Articles from Andy Day

A man from Egoton, England has had his life ruined after his outstretched arms became stuck while posing for a selfie at the top of a mountain. 

Following on from the impressive 28-75mm f/2.8 Sony FE-mount lens that Tamron released earlier this year, rumors are circulating that the Japanese lens manufacturer is planning to launch a brand new 70-200mm f/2.8 in early 2019. 

The latest victim of geotagging and Instafame is Mount Aspiring in New Zealand. Fears of damage to its delicate ecosystem are rising as thousands of people flock to the region in order to take the same photograph. 

Olympus has produced a beautiful series of videos on YouTube whereby its ambassadors visit some stunning locations, exploring Lapland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Namibia. What’s noticeable is that all of the Olympus Xplorers are men. 

A few days ago, rumors started circulating that the forthcoming Sony a7S III would feature a 36-megapixel 8K sensor shooting 4K at 480 fps. While a few people got excited, the reality is probably a little more complicated. 

You might have spotted the latest trend on Instagram for making carousel posts more exciting. They've always been a good way to present a body of images and this funky new template now makes carousels more engaging to viewers and also makes your images look rather smart, too. 

Earlier this month, rumors emerged regarding the forthcoming offering from Olympus: the EM1X, due to be announced in January. No-one was expecting it to have one feature that makes it unique and yet no one wants. 

A group of parkour athletes and filmmakers have been instructed by police to leave India after upsetting local residents by jumping between the rooftops of buildings in Mumbai. 

Cheap, soft, and lightweight, with woefully slow autofocus and shoddy build quality; however terrible they might be, plastic lenses are great value. Quite why people get so agitated about this topic is a bit of a mystery because cheap glass can be amazing. Here’s why. 

In my photographic world, it’s sometimes nice to remind myself that I’m often little more than a monkey pushing buttons on a very expensive box. 

Sometimes, an image comes out of camera so close to perfect that it hardly needs any work. In this video, landscape photographer Thomas Heaton shows how little effort some images require while also reflecting on how much he still needs to learn. 

With Nikon’s shiny new Z6 hitting the shelves in a matter of weeks, Kai Wong puts it through its paces at a nearby zoo, testing its autofocus and all-round performance with the help of a seasoned, Nikon-shooting photojournalist. 

Photographer Paul Colley spent 14 months creating an ingenious infrared lighting system in order to capture bats hunting at night without disturbing them. After winning first prize in the British Wildlife Photography Awards, he talked to Fstoppers to explain how he created this totally unique image. 

In every photographer’s ongoing search for the perfect bag, until recently it seemed there was a gaping hole: a 45-liter bag suitable as hand luggage on short-haul flights, offering the possibility to combine camera gear with a few days’ worth of clothes. The HEXAD Access Duffel from WANDRD fills that gap and does an incredibly good job of it. 

Landscape photography used to be about discovering new places and creating incredible images that no one had seen before. Nowadays, it feels like it's more about checking the location tag of something spotted on Instagram and photographing a scene that has already been shot to death. 

If you’re in search of some festive-themed inspiration, check out this short video from Tajreen & Co that will also show you how easy it to create a fun image for Halloween with very limited resources. Some basic editing knowledge can turn a simple idea into a striking and spooky image. 

Earlier this year, National Geographic examined its own role in creating and perpetuating racial stereotypes and acknowledging that its coverage in the past has been racist. Its last two magazine covers have drawn criticism, leading some to wonder if anything has changed. 

TourBox is a new piece of portable hardware designed to make working with Lightroom and Photoshop and other software easier and more intuitive. Looking more like a video game controller than a midi interface, it works alongside your mouse or tablet with the intention of making your workflow smoother and less fiddly. 

Instagram is awash with copycat images, from yellow jackets in front of waterfalls to feet dangling off rooftops. But given that we supposedly value originality so highly, why does mimicry proliferate across social media, and why is it so successful? More importantly, is it killing our capacity for new ideas? 

A matter of weeks ago, Nikon launched the Z7, and rumors started to circulate that the autofocus system was far from perfect. More reviews are coming in, and reports are not good. 

A new exhibition and accompanying book attempts to convey the state of humanity in the 21st Century through the work of just 140 photographers. Whose work would you choose to include, and why? 

Autofocus systems have evolved rapidly since the technology first emerged in the mid-70s. Understanding contrast detection, phase detection, and dual-pixel is a complex business, but might be critical to choosing the system that best suits what you shoot. This intense video covers pretty much everything. 

The Internet can be a strange place, but it always felt that the mind-bending obscurity and randomness of the human consciousness was reserved for Tumblr and other meme repositories. It seems, however, that Instagram is no longer immune. 

Medium format photography offers a wide variety of benefits in terms of image quality, but is it possible to try to achieve those results when shooting on a camera with a much smaller sensor? 

What do you do if you want a camera that has the quality and gorgeous depth of field of medium format with the immediacy and fun of an instant? Well, if you're a hardware interaction designer, you take the front half of a Hasselblad 500C/M and attach it to the back half of a Fujifilm Instax Mini 9. 

Police in Lincolnshire, U.K. used a drone fitted with a thermal imaging camera to find a 16-year-old alleged rape victim who was unable to give her exact location. 

With every new generation of class-leading camera phones comes new claims of their ability to compete with professional-quality camera equipment. In this short test, the Northrups puts the brand new iPhone XS head to head with a consumer DSLR with a kit lens and a top-end Nikon boasting some super-sharp glass. 

Responding to recent speculation that Panasonic is moving away from Micro Four Thirds, Lumix's UK Marketing Manager has pledged the company's commitment to the smaller format, despite its recent announcement of two new full-frame cameras. 

Photographer Michael Muller has been shooting the biggest names — often for the biggest movies — for more than 30 years. In this video, self-confessed lighting newbie Sawyer Hartman heads to Muller's studio to learn a few tricks of the trade. 

It's easy to assume that the best portrait locations are tricky to find and awkward to get to, but this short video shows you that some of the best spots might be just around the corner. 

The Canon EOS R has now been in the hands of a select few, and following on from the early impressions and all of the noise about card slots, Tony Northrup has pitted it against the camera that Canon is seeking to challenge: the Sony a7 III. 

Another full-frame mirrorless contender has stepped into the ring as Zeiss has just announced the ZX1. Controversially, the ZX1 does not feature dual card slots. In fact, it doesn't have even a single card slot. Instead, it will boast a 512 GB SSD complete with Lightroom CC installed. 

Why would anyone spend $50 on a lens that's almost certain to be soft, noisy, and slow to focus? Let me tell you: because it's awesome. If you're new to photography, have a tiny budget, or have never owned a prime lens and want to see what the fuss is about, this is where to start. 

In this short video, Manny Ortiz gives a very quick introduction to three lighting modifiers that he uses in the studio — the beauty dish, octabox, and umbrella — and gives a short overview of their pros and cons. 

Details are still a little vague, but rumors regarding Panasonic's foray into the world of full-frame mirrorless are starting to surface. Given the success of their micro four thirds offerings, will Panasonic be the dark horse that finally presents something genuinely comparable to the Sony a7 range?