Video journalist Logan Baker over at Shutterstock put together a handy primer for anybody who is looking to get into black-and-white photography for the first time. The tutorial amounts to an easy-to-follow beginner's guide that we highly recommend you check out if you're just getting started in this genre.
Kirk Schwarz over at Practical Photography recently put together a short tips video for anybody who wants to get into toy photography. If you've never taken these kinds of photos but have always wanted to try, you'll find Schwarz' tips for shooting an "explosive" toy photo on a budget in the video above.
There is a lot to dive into when it comes to perfecting and understanding exposure. In this video and article (part one of a two-part series), we’ll be covering important in-camera functionalities such as using the Highlight Alert, your Histogram, how to set up Display Brightness, as well as the importance of shooting a flat Picture Style to get the right information.
Photographer Karl Taylor recently put together a quick tutorial video that shows you how to use ND filters to "burn" a long-exposure in-camera while you're taking the shot. It's a neat trick, and a good solution for those times when a graduated filter won't work.
YouTuber and Photoshop expert Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect has put together a helpful and detailed guide that shows you exactly how to set up your Wacom tablet and keyboard shortcuts for the best photo editing and retouching experience.
A year or so ago, I wrote an article on why I switched from Nikon to Sony. A few people asked why I didn’t move to the Nikon mirrorless system. And the answer was simple: I didn’t want to risk shooting a wedding with a single memory card slot.
If you are anything like me, when you go out on a photography shoot, you end up taking many images and lots of different compositions as the light changes, and an inevitable outcome is a number of good shots but no stunners.
Dustin Dolby from Workphlo is great at creating simple, to-the-point photography tutorials that can really up your product photography game. And in his latest creation, he shows you how a cheap IKEA lampshade is actually a great, all-in-one diffuser solution when photographing reflective products—in his case, a watch.
If you're looking for a quick set of useful techniques that will help improve your portrait photography, this video from Tajreen Hedayet of Tajreen&Co is a great resource. In just four minutes she covers four subtle-but-impactful Lightroom adjustments that you can use to create more professional-looking portraits.
My name is Tom Woods and I'm a full-time commercial and surf photographer who has been in the industry for two decades. In this article, I'm going to share 10 tips for taking your surf photography to the next level.
Handheld focus stacking is a brilliant solution for many scenarios. It saves you all the troubles of using a focusing rail in the field and provides a maximum of flexibility. Whenever you need more depth of field than you can get with trading off image quality, this is the way to work around it.
Talented landscape photographer Michael Shainblum has put together a helpful tutorial that shows you two ways to dodge and burn your landscape photos depending on how selective you want to be.
One of the greatest challenges in macro photography is the depth of field, or DOF for short. Not only does the zone of sharpness drastically fall off as we get closer to our subjects, other factors such as the lack of light and diffraction softening make it tricky to use narrow apertures on top of that.
First off it’s not you, it’s Instagram. It comes down to a few very simple things that can be summed up in three words and two reasons: chronological order and saturation.
How much RAM do you really need to edit photos in Adobe Lightroom? 8GB? 16GB? 32GB? And how much of a difference would upgrading your current system actually make? Ryan of Signature Edits decided to find out, and he's put together a helpful comparison video to share his results.
Photographer Trevor Jones of AstroBackyard started doing astrophotography back in 2010 using his smartphone and point-and-shoot camera. After working on his craft for nearly a decade, Jones just made this 10-minute video guide sharing what he would do if he were starting out in astrophotography all over again today.
Commercial photographer, director, and artist Isaac Alvarez of Unplug Productions recently set out to see if he could capture professional-grade commercial product photography with a single LED panel for light, and a junkyard as his "studio." It seems the answer is yes...
Photographer Neil van Niekerk recently invited his friend Marco Leibetseder into his NYC studio for a photo challenge: rather than using flash, Niekerk and Leibetseder set themselves the challenge to capture some creative portraits that showcased "depth" in-studio using only continuous lighting.
Photographer Nigel Danson recently asked his 50,000+ followers on Instagram -- most of which are outdoor and landscape photographers -- what they think the hardest part of photography is. After getting back 1,827 responses, Danson made this 20-minute video to share the responses.
There are a lot of great location scouting tools out there. But while PhotoPills and The Photographer's Ephemeris do an amazing job and are packed full of useful features, photographer Tony Northrup explains why he prefers to use something else that's completely free: Google Earth.
My name is Paul Schmit, and today I want to describe to you the journey that led to the time-blended astrolandscape you see above.
There are all sorts of tools out there for making cinemagraphs and "plotagraphs" by animating certain parts of your still photos, but you don't need any of them. This short tutorial shows you how to create these animations using Adobe Photoshop.
YouTube channel KINETEK has released an extremely informative video by Director and Cinematographer Matthew Rosen, in which Rosen explains how to achieve and utilize color balance, and why it's important to avoid balancing everything.
The aurora season is here again and I figured I’d do a short post here regarding when and where to photograph it. When I’m browsing pictures online, sometimes seeing aurora pictures and checking the comment section, I see a lot of questions and responses from people that all have something to say about the northern lights (aka aurora). As someone who has seen and photographed the aurora many times, here is my little guide.
With the huge range of lighting modifiers available–umbrellas, beauty dishes, soft boxes, octaboxes, and on and on and on—it can be hard for a first time buyer to understand the differences and decide how to best spend their money. Photographer Scott Choucino to the rescue.
Always (always always) check your camera's anchor points when you have your gear attached to a camera strap. As photographer Tamara Zawada recently learned the hard way, even the best gear can fail without you even noticing there's a problem.
‘Flash duration’ isn’t a very glamorous topic, but it’s certainly something that every single photographer that uses flash should be aware of.
After learning about Flickr's new printing service last week, I decided to check the cost of prints. I want to build a physical portfolio, and have been unhappy with the quality of prints from local shops—I expect to get what I paid for (not a ton) and even then have been disappointed. So I ordered two prints from Flickr, both 8x10", both black and white.
I recently took my first ever photography trip to California. My plan was to hit up Mt. Shasta, Lassen Volcanic NP, and Lake Tahoe. I wanted to share some of the things I did right, as well as some of the things I did wrong.
As a newspaper staff photographer for 26 years, I’ve seen enormous changes in our industry over that time. There’s been an explosion of interest in sport and sports coverage, so there’s never been a dull moment in all those years.
Landscape photographer Mads Peter Iversen swears by his 24-105mm f/4 lenses. While many landscape shooters prefer ultra-wide angle lenses in the 14-24mm range, or will opt for a 24-70mm mid-range zoom, Iversen believes a 24-105 is the better choice. In the video above, he explains why.
When you're editing thousands of photos for clients every single week, time is quite literally money. This helpful video offers a few key tips that may help you speed up your workflow and save precious minutes every time you sit down to process your RAW files.
Landscape and travel photography marketing is one area that photographers often find particularly hard. But if you want your photography business to grow, you have to know how to market yourself and your work.
Refraction photography is an exciting subject that has been enjoying increasing popularity amongst photographers. You've probably seen refraction photos before: where an out-of-focus background appears sharply defined inside a crystal ball or a dew drop for example. In today’s post, we will examine this phenomenon and learn how to take beautiful photos by taking advantage of this effect.
Getting a proper exposure means that you’re letting enough light through the lens and onto your sensor/film to capture your subject and the environment. To achieve a proper exposure, you’ll have to balance shutter speed, aperture, and ISO according to your purpose. The key word there is “purpose.”
Landscape photographer Mark Denney recently stumbled across an old folder full of "favorite" images from a few years back. At first, he was just enjoying seeing the progressed he'd made over the years, but then he noticed something: "As I reviewed these images, I noticed the same three compositional mistakes repeated over and over."
Are you looking for an affordable but also electronic macro lens? Or maybe you have an old kit lens that's just sitting around, collecting dust since your last upgrade? Well then read on, because in this article I am going to share one cool hack that will allow you to transform almost any kit or standard zoom lens into a capable macro lens!
Adobe updated Lightroom with GPU Accelerated Editing a couple of weeks ago, helping to give your workflow a boost. But if your Lightroom Classic is still running too slow for your taste, this video will help you squeeze out more performance without upgrading to the latest Mac or adding better hardware to you PC.
Portrait photographer Julia Trotti recently put together a useful comparison video for beginners where she captures portraits using a crop-sensor camera and her most-used prime lenses: a 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 135mm.
When photographer Scott Choucino of TinHouse Studio first got into off-camera flash photography, he found himself struggling to find good info on putting together a solid affordable setup. That's why he created this video: a beginner's guide to his favorite super-cheap off-camera flash set-up.
Photographer Jamie Windsor made this inspiring 8-minute video in which he shares 5 tips for breaking out of a creative rut in your photography and staying creative.
I will start with a warning: Digital Infrared Photography is not easy, and this will get technical fast.
During last week's Sony Kando trip, photographer and YouTuber Taylor Jackson got to meet some of the most recognizable faces in the world of photography. Fortunately for us, he took the time to ask each of them for their #1 tip for photographers who are just starting out.
In mid-2016, Instagram started using an algorithm to order the photos you're shown, which was a big change from the simple chronological feed that had been used since the beginning. If you're not happy with the reach and engagement your photos on getting on Instagram, there's a rumored trick you may want to try.
Did you know that you can capture clearer photos of planets by using a red filter? Photographer Andrew McCarthy captured this view of Saturn from his backyard in Sacramento by doing just that.
Part of the joy of landscape photography for me is standing around and waiting for the light to change. You put your camera on its tripod, compose a shot and wait, taking photos every few minutes, whenever the sky or light or whatever looks interesting.
The black and white aesthetic can sometimes be a contentious issue among photographers. The decision to shoot monochromatic images is, for some, an afterthought in a way that other choices like filters, focal lengths, and exposure settings would not be.
"What lens did you use for that picture?" The only question less helpful to a growing photographer is probably, “What settings did you use for that picture?” Not because I think they are helping a newbie “cheat”, or because I might think it is copying, or ever -- God forbid! -- because I have some secret combination of shutter and aperture that is magic for me. It’s because it really doesn't matter.
“How do I grow my Instagram?” … it's a question I get asked often... too often. So I’m writing this article for my own selfish benefit. Rather than spend time repetitively composing a response, from now on, I can just link here when the next person asks me how they can grow their Instagram.
In this short tutorial, Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect lays out his "Sharpening Separation" technique: a more advanced sharpening technique that allows you to sharpen your images as much as you like without creating those dreaded halos.