What is Focal Length in Photography?
One of the most basic and common terms in the world of photography is the focal length of a lens. In this guide, we will dive down deep into what focal length is and how it works.
One of the most basic and common terms in the world of photography is the focal length of a lens. In this guide, we will dive down deep into what focal length is and how it works.
For anyone who isn’t interested in this wonderful art form we call photography, it might seem pretty straightforward: using a camera to capture an image. However, as many of us know, photography is so much more, once you go beyond the surface level.
The world is ablaze with talk of ChatGPT, one of the latest AI (artificial intelligence) applications revolutionizing everything from research and copywriting to blog and ad creation to college essays. Noticed or unnoticed, these applications have seeped into nearly every part of our world.
My name is Will Yager, and I'm a software engineer. I was recently discussing laser etching with an engineer/font-designer friend of mine, and I wanted to show him a picture of some really good laser etching on a particular piece of optical equipment.
The Speulderforest (“Het Speulderbos” in Dutch) is a beautiful and serene forest, and one of the best ways to capture its natural beauty is through photography. It’s one of the more popular forests when it comes to woodland photography in The Netherlands.
Landscape photography at 70 mph. Is it even possible? For years the idea of landscape photography was to put your camera on a tripod, frame very carefully, then wait for the light to be perfect before you shot. But what if you had to do everything in exactly the opposite way?
In December 1972, NASA's final Apollo mission (Apollo 17) took the iconic “Blue Marble” photo of the whole Earth. Many, including science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, had expected that the sight of Earth from afar would instill the belief that mankind’s future lay in space.
An intervalometer is an important tool for photographers that is useful across a range of photography genres and techniques, including timelapses, focus stacking, and long exposures.
Let’s get physical and unlock new levels of photographic enjoyment. The key is online printing. Whether you capture your world with a smartphone or the world’s greatest mirrorless camera, you could be missing one of the biggest thrills—holding your printed images in your hand.
We’ve all heard the term "dynamic range" when reading the latest and greatest offerings of camera manufacturers -- "this camera has the highest dynamic range in its category!" We understand that a greater dynamic range is generally a good thing to have.
Low-cost lenses started appearing in the market in the last twenty years or so, with prices coming down steadily. When I saw another inexpensive lens in an article a couple of months ago, it grabbed my attention not with its price but with its core feature. It was a shift lens. An 18mm, fixed-aperture at f/8, shift lens at $119 was worth trying.
I was born in early October, under the seventh astrological zodiac sign of Libra, which has a symbol of balancing scales.
GuruShots, the "World's Greatest Photo Game," has announced the winners of its "Incredible Sunsets" challenge, which received thousands of entries and over 56.2 million votes. The "Top Photographer" winner of the contest is Xavier Boulenger of France (whose photo is seen above).
Photographers use a range of different filters on their camera lenses for different effects and purposes, and one of the most common filters found in a camera bag is the standard UV filter.
In July of 2022, my partner Annabelle Matter and I traveled to Normandy, France, to shoot a project for the weekly Le Figaro Magazine that we’d been researching for months: translating into photographs a text by French writer Marcel Proust, renowned for his highly detailed and soulful descriptions.
The social aspects of social media, the propagation aspects of propaganda, and the “logos” aspects of dialogue all depend on one thing: communication. A photograph can be a very powerful medium for communication, using visual symbols to represent what a photographer saw, or created, containing in part or in whole their message.
The film photography revival is going strong but these pictures don’t just magically appear out of thin air! Eventually you need to develop your film so I put together this step-by-step guide to process black and white negatives at home. It’s easier than you might think!
Now that Instagram has transformed into a short-form video platform geared towards creators and influencers looking to go viral, where do we hobbyists and enthusiasts share our photos and find other photographers?
More than a century ago, a Swiss expedition sledged across Greenland’s ice sheet, recording their feats in full color. A new book and an exhibition give these images a new lease of life.
When Scott Cramer of 50/50 Photography travels, camera in hand, he wants to share his love for our planet and every living thing in it, and help make the world a better place.
The Sony Alpha a7R IV released in July of 2019 as the successor to the popular a7R III. While the early Sony mirrorless cameras had a limited lens selection, by the time the a7R IV came out, the lens selection had blossomed. Nowadays, there’s a lens for every purpose from manufacturers like Sony, Tamron, Sigma, Samyang, and Tokina.
Do you know as much as you think you do about photography as a whole? Test your photographic general knowledge with this fun little quiz.
When first starting my photography like many people, young and naïve, I immediately googled "how to be a paid photographer" almost immediately I found a job opening for a local school and sports photography business. I had been dreaming of being a successful artist my entire life and here was my chance!
The Mitutoyo long working distance objectives are popular in macro photography, but often difficult to mount to a camera.
One of the challenges of photographing landscapes is creating images that reflect the right amount of depth and dimension. But sometimes it seems no matter how hard you try and how often you hear well-meaning advice from other photographers, the photos you take almost always come out darn flat.
Photography is a powerful tool in storytelling and scientific communication. But it can also cause harm when used unethically.
Titling a photograph or body of photographic work can be a daunting and often draining task. In many instances, a title will represent the work before someone has even seen the front cover, or leading image of a series, which means a punchy title can make all the difference in catching someone’s attention or losing it. There are many ways you can go about assigning a label to your work that not only identifies it but also can enhance and frame an entire experience for your audience.
Film photography. It’s coming back, and more and more photographers are dusting off their old film cameras or going out on a search to purchase one. Many people don’t see the appeal and feel quite comfortable with their phone camera. But for others, it’s becoming the only way they create images.
Charlotte, North Carolina, is nicknamed the Queen City, after Queen Charlotte. I moved to Charlotte from Frankfurt, Germany in July 1992. That was not just the year but also the month that the Bank of America (BofA) building was completed. The 871ft (265m) skyscraper is the tallest building in the Southern United States outside of Atlanta or Texas, with its “royal” crown on the top.
In the inevitable tide of recognition of so many women artists of the past 20th century who passed simply as muses, lovers, wives or companions, when their work was truly as strong, beautiful and original as that of their partner, Dora Maar, for many reasons, occupies a special place.
Creating a successful photograph is a process that has numerous stages. Printing the work masterfully, usually the last portion of the endeavor, is paramount.
Light painting has become a popular technique in the age of digital photography. If you have always wondered how to do light painting photography yourself, you've come to the right place.
Photography once changed fashion but now fashion is changing photography, threatening to make it obsolete.
We all have been there at some point in our photographic journeys: Our cameras, set to AUTO, pointing and clicking, saving JPEG images that we perhaps edit a little and put in an album to archive. Maybe we throw on an Instagram filter to fancy it up for social media. Then we forget about these images for a while.
Released in 1971, the Polaroid Big Shot was a funky, green plastic camera that was built for one thing: portraits. The plastic behemoth is simply designed, using a fixed focus 200mm, single-element plastic meniscus lens.
We all know how to click the shutter button on our phones and get a basic shot. But how to take it to the next level?
It begins in a specific place, and on a specific date: a country auction. March 26th. While I’m holding up a camera and looking for my one daily photograph, an Amish man swings the mirror he’s offering up to the highest bidder and briefly —for no more than a second— shows me… myself. And there it was: suddenly, I was Narcissus on the plains.
Skylum Software has added several powerful extensions to the already impressive Luminar Neo application including Upscale AI, Focus Stacking, HDR Merge, Noiseless, and Supersharp AI, bringing the currently available total for the application to seven. These new tools give creatives an impressive amount of control over their images, expanding the current functionality of the photo editing program to a full-blown "suite".
Most photographers shoot digital because of the speed it offers and the very low cost. Travis Cobb photographs with film exactly because it is slow and expensive.
As working professional photographers, most of the images we make are captured using digital cameras, so it is likely that only the absolute tiniest fraction of the images we take ever make it to physical print. This is fine for images of our lunch or of the concert we’re about to go see, but for the important moments we manage to capture, there should be something more.
I have been doing photography for a little over six years, and during and before this time I have hired many photographers for marketing, advertising and events. I have done this as a lead editor of a high-gloss fashion, real estate, and product magazine line, as part of marketing teams, and as a freelance writer throughout my career. I thought I would share some tips on what someone like me looks for when hiring photographers.
Last week, Twitter announced that they were adding view counts to tweets on Twitter. I thought I’d use the announcement to very unscientifically compare the number of views one of my photos received on Twitter vs. Flickr.
Frustrated with limitations on what you can do with your photos? Mylio Photos makes it possible.
I guess I'm the sucker that keeps a lot of the digital photography software companies in business. In order to "stay current" in my recommendations, I have to keep looking at new versions of software products, and that requires a near endless tithing that's getting old.
In April 1995, my uncle secured a lucrative job in Saudi Arabia. He and my aunt left their home in suburban Sydney and relocated to a western compound (a residential gated community for ex-pats) in Jeddah. My aunt shares stories of life under Saudi’s strict laws and how she craved her western freedoms. One such freedom was the celebration of Christmas.
Luminar Neo has a new extension available just in time to add something special to your holiday photos. The Magic Light Extension, may not be as big, flashing, and extensive as some of the others available within the system, but what it does bring is a lot of fun and adds a little (or a lot) extra sparkle to your shots.
If you're primarily a digital photographer with an itch to return to your roots or a film photographer who appreciates the tech as much as the image, Barnack Leica's are a fun way to see what it was like to take photographs almost a century ago with one of the world's most innovative and celebrated camera designs.
This nomadic portrait studio tent was our world for many years. Step inside and I will show you a world of beauty, adventure... and even heartbreak.
Stunning color images recently made available in high resolution by a French museum capture much of the world as it was transformed by technology and geopolitics 100 years ago.
December 7 marked the 50-year anniversary of the Blue Marble photograph. The crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 spacecraft – the last manned mission to the Moon – took a photograph of Earth and changed the way we visualized our planet forever.