There are moments when you browse the web and come across photos that make you stop and think. The surreal and captivating "Underwater Realm" project of Anuar Patjane Floriuk does exactly that.
What makes a strong composition? Let’s talk about how you can achieve striking landscape photos in which less is more. Here’s a practical set of tips for minimizing clutter.
The BenQ SW271 is a new, high-end 27-inch 4K IPS monitor aimed at photographers who demand color accuracy at competitive price-point. In this review we will test both the SW271 and its larger cousin, the 31.5-inch BenQ SW320, to see if these big photography monitors lives up to their expectations.
Wildlife Photographer Willis Chung left a scary scene with the proverbial seven colors at Yellowstone National Park, when a 1-ton bison came charging right at him. However terrifying such an experience may be, he did shoot one hell of an image to support his tale.
When we talk about landscape photography post-processing and it comes down to adjusting color, we're in most cases bombarded by theoretical terms. Erin Babnik tossed difficult to understand terms in favor of an easy-to-follow essay on adjusting color in your landscape photos.
I bet you've always wanted to hold the crispiest glass yourself. Kai Wong is here with his selection of the ultimate lenses for Nikon full-frame cameras. Well, we have a couple of lists ready to compare Wong's choices with some other usual suspects. This is some expensive glass, and perhaps not surprisingly, most of the lenses in this list are prime lenses in the 50-100mm focal range. However, we've also compiled a list of our top choices according to your subject. But let's start by checking out Kai Wong's latest video.
Here's a fun landscape photography project that, with a bit of dedication, will get you out of your creative rut. You will need a camera, a tripod, and a good memory of where you put those the day before. We're going to capture the exact same scene for six days straight and Norwegian photographer Oddbjørn Austevik is going to show you how in his latest video.
There is something to be said about social media for photography. Apps and sites like Instagram, 500px, and Flickr have way of tapping into our innate drive to create work that satisfy others. When treated right, social media can keep you motivated to produce. This week's article is about how keeping up the production rate is no measure for creating from the heart. Photography should, at least in the first place, be for you.
Creative pursuits are inherently two-headed beasts. We are all too familiar with being passionate about photography, so much so that we can sink all of our spare time and a good portion of our money in it. Especially when you travel with photography in mind, landscape photography can start to become a trophy hunt. And I can’t blame you. Travel is expensive enough, so you want to make your shots count, right? In this article, I want to present a new way of looking for meaningful shots that may be more interesting to you in the long run.
There are three basic elements that control the exposure or overall brightness in your images: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. But aside from controlling exposure, these camera settings also have a couple of side effects. To help understand all this, Dave Morrow comes to our rescue by teaching the exposure triangle.
We’ve had our first snowfall of the year here in the Netherlands. It’s one of those instances when most people stay indoors, while just about every landscape photographer is aching to feel the snow on their face. One of them is acclaimed British Landscape Photographer Simon Baxter, who I've asked to help me analyze the introvert mind.
When you’re in the market for buying a new monitor, you’re probably overwhelmed by a host of specifications. Size, resolution, color gamut, and panel technology can make all the difference when you look for a new screen to edit your photos on. As a photographer, not all specs are that important. Dynamic contrast for instance; a feature that adjusts brightness and contrast according to what's on the screen at a given moment. In this guide, we’re focusing on buying a monitor that is geared specifically towards post-processing.
Even with all the notes and advice, it’s typically a tough job to find a quality monitor in any price range. This is why I’ve decided to hand you my top recommendations as of November 2017. After sifting through literally hundreds of monitors, I’ve distilled five classes of monitors, among which are Fstoppers top recommendations in either class.
Students often ask me a rhetorical question: “What is it like to be a professional landscape photographer?” Well, it’s fantastic if you’re into the outdoors, natural landscapes, and of course photography. However, that’s not entirely the point of the question. The real question you want to ask though, is “How do you find a sustainable income to support such a career?” Typically, we all have a preconceived idea of what a landscape photographer does for a living. But that idea seems to stem from a time when there weren't that many people in the business.
There are two ways to photography: registration and creation. Let me be clear that, before we get into a short essay about self-acceptance in art, neither is better than the other. While I’d like to teach you today about conscious creation, registration is the inherent nature of photography. But the way we modify and modulate light before it hits the sensor, as well as the entire process after it, is all up to us and not the camera manufacturer.
Editing Milky Way, star trail, and deep-sky astrophotography images can be a daunting task. With dozens of layers and adjustments, we can feel overcome with getting the most out of our nightscape photography. With the new and improved version of OrionH, those days may well lie behind us because this plugin panel for Adobe Photoshop aims to lower the amount you sit at the computer. OrionH comes with three different panels that each have their nightly specialty and in this review, we will discuss version 2.0’s new and improved algorithms and features for each of those panels.
Today I’m testing out a direct to aluminum print from Zor.com, which is supposed to bring out vibrant colors and incredible image clarity. The 3mm Dibond is fashioned from two thin sheets of aluminum, with a low-density core of polyethylene. This makes the print sturdy and durable, but also very lightweight. But to be honest, I’m awfully skeptic of printing on anything other than fine-art papers. Call me a conservative printer. Let’s find out if Dibond can change my mind.
Photographers who are active on social media often get a lot of questions about the technicalities of photography. Especially about nightscape photography – the subgenre of landscape imaging where you basically have a dark landscape set to some celestial backdrop featuring twinkly stars. Either through commenting on a shared image, a direct message, or an email, people ask about the type of gear that was used to capture a specific shot or any of the numerous variables that make up a given photo. Variables that range from the time of day to how many degrees of rotation on the polarizing filter. But this time I got an email that announced the inevitable demise of the subgenre of nightscape photography. But there’s a strong, intrinsic motivation for nightscape photography that I want to share with you here.
How could you make photo editing more intuitive? Both working professional photographers and beginners would really benefit from a more intuitive, time-saving way of interacting with Adobe Lightroom. Dragging sliders and rating images can be, well, a drag sometimes. I’m actually surprised it took this long for a creative company to dream up a dedicated photo editing console for Adobe Lightroom. But the day has finally arrived. Loupedeck promises to change the way you work with Lightroom and shorten the amount of time you spend sitting at your computer. Loupedeck is here and we’re reviewing it.
Simon Baxter makes an unplanned visit to a verdant misty forest in North Yorkshire, UK. As Baxter talks us through the thought process behind one of his images, it becomes clear that the gushing waterfall in the background isn’t his area of interest. A couple of trees above the waterfall that are steeped in the rolling mist look very intriguing.
We're going to build our very own photographers PC, capable of working at blazing speeds with 50-megapixel images and dozens of layers in Adobe Photoshop. The high-end system we will be discussing here will have a budget of $1,500 in mind. For this, we're going to build our post-processing dream PC, but it doesn't include a monitor. Let's start comparing specs.
You have been up all night, taking images of the Milky Way. Tomorrow, hours of editing probably lie ahead. Light pollution, noise, and a lack of contrast can make most nightscape photos feel lackluster. If you’re familiar with doing landscape astrophotography, then you’ve no doubt experienced the amount of effort needed in post-processing to make your images shine. Even with today’s digital cameras, no picture comes out of the camera the way you’ve imagined them to. Enter OrionH; a panel for Adobe Photoshop dedicated to natural night photography and meant to decrease the amount of time you sit at the computer.
One week of photography in the wild backcountry of the Scottish highlands. In this "episode," I’d like to share with you the story about a recent trek into Glen Feshie in the Scottish Cairngorms National Park. It’s the behind-the-scenes tale of my successful image titled “Catch the Spirit.”
If there is one thing I like about budding photographers, it's their fresh way of looking at stuff to photograph. In this analytical process of recognizing perspectives and compositions, beginners often ask important questions that seasoned photographers might find intrinsic. Questions like "How can this photo get more interesting?" or "What makes me keep looking at this picture?"
With the goal in mind to write up a reference for planning a week of photography in the wild, it's almost unthinkable to not include an article about gear an rules about sleeping in the great outdoors. Not on a campsite, not in a hotel or any form of modern comfort, but out in the backcountry, sleeping under the stars. This quickly grew out to be an article to bookmark, because I don't expect you to remember everything about this after a first read.
You are at a crossroads again. Every now and then, you arrive at a point in your photography where you are left uninspired. It’s that moment when you feel like you’re drawing blanks even as the conditions are just right. Stages like these occur every once in a while, no matter your experience in photography. Feeling uninspired can be daunting and seemingly endless. But once you realize that these are the best moments for self-reflection, there’s another opportunity for personal growth. It’s times like these when you ask yourself: “What is your reason for pursuing photography in the first place?”
Road number one leads you around Iceland’s epic natural formations. These scenic locations, often the subject of landscape photographs, have seen a dramatic rise in tourism recently. So what is it about these subjects that attract people from all over the world? And when is the light at its best to shoot a memorable image yourself here? These are the Icelandic icons of landscape photography.
Have you ever considered going pro as a landscape photographer? What does that even mean in today's business? Professional Landscape Photographer Erin Babnik shares the often obscured truth about the genre.
Can you imagine the insane amount of detail in aerial shots that can be captured using a 100-megapixel medium-format camera? This could previously be done only by taking to the skies yourself in an airplane or helicopter. DJI has relieved us of buying a plane ticket, but has yet to announce a price tag for this flying contraption.
DxO and PracticalPhotography present you with a free to obtain OpticsPro 9 Elite License if you drop your email before June 30th. Ok, so it isn't the latest version of this powerful raw editor, but this version does come equipped with the PRIME noise reduction algorithm, so you can demo a full version free of charge before deciding to spend $199 for the latest incarnation.
When you’re planning a trip to visit Iceland’s majestic countryside, chances are that you are probably following the ring road in one direction or another. And with good reason. Almost all the major sights are dotted around this single road. Or are they? Should we even be chasing these well-known compositions to get a copy of our own on the wall?
If you have ever imagined your very own photography coffee table book, this review will probably get you designing it straightaway. Saal Digital, a German photo printing company offers the High-End Photobook, which, at least on paper, has all the bells and whistles you would like to see in a book containing your finest work. I’ve put the book to the test to see if the quality lives up to the claims made on their website and the Instagram advertisement that led me to them.
The problem with ultra-wide lenses is that a bulbous front element makes it impossible to attach a filter directly to the lens. A tried and tested method to create more space between lens and filter through the use of a filter holder and a lens adapter ring. Systems such as the Wonderpana by Fotodiox and the SW-150 by Lee make the use of all sorts of filters available for photographers with deep pockets. Like the enormous filters themselves, these systems are often expensive and only attach to one lens. Enter STC with a 6-stop ND filter that you could use with the widest of lenses, and for just 80 bucks.
During my time as a professional fine-art landscape photographer, I've come to appreciate the moody and somber aspects of photography more than those bursting sunsets. You can find me in the forest or on the beach in the harshest of conditions or in low-light. However, I'm a real sucker for mountains; mainly because we don't have those here in the Netherlands, but there's something in the interplay between the land and the sky that goes on in mountainscapes that I find truly attractive.
As shutter speed is the limiting factor in taking pictures of the night sky, we often seek out more expensive lenses that open up that bit more or check Fstoppers if there’s a new low-light, high-ISO king of cameras on the horizon. But what if I told you that there’s a device you can use today, with the camera and lens you already have, that has the potential to capture places that are light years away from Earth?
