Walkthroughs

How to Photograph Heat Waves Using a Phone, a Selfie Stick, and a Mirror

If you're looking for a fun and educational project to try this weekend, Israeli DIY-er Elad Orbach has come up with the cheapest, most simple Schlieren photography setup we've ever seen. Unlike more expensive setups, his creation will let you photograph heat and sound waves using just a smartphone, a mirror, and a selfie stick.

A Beginner’s Guide to Cleaning Your Camera Sensor

Yes, the beginning of this video was meant to be a funny, but shockingly extreme example of sensor dust. And it was removed very easily with the basic sensor cleaning technique described below.

Shooting Major League Baseball in an Empty Stadium During the Pandemic

Professional sports leagues such as the NBA and MLB have returned to action without fans in attendance due to COVID-19 pandemic safety measures, and there are still sports photographers on hand to document the games. Boston-based photographer Paul Rutherford made this 4-minute video showing what it's like to shoot a pro baseball game in an empty stadium.

My Experience With My First Gallery Exhibition

I originally moved from the UK to New Zealand in search of a place that allows me to spread my artistic wings and really obtain that deeper level of natural landscape beauty. I ended up in Wellington, the national and artistic capital of NZ, where everything and anything goes.

Developing ECN-2 Motion Picture Film at Home

If you’re a film geek like me, these numbers should look familiar, 5203, 5207, 5217, and 5219. These are the film stocks Kodak Motion Picture offers to film directors and cinematographers. Since 2014, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorcese, and J.J. Abrams partnered with former Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke, to spearhead an effort in protecting the use of celluloid in the motion picture industry.

A Full Commercial Food Photo Shoot: From Concept to Shooting to Editing

In this 35-minute video, I go through my entire process of shooting for my commercial portfolio. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I have had more time to focus on my book, which will hopefully help get me back out there when everything opens up again.

How to Build a Wall-Mounted Battery Charging Station on the Cheap

Photographer and YouTuber Duncan Dimanche has posted a quick tutorial that'll show you how to create your own DIY wall charging station on the cheap. Depending on your needs this setup can cost as little as $60, and the results look almost as good and functional as some of the more serious builds we've featured.

How to Use Light Painting to Capture Dramatic Car Photography

Automotive photographer Dave Cox (AKA ShootingDave) recently put together a handy step-by-step tutorial that shows you exactly how he uses light painting to capture dramatic car photos when working in a tight space like a workshop. By combining six exposures into one, he's able to capture a beautiful and surprisingly natural looking photo.

How I Built My Custom Vehicle ‘Obelix’ for Outdoor Photo Expeditions

As a landscape and travel photographer, I consider my camera gear the most important tool of my trade. I have been traveling for photography for so many years and have conducted several workshops in that span. This involved traveling to remote areas off the beaten track chasing the perfect shots.

How I Created a Magical Bear Photo

Two years ago in September, I was traveling in Kuusamo, Finland, and I had the opportunity to go see and photograph wild bears. We left our cars and started walking to the bear-watching hut with a small group. I felt nervous and it felt like a long walk in the woods, hearing all the little noises around us.

How to Create a Basic Home YouTube Studio for Less Than $100

If you've been thinking of trying your hand at vlogging or starting a YouTube channel, it might surprise you to learn that you can create a nice-looking "YouTube Studio" setup at home for less that $100. In this video, Boston-based videographer Kellan Reck takes you step-by-step through the whole process.

How to Set Up a Basic Photo Studio at Home Using Only One Light

Filipino portrait and wedding photographer Jiggie Alejandrino recently released a great beginner's guide to creating a basic photography studio at home. In the video, he shows you how you can set yourself up to take beautiful portraits using just one light, a 5-in-1 reflector, and not much else.

How I Shoot Insect Macro Photography in My Home Studio

Insects and other animals have fascinated me since I was a small child. I remember well how I used to pick them up and simply stare at them in wonder for hours. The concept of photographing insects indoors had been on my mind for years, even when photography and playing with light was a hobby, and long before I considered photography a profession and way of life.

A Deep Dive on JPEG Quality and What Export Settings You Should Use

Photographer Jamie Gillies recently went down the deep, dark rabbit hole known as "JPEG quality." Now that he's emerged on the other side, he's sharing the knowledge that h'se gained so that you too can understand how JPEG quality works, and what export settings to use for the best possible results.

Capture Creative Splash Photography with this Simple DIY ‘Catapult’

Matt Huber over at YouTube channel The Garage Learning has put together a fun and creative walkthrough that takes a different approach to splash photography. Instead of manually throwing water onto his subject, he designed a simple 'DIY catapult' that does the job much better than he can.

How to ‘Magically’ Remove Glare from Glasses in Photoshop

Unmesh Dinda over at PIXimperfect has released another exceptional photo editing tutorial that you'll want to bookmark if you shoot portraits. In this video, he shows you a detailed step-by-step method for removing glare from glasses in Photoshop—something all of us have probably had to do at one point or another.

Photos of Flowers from a Freezer

These days we’re all trying to come up with new photo ideas to do around home, but how many of you have thought, ”Hey, I’ll freeze some flowers in water?” That’s a new one for me, but fortunately I know someone here who does that, and she’s happy to share her secrets.

How to Use the Underrated FTP Transfer Feature on Sony Cameras

The FTP transfer feature in the Sony α7 Mark III (and other newer Alpha models) doesn't usually get a lot of attention. Sure, with all the modern technologies and apps, it's easy to overlook this humble feature. But when it comes to transferring RAW and JPEG files, FTP can really hold its own.

How to Make a Portable DIY Camera Battery Charging Board

The filmmakers over at Threefold have created a DIY battery charging board with a very useful twist: it's portable. And in the video above, they break down exactly how you can build your own version to suit your on-the-go creative needs.

This Photographer is Printing Photos on Algae

There are various mediums and techniques you can use to create prints of your photos, but have you considered using algae? That's what photographer Russell Marx has been experimenting with, and the result is impressive.

How I Shot a Car Flying Off a 100-Foot Jump

I'm San Diego-based photographer Daniel Schenkelberg, and in the 1-minute video above, watch as I show you how I captured this face on remote camera shot mid-air.

Shooting a Professional Timelapse on a Smartphone

Hi! My name is Patrick Poh, I’m from Singapore, and I have been playing with timelapse photography for a few years. I recently completed the above timelapse video using a 3-year old phone (Sony XZ Premium) and a phone gimbal (Zhiyun Smooth Q), and I want to share about how it was done.

How to Create Silly Animations from Old Public Domain Photos

Thank you to everyone who read the recent article about my short animations, and to all of the people who reached out to ask me for a tutorial. Since so many people were curious, I decided to put together a tutorial where I take you along for the ride while I create one of the animations from the original article.

How I Shoot Solargraphs with a Digital Camera

Solargraphies (pinhole images on photographic paper that capture months of the sun arching across the horizon) were a thing starting sometime in the 2000s. When this caught on broadly in the early 2010s, it got a lot of people excited for film again.

A Beginner’s Guide to Focus Stacking

Focus stacking is a fun and easy technique you can do right at home with nothing more than your camera, lens, and editing software. In fact, the Fujifilm X-T2, X-T3, and X-T4 series of cameras—and many others—contain a "focus bracketing" feature that lets you do this automatically.

A Dubai Rainstorm Timelapse from the World’s 2nd Tallest Residential Tower

As we are in April, the last days of the good weather in Dubai are coming to a close. We had one of the rare strong rainfalls last week here in Dubai. These weather conditions are very rare in the UAE, so I decided to document it as a short 2-minute time-lapse from where I am staying right now, the second tallest residential tower in the world.

How I Photograph the Milky Way with Medium Format Film

My name is Jason De Freitas (@jase.film on Instagram), and I'm an analog photographer based in Australia. In this article, I'll share how I shoot the Milky Way from my backyard on medium format film.

How to Use a Waveform Monitor for Better, Faster Photo Editing

Thanks to everyone who read my previous article on my process as a TV show set photographer, and all of you who got in touch with questions and comments. People had a range of questions, especially about how I use a waveform monitor, so I'll make this a fairly wide-ranging post to try and answer everything.

My Workflow for Editing a Watch Photo

Two years ago, I took an online class about product photography editing that completely changed the way I approach the photographic process. Coming from a background of street photography using film cameras, I have always been very “purist” about the whole process, trying as much as possible to preserve the original image by only making slight adjustments on light and contrast.

Remotraits: Shooting Portraits via Facetime Through Various Materials

Because of the quarantines currently sweeping the country and world, creatives have had to get especially creative to make collaborative art in spite of distance. I’ve seen photographers shooting portraits of people from the sidewalk and through windows. I’ve also seen photographers shooting via conferencing apps. I, too, recently conducted my own remote portrait sessions, which I’ve decided to call Remotraits.