Photography news

• Ditch the Algorithm: Why Substack Is Perfect for Photographers

  20-01-2025 18:03 via Fstoppers
  
  In an era dominated by social media algorithms and fleeting engagement, photographers often struggle to reach audiences in any meaningful way. With established social media platforms at saturation point, it’s become harder to reach the people who follow you, let alone new audiences.[ Read More ]
  
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• A Look Into the Latest Tripod Technology From Sirui: The BH-60 Hybrid Ballhead and SVS60 Rapid Tripod System.

  22-10-2026 18:03 via Fstoppers
  
  As someone who relies heavily on a geared head for precise hospitality work, the increasing demand for speed and video applications has left me considering how to integrate a hybrid ball head system into my professional workflow. Specifically, I was looking for a unit that acts as a traditional fluid head, yet retains the multi-axis freedom of a ball head for dynamic still photography—all without lugging around two different support systems.[Read More]
  
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• Should a Photo Project Start With an Idea or a Feeling?

  22-10-2026 17:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Most advice on personal projects follows the same order: settle on a concept, write a rationale, set some rules, and only then pick up the camera. That sequence keeps a body of work coherent, though it can also screen out the images you keep returning to before you have any idea why they pull at you. [Read More]
  
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• Create Beautiful Portraits With One Lens and Simple Light

  22-10-2026 16:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Crafting beautiful portraits with a simple camera and lighting setup is possible, and limiting our gear choices can lead to even more creative results. In my latest YouTube video, I demonstrate how I use natural light, strobe, and continuous light to create portraits. Instead of focusing on a ton of gear, I use simple setups, starting with just a window, and then show how I can use one Westcott FJ100 M hot shoe flash and a Joel Grimes Beauty Dish, and later one Westcott L120-B continuous light
  
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• Is Shooting Wide Open Making Your Photos Flatter?

  22-10-2026 15:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Background blur is usually the first effect you learn to create on purpose, and that early success tends to shape how you shoot for years. The settings you lean on, from aperture to shutter speed to exposure mode, decide whether your images feel flat or deep long before you open an editor. [Read More]
  
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• Is Samyang's Compact f/2.8 Zoom Set Worth Carrying?

  22-10-2026 13:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Samyang's three f/2.8 zooms, co-designed with Schneider-Kreuznach, cover 14mm to 180mm on Sony full frame bodies while stepping away from the familiar 16-35mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm ranges. Trimming a few millimeters here and adding a few there is how a lens maker cuts size, weight, and price, and those are the things that decide whether a lens leaves your house or stays on the shelf. [Read More]
  
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• Is the Nikon ZR Enough Reason to Switch to Nikon for Video?

  22-10-2026 11:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Nikon now owns RED, and the first camera to come out of that deal is the Nikon ZR, a compact body that records RED's raw codec for a little over $2,000. If you shoot video for clients or your own films, that pairing puts a codec once tied to cinema camera budgets inside a body small enough to balance on a basic gimbal. [Read More]
  
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• The Hurricane Katrina 'Looting' Photo Controversy and What It Still Teaches Us About Writing Captions

  21-10-2026 23:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Getty Images image number 53509740 is still on Getty's site today, and the caption still reads: "Two residents wade through chest deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area on August 29, 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana." An Associated Press frame of a young Black man in chest-deep water, carrying what looks like a case of Pepsi under one arm and a full garbage bag, said he was looting. Two decades of argument later, the disput
  
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• Hands On With the Light Lens Lab 35mm Double Ashperical Lens

  21-10-2026 18:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Every Leica shooter has a dream lens they would love to buy. Price is usually the obstacle, but sometimes that lens is not only expensive but rare as well. Perhaps no other Leica lens is more sought after than the Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 with the word “Aspherical” written in full on the rim. It is unlikely you will ever own this lens, but there is an alternative option in the form of the Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical “11873”.  [Read More]
  
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• How Nikon's Flagship 85mm f/1.2 Holds Up Against New Rivals

  21-10-2026 17:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Nikon's NIKKOR Z 85mm f/1.2 S sells for close to $3,000 and weighs more than many of the bodies you'd mount it on. For about three years, it has been the obvious pick on Z mount if you want the thinnest depth of field and the cleanest portrait rendering, and now cheaper third-party 85mm f/1.2 lenses are showing up to test how long that lasts. [Read More]
  
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• How to Make Someone Comfortable in Front of Your Camera

  21-10-2026 15:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Stiff portraits usually come from a subject who feels watched and unsure, and no lens or lighting setup hides that tension once it settles into someone's shoulders and face. If you photograph people who aren't professional models, how relaxed they feel shapes nearly every frame you take. [Read More]
  
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• Does Lightroom's Open Eyes Feature Actually Look Natural?

  21-10-2026 13:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Lightroom can now open closed eyes in a photo, a job that used to mean digging through a burst for a donor frame and blending it in by hand in Photoshop. If you shoot portraits, events, or group photos, a blink is one of the most common reasons a frame with good expression and good light lands in the reject pile. [Read More]
  
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• Is the Nikon Z5IIC a Better Deal Than the Sony a7CR?

  21-10-2026 11:03 via Fstoppers
  
  The Nikon Z5IIC puts a full frame sensor, in-body stabilization, and raw video into a $1,400 body by dropping the viewfinder, and people argued about that choice before most of them had held one. If you shoot weddings or travel, or if you're weighing a second body, the useful question is how that missing eyepiece and a pricier compact Sony rival play out over a real day of shooting. [Read More]
  
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• A National Archives Archivist Enlarged a Mislabeled Glass Plate in 1952 and Found Lincoln at Gettysburg

  20-10-2026 23:03 via Fstoppers
  
  The National Archives still lists the negative as "Crowd of citizens, soldiers, and etc. with Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg." Everything before the president's name is the label the plate wore in federal storage for most of a century. The rest is there because Josephine Cobb enlarged a broken piece of glass about 20 times in 1952 and found him in it. [Read More]
  
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• Comparing Peak Design’s Travel and Pro Tripods: Which One Is For You?

  20-10-2026 20:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Peak Design's Travel Tripod is probably one of the most talked-about tripods on this site, and opinions have been polarized. Since the brand has expanded its tripod lineup with three new Pro models, it's clearly important that we see their differences and optimal use cases. [Read More]
  
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• The Great Tripod Debate: Twist Locks or Lever Locks?

  20-10-2026 18:03 via Fstoppers
  
  You've noticed that tripods come with two basic kinds of locks: twist locks and lever locks. They're quite different. Which should you purchase? I'll tell you my experiences and observations. Twist Locks The Robus RC-5570 has high-quality twist locks.I generally like twist locks, or collar locks, but I feel that you have to really go out of your way to make sure that they are locked down because occasionally, if you are not careful, they can slip.[Read More]
  
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• Is the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L Really the King of Portrait Lenses?

  20-10-2026 17:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Ask a room full of people to name the best portrait lens, and most will point to something like the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM, with its reputation for sharpness, flattering perspective on faces, and heavy background blur. If you're about to spend serious money on portrait glass, ask whether that reputation fits the rooms you work in and the apertures you actually use. [Read More]
  
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• The Most Important Camera Setting You're Not Using

  20-10-2026 16:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Any modern digital camera has thousands of settings and more features than most individual photographers will ever use. But there are some settings that photographers of all genres can benefit from using. One of the most overused terms in photography is "game-changing." It seems like every time a new piece of gear is announced, whether it's a camera, lens, strobe, modifier, tripod, or lens cloth, someone is out there to tell you why you need it and why it's going to revolutionize your phot
  
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• DXO ViewPoint 6 Offers Image Correction Without Crops

  20-10-2026 15:03 via Fstoppers
  
  DxO has been busy lately, updating its collection of apps, giving them new capabilities and gently using AI to keep the photographer in control while making editing easier. Today, DxO is announcing ViewPoint 6, the latest version of its software for correcting geometry, perspective, and distortion. Version 6 brings AI masks to ReShape Fusion, the tool for adjusting the components of a scene from within the frame. Photographers can now concentrate a geometric correction on a single element
  
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• How the Canon EOS R6 Mark III Holds Up After a Year of Paid Work

  20-10-2026 14:03 via Fstoppers
  
  The Canon EOS R6 Mark III sits in the middle of Canon's mirrorless lineup, yet its feature list now overlaps with both the higher-resolution R5 Mark II and Canon's Cinema EOS bodies. If you shoot stills and video for a living, that overlap decides how many bodies you buy, carry, and maintain. [Read More]
  
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• Should Your Next Filmmaking Camera Be a Lumix?

  20-10-2026 13:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Picking a camera system for video locks you into a mount, a lens lineup, and a manufacturer's release schedule for years, and the features a brand ships early tend to shape how you work long after the purchase. Panasonic's Lumix bodies rarely dominate filmmaking gear talk, even though several capabilities now drawing attention elsewhere have lived inside them for a long time. [Read More]
  
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• Is Panasonic's $400 Lumix S 40mm f/2 Worth It?

  20-10-2026 11:03 via Fstoppers
  
  At $400, the Panasonic Lumix S 40mm f/2 is one of the least expensive ways to put an official autofocus prime on an L-mount body. A 40mm sits between the standard 35mm and 50mm choices, and a lens this small and cheap has a good chance of becoming the one that never leaves your camera. [Read More]
  
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• Connecticut Wrote Six Rules for Photoshopped Evidence in 2004 and Kept an Innocent Man in Prison Anyway

  19-10-2026 23:03 via Fstoppers
  
  A judge in Hartford wanted to know how the computer had made a set of plaster teeth semi-transparent so they could be laid over an autopsy photograph of a murdered woman's breast. "Judge, you got me," the state's forensic odontologist answered. "I don't know how they do it, but they do it," he said, and then, "I think we really need an engineer." [Read More]
  
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• Most Photographers Probably Overlook the Importance of This Lens

  19-10-2026 18:03 via Fstoppers
  
  There’s a special role that affordable lenses play in the grand scheme of things, especially those that don’t compromise too much on optics. This new lens, while smaller than most of its kind, is sure to open many doors. [Read More]
  
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• Is the Sony 20-70mm f/4 G the Do-Everything Zoom for the Mountains?

  19-10-2026 17:03 via Fstoppers
  
  The Sony FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G and FE 20-70mm f/4 G both promise a smaller standard zoom, and each one asks you to give up something different to get there. If you carry a camera into the mountains for hours at a time, the choice between extra width, extra reach, and an extra stop of light shapes nearly every frame you bring home. [Read More]
  
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• Landscape Photography Beliefs Worth Questioning, From Gear to Fame

  19-10-2026 15:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Most people start landscape photography already believing a few things: you need a wide angle lens, a tripod goes everywhere with you, and a strong portfolio might eventually pay for itself. Those beliefs decide what you buy, where you travel, and how you judge your own progress, and several of them don't hold up once you've spent real time in the field. [Read More]
  
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• Should You Fix a Vintage Lens' Flaws in Lightroom?

  19-10-2026 13:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Adapting a vintage lens to a mirrorless body gets you inexpensive, well-built glass with a look modern optics rarely have, and it also brings purple fringing, darkened corners, and lines that bow at the edges. Every one of those flaws can be pushed around in Lightroom, so each one becomes a decision about how much of the old lens you keep in the final file. [Read More]
  
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• How to Find Compositions When a Location Overwhelms You

  19-10-2026 11:03 via Fstoppers
  
  You arrive somewhere beautiful, raise the camera, and every frame comes back looking like a postcard someone else already took. Too much to look at can stall your composition faster than too little, and the fix often starts with seeing less of the scene through a viewfinder, a long lens, or an in-camera crop mode. [Read More]
  
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• The Image Stabilization Rating on Your 2026 Camera Comes From a Shaker Table, Not a Human Hand

  18-10-2026 23:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Canon rates the EOS R6 Mark III at up to 8.5 stops of stabilization at the center of the frame and 7.5 stops at the periphery, depending on the lens. The footnote under that number says it was measured under the CIPA 2024 standard with an RF 24-105mm F2.8 L IS USM Z at 105mm. The footnote leaves out that the camera was bolted to a vibrating platform roughly two meters from a printed chart, in a room held near 23 degrees Celsius, and that the rating comes from at least 200 frames shot at every s
  
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• Are Inflatable LED Lights Actually Any Good?

  18-10-2026 18:03 via Fstoppers
  
  Inflatable LED lights are one of those ideas that sound gimmicky. A soft, glowing tube you inflate like a pool toy, then use to light a portrait or paint with color in the dark. It's the kind of gadget that could easily be all novelty and no substance. I wanted to answer a simple question for myself: do these things actually deliver usable results, or are they just a throwaway item destined for the back of a drawer? I tested the Neewer GC30C Inflatable LED Light to find out. [Read More]
  
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