Once, the idea of rotating my canvas when retouching was jarring to me. I knew it was something my peers were doing but I just couldn’t be bothered to try it myself. After a few one on one lessons where I was “forced” to do it by David Neilands, I actually found a surprising improvement in not only the end result but also in identifying problems quicker with fewer revisions....
Today, we see plenty of awesome timelapse videos created with still cameras. Sometimes they are even made from screenshots. But twenty years ago, they weren’t very common. In 1997, Alastair Thain filmed a commercial for Nikon F5, “technically the quickest camera in the world”. And to prove it really was the quickest, he created a timelapse using precisely this still camera. The results are pretty cool, both in terms of the quality and the mood of the commercial....
Smartphones have certainly gone a long way and they can take fantastic photos and videos. However, not all of the inspiring “shot on smartphone” commercials were really shot that way. Technically, they were, but often with so much additional gear that the smartphone was probably the least important component. This video from Marques Brownlee explores what lies behind the concept “shot on smartphone,” what it actually involves and what it’s meant to achieve....
Who can you trust to ship your photo and camera gear? Not FEDEX! What follows is the story of how FEDEX utterly screwed up my delivery and cost me over $1000.00 to get new gear and re-printing of all my workshop materials. Here’s the true to life story of how FEDEX screwed up my shipment and Why I’ll Never Use FEDEX Again to Ship My Camera Gear. The story begins in Irvine, California at the FEDEX delivery hub....
I remember the first time I picked up a digital camera. It was 2003 and I got this little Canon G5, a good point-and-shoot, and it was 5MP. Before that, I used film. It had to be scanned into a computer, then manipulated digitally. That was alright—but when I picked up this Canon, I thought it was amazing. It’s instant feedback. You see exactly what you’re going to get. You adjust your lighting as you go, you’re thinking on your feet....
If this isn’t just a website glitch, then is going to upset one or two people. It appears that the $9.99 Photography plan for Creative Cloud has disappeared for US customers. You can still get a $9.99 package, but you won’t get Photoshop anymore. Oh, no. For that, you’ll be paying $19.99 instead. See updates at the end of this post. The $9.99 Photography package includes Photoshop, Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and 20GB of cloud storage....
The Panasonic GH5 has an internal waveform and vectorscope, zebras, and you can check focus with focus peaking. Despite all this, it still makes sense to have an external monitor tacked on. Sareesh Sudhakaran from Wolfcrow suggests ten possible reasons why you still may need to use the external monitor when shooting with the GH5, and the principle also works with other cameras like Sony a7s II, Canon 5D Mark IV and so on....
There are a lot of passionate Street Photographers out there that create great free content that help me in very different ways. Some are more on the educational side while others inspire me to improve my images. Here is a list of Photographers I hope will be helpful to you too, together with links to resources that helped me a lot especially early on my way to becoming a better Street Photographer....
Gaffer tape is one of the most useful tools in any photographer or filmmaker’s bag. It comes in handy for so many things, and just to make sure I’ve always got some with me, I keep a roll in each of my bags. And I can’t remember the last time I did a shoot where I didn’t need it for something. In this 2-minute video from filmmaker Burke Cullinane we see 10 great ways to use gaffer tape on set....
A motorised gimbal is one of the most useful tools you can get today for camera stabilisation. They’re much easier to get to grips with than a steadicam style stabiliser, and their prices have come down dramatically in the last year or so. For mobile phones, action cameras, DSLRs or even big RED setups, they are absolutely invaluable. But using them effectively can be challenging. The temptation is just to hold them static in front of you and shoot away....
Nikon Small World photomicrography competition always amazes us with its fantastic entries. The 2019 edition is no exception. This year’s contest winners have been announced, and they show us just how beautiful and incredible even the tiniest subjects can be. This is the forty-fifth annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Contest. This year’s first place was awarded to microscopy technician Teresa Zgoda and recent university graduate Teresa Kugler for their stunning photo of a turtle embryo....
The 2019 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced. And like every year, stories in two photography-related categories have been awarded: the Breaking News Photography and Feature Photography. Winners of both categories won the awards for moving stories from different parts of the world, and you can read more and see the images below. Breaking News Photography The award in the Breaking News photography was awarded to the Photography Staff of Reuters....
Jesús Ramirez from Photoshop Training Channel often shows us awesome Photoshop tricks and tutorials. In his latest video, he shares 5 quick Photoshop tricks in only 90 seconds. All of them only take a few moments to set up, and you can use them right now to speed up your workflow. 1. Select colors from other applications With the Eye Dropper Tool, you can select colors from the applications outside of Photoshop....
The umbrella is one of the most underrated modifiers in photography, I think. It’s one of the first that many of us usually encounter once we start working with speedlights or strobes, and Bowens even used to include umbrellas in their strobe kits. But we often feel that we “outgrow” them, in favour of softboxes and beauty dishes. This video from photographer Miguel Quiles, however, demonstrates that we shouldn’t be so quick to discount umbrellas....
Brown food is notoriously difficult to photograph. It’s dull and comes across as unappetising. Consequently, many people recommend avoiding taking pictures of it at all. But, brown food is a reality and that means there will need to be photos of it. The good news is that all is not lost. It can be done, and done well. The secret to photographing brown foods is very much in the styling....
One of the things that’s put a lot of people off making the switch to mirrorless is a lack of lenses. The lack of lenses isn’t much of a surprise. How can new system like Sony’s E Mount or Micro Four Thirds really compete with the decades old Nikon and Canon systems where every lens has been made and revised half a dozen times or more? That’ll change a little for Sony users with Sigma’s new E Mount lenses, but there are other options....
Do you personalize your camera? A custom-made strap, a sticker, or a soft shutter release button? Well, in case you want to give your Leica M a personal touch and add some bling, Bashert Jewelry has announced quite a fancy set of soft shutter release buttons. They are made of sterling silver, and they’ll make your Leica M personalized, shiny and classy. And yes, even more expensive. The buttons are handcrafted and made from sterling silver 925, and they use ethically sourced, 100% recycled silver and precious metals....
Last month, Adobe started to change the icons for its ever-growing suite of applications. The biggest change was the new colourful Creative Cloud logo, but the applications within the Creative Cloud Suite have been transitioning, too, and not everybody’s happy about it. Many have noted that the icons are all starting to look the same, with multiple apps sharing the same colour scheme, making it confusing to find the right app....
This is one of those features that many of us wish was added years ago. It’s common for photographers to fill in holes from one photograph, of things they want to remove, from sections of another. I’ve done it many times myself to fill in undergrowth in forests or even rebuild entire moss-covered walls behind my subject on location. But it’s a pain, and takes forever to do well. Shown off at Adobe MAX, Adobe’s new Scene Stitch technology aims to solve this....
A photographer is someone who has a camera and takes pictures. That’s it. A toddler could do it. Heck, a monkey could do it. A professional photographer, however, is something altogether different Professional photographers hit their mark 99% of the time They are consistent in their photography They are able to create quality images in any situation ANY situation Over and over and over again No frantic pleas to Facebook-land because they now have to shoot in a dark space and “OMG, I’ve never used off camera flash or any flash and I’m freaking out and HELP!...
