
Dramatic Fish Death at Aquarium Shows Risk of Using Camera Flash
A video of a tuna fish reacting to flash photography and swimming headfirst into the aquarium's glass has resurfaced online sparking a debate.
A video of a tuna fish reacting to flash photography and swimming headfirst into the aquarium's glass has resurfaced online sparking a debate.
Photography is evolving -- Dramatically! I am talking about advances with smartphones, mirrorless cameras, and AI technology -- this is an exciting time to be a photographer. But there must be a better way than watt-seconds to compare lights.
Portrait photographer Miguel Quiles is tackling one of the most common beginner questions out there: should I invest in speedlights or strobes? In this video, he covers the pros and cons of both, and which you should go with depending on your needs and shooting style.
Wedding photographer Reggie Ballesteros gets a lot of questions from aspiring wedding photographers, and one of the most common is: how do you use off-camera flash? So he's created a comprehensive guide that covers his entire process—from the gear he uses, to his thought process during setup, through execution.
‘Flash duration’ isn’t a very glamorous topic, but it’s certainly something that every single photographer that uses flash should be aware of.
Here's a fun little experiment to try one night this week. Take that box of crackers (biscuits if you're formal), polish off the last few hangers-on, and then use that box to create some interesting DIY lighting effects with your off-camera flash.
Musician Ryan Adams got into another very public scuffle with a photographer this week. Midway through his set at the 2017 Gasparilla Music Festival, Adams, who suffers from Meniere’s disease, called out photographer Joe Sale for using flash photography and potentially putting the musician's health at risk.
Moving from using only natural light to flash photography is a big step for an outdoor photographer, but before you ditch ambient light entirely, give this video a look. As photographer Francisco Hernandez explains, you'll often get more pleasing results by pulling some ambient light back in.
Flash is a complicated beast, let’s put it that way.
Say you’ve spent the last few years of your photography journey perfecting natural light, and you know the exposure triangle by heart. Flash comes in to the picture and ruins that perfect triangle, making it more of an exposure square.
As beginner's guides go, this is one of the best we've stumbled across. In 10 minutes, Joe Edelman does a fantastic job comparing the standard speedlight to the standard monolight or "studio strobe," explaining some of the confusing terminology, and helping break down which is better when and why.
Avoiding the paparazzi usually involves celebrities covering their faces or surrounding themselves with body guards, but why do that when you can just toss a stylish scarf around your neck? This anti-paparazzi scarf lets you do just that.
Shooting flash photography with a wide open aperture on a bright summer day can feel almost impossible sometimes. You have a collection of beautiful shots that could use flash, but due to the sheer amount of light coming into your lens your flash units can’t keep up with the situation. You may be able to use an ND filter to cut down on the light, but your flash units will also have to compensate in the process. Now, professional lighting company, Priolite, has a solution they say will allow Pentax photographers to shoot Hot Sync flashes at speeds up to 1/8000th of a second.
Editor's note: This video contains NSFW language
It's easy to assume that the whole 'no flash photography' rule at concerts is ignorable, but as the clip above shows, not only can it distract the performer, in some rare cases it might actually be a health hazard.
It’s no secret now that modern cameras have taken photographers to new heights with their ability to shoot at and above ISO 1600. Personally, I can now shoot in situations where previously, I ‘had no choice’ but to use flash or put the camera down, so it’s no surprise many photographers are taking advantage of high ISO to be able to shoot in poor existing light.
Most entry- and enthusiast-level cameras come with a pop-up flash, which though not especially powerful, can come in very handy. In this tutorial we’ll show you six built-in flash techniques than can help you get the better results from this often overlooked and somewhat maligned feature.
Sprinkled in-between the more advanced lighting, photography and post-processing tutorials that we feature on the site, we've been trying to add in the occasional basic tutorial or walkthrough for the beginning photographer. Not everybody who reads PetaPixel is a pro- or even an intermediate-level photographer, and we all have to start somewhere.
The video above falls squarely into the "for beginners" category (in case the title didn't clue you in), and even though it was uploaded all the way back in 2010, it will still come in very useful if you're just starting out.
Photography instructor Mike Browne of PhotographyCourses.Biz has a clever way of teaching the basic principles of flash photography. He uses water from an ordinary garden hose as an analogy for light, showing different ways you can go about soaking your portrait subject.