camera is probably the one built into your smart phone. But just how well does that old saying hold up when you compare say an iPhone 5 to a Nikon D3s or Hasselblad H4D? The guys over at Bammo have put all three cameras through the paces and the results might shock you. Find out which camera has the most resolution, dynamic range, and fastest ability to upload to Facebook.
One thing I love about the Gopro Hero 2 cameras is that normal, everyday people can record amazing footage that has never been seen before. Such is the case with Mark Peters who thought he was just going to film some albacore tuna during his fishing trip. Little did Mark know what his GoPro would capture inside his homemade underwater torpedo.
GoPro has become one of those companies like Redbull where everything they put out there is pretty cool. It has been fun seeing such a small startup become the industry leaders in tiny HD video cameras. With their new Wifi BacPac, GoPro gives users the ability to control their cameras through tablets like the iPad and smart phones. Unlike previous versions of the Hero, you can now control the shutter, camera modes, and other options with a simple remote. It's pretty amazing to see what this camera has become in just a few years. Rock on GoPro!
Jeremy Cowart is a photographer after my own heart. He started out in one of my favorite cities Nashville, TN, befriend a bunch of rockstars, shot their album covers, moved into celebrity portraiture, and continues to give back with projects like Help Portrait. Our good friend Pye Jirsa with SLR Lounge recently sat down with the nomadic photographer and picked his brain a little about creativity, post production, a new LifeFinder Tour, and a new iPhone App. If you get worn out listening
Over the weekend, one of our readers sent us this amazing behind the scenes video for the bicycle saddle manufacturer Brooks England. The basic concept for the photoshoot was a couple saving a fox from a bunch of hunting hounds while out in the British countryside. Photographer Frank Herholdt and his team had to balance two models, a tamed fox, four hounds, forest smoke, well placed studio strobes, and the natural elements to pull of this classic looking image. This is such a great example of taking your photography to the next level by pushing your concept and focusing on production value rather than just lighting a simple subject correctly. If any of our readers have any opinions on one of these saddles specifically, let us know on our Twitter because I'm in need of a new bike seat myself!
Every month here at Fstoppers we run a photo contest that is judged by one of our readers. We'd like to congratulate Jim Dillahey for winning the March Fstoppers Forum Photo Contest. Click the previous link to see his winning photograph and watch for his banner at the top of the site to see more of Jim's work.
As we do every month, the winner of the contest gets to pick the next theme and Jim has chosen "CONFIDENCE". Just like Jim, this month's winner will also win a custom image and website link on the Fstoppers rotating banner above and also a HUGE Photoflex White and Gold Reflector which is great for location and studio uses. The winner will also get to choose a custom camera strap from Riley G Designworks who are making some of the coolest photography straps I've ever seen. As always, our contests are judged by the winner of the previous month's contest so you have to impress Jim not anyone on the Fstoppers Staff. Have fun submitting to the April Fstoppers Forum Contest and good luck to everyone!
It seems with every new version of Photoshop, Adobe finds a way to add something both useful and unbelievable. First we had the new Content Aware. Then rumors of a tool that makes your blurry images sharp and focused. Now apparently Photoshop CS6 is going to let you add nearly authentic shallow depth of field to your otherwise infinitely sharp photos. Obviously most photographers will do this with a fast lens but
Nathaniel Welch has shot with Joe Perry, Sarah Palin, Chuck Liddell, Terrell Owens, Myth Busters, Guinness Beer, Brad Pitt, ESPN, Ricky Gervais, and Snoop Dogg....just to name a few!
With just over a week since it's announcement, Nikon's flagship D4 DSLR is already causing a stir in the most unlikely of places. The camera will feature a slot for the new XQD memory card which moves data much faster than current SD or CF cards. But can the card become the next media standard? Both Lexar and Sandisk, the later of which helped design the format, have said that they will not produce the XQD cards anytime soon. So what do you think? Click the full post to leave your comments and participate our poll.
I'm not sure what has gotten into Chase Jarvis lately. First he decided to be a judge for our 2011 Behind The Scenes Contest. Next he flies over to Hong Kong to test a new Lego camera. And now I come to find that he's running his own "Will It Blend" campaign with the brand new Polaroid Z340 instant digital camera. Whatever the reason is for his latest antics, I'm glad Chase made this video because I've been wanting a digital AND film Polaroid camera since I picked up a camera. Sure they would be fun during trips and parties but what if you passed one or two of these out at your next wedding for the guests to have fun with? How big of a hit would that be! If Chase has any pull with the folks over at Polaroid, we'd love to see a version with a simple hotshoe on top so we could use bounce light or a pocket wizard with these things. With paper refills at $17, it wouldn't be the cheapest thing you could bring to a wedding but I'm sure your clients would be talking about it for years! What do you guys think?
I'll always remember a friend of mine saying that he loved the Canon 5D Mark II for film making because it was expendable and cheap compared to "real" video cameras (he crashed a lot of them). For most of us, having any piece of gear break is heartbreaking especially when it comes from our own stupidity lack of foresight. Such was the case for filmmaker and 3D Animator Kurtis Hough as he was doing a little beach videography. While on set for what appears to be The Goonies II, Kurtis encountered something pretty scary. After watching the video below you might want to reconsider not insuring your photo gear.
I just realized that our Fstoppers Twitter account has tons of unread direct messages (we prefer you email us). One of them was from Douglas Sonders who had a crazy experience with one of the original Ghostbusters Ecto 1 Cadillacs. These caddies have so many lights on them that I can't make any sense of what is going on but it looks pretty cool. Douglas does a good job explaining how he plans on using a few long exposure shots to burn in the ambient light while using spot grids to pop in just the right amount of flash for specific areas of the photo. Does anyone know if the Roscoe Fog Machine in this video is made by the same company that makes Roscoe Speedlight Gels? Either way, nice touch on bringing the smoke machine to the shoot. Check out more details about this shoot over at Douglas Sonders's Blog.
Awhile back we shared a few videos of photographers intentionally throwing their cameras in the air. Well now the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera actually makes that feat much easier. The new camera allows photographers to create 360 degree images with 36 individual cameras arranged in a buckeyball shape (any organic chemists out there?). Using an accelerometer, the spherical camera takes a photo at the apogee when there is the least amount of movement for surprisingly sharp images. It's also made of soft collision material which just begs you to throw it at someone's face or fling it with a water balloon launcher. The whole project is pretty interesting, and you can read more about it on Jonas Pfeil's website.
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