The Biggest Threat to Working Photographers is a Lack of Insurance

It isn't fearmongering to say that one mistake, and not even necessarily your own, can bankrupt your photography business if you're uninsured. So Fstoppers have teamed up with Insurance Canopy who have created Full Frame Photography Insurance to go over the issue and offer some insight.

Would You Pay for a Firmware Upgrade?

Firmware is the magical sauce that turns the manual operation of your camera in to a fully digital supercomputer, controlling the high precision mechanical instrumentation, making it a thing of artistry. More amazingly, this fundamental component of your camera is fully replaceable. Would you pay for an upgrade?

Deal Alert: 30% Off Full Training Systems at SLR Lounge

For the next month, SLR Lounge is offering 30% off of their full training systems. If you're looking for complete systems to help you succeed in your business or improve your photography, then this is a great chance to jump in.

12 Ideas and Tips to Improve Your Springtime Landscape Photos

Spring is now in full swing, and it's one of the best times to get out with your camera and photograph the awakening of nature. This great video will give you 12 tips to improve your spring landscape photography as well as some fun image ideas.

The New ColorChecker Passport 2: Every Professional Photographer Needs One

Since starting my career as a photographer, one of the more challenging things I found was producing relatively accurate and pleasing looking colors. For a long time, I've been using the ColorChecker Passport from X-Rite because it consistently helped me to produce better-looking colors.

A Long-Term Review of the Sony a9

When the Sony a9 first came out, it was hailed as a massive step forward and a challenger of Canon's flagship 1D X Mark II and Nikon's flagship D5 at a lower price than both. And although it looked amazing on paper and in early reviews, questions about its longevity remained. After almost two years, this great video discusses how the a9 has fared over the long-term.

Comparing the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Lens to the Sony 24-70mm f/2.8

The Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD has been a remarkably popular lens, while the Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM remains a top performer for standard zooms, albeit at nearly triple the price. Is that increased performance worth the price difference? This helpful video review helps answer that question.

Do You Create Emotion With Your Photography?

Capturing emotion in your photos is one of the most crucial things you can do to create compelling imagery, and yet, it's one of the things we talk about the least. This great video examines the importance of capturing emotion in landscape photography and how you can go about doing it yourself.

What Gear Companies Do You Invest In?

I'm not talking about gear you buy. I'm talking about investing on the stock market. Many of the companies we as photographers use are public companies. For me, it's become a time to consider investing. What would you buy?

Roadtripping with the Fuji GFX 50S

A full tank of gas, a Fujifilm GFX 50S, and a partner in crime make for a perfect day to remember what happiness is all about.

A Look at Lisa Folino's Fine Art Series Arrow of Time

For many of us, the tragic event at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris served as a stark reminder of how fragile and delicate the remnants of our human past can be. Whether globally historic or personally sentimental, we are all connected to the past. It helps give meaning to the present, and invariably helps to shape the future. With this in mind, I feel it timely to introduce fine art photographer Lisa Folino.

10 Tips to Improve Your Landscape Photography

You can never have enough tips to improve your work. This helpful video will give you 10 simple tips to not only improve your landscape photography, but to enjoy it more as well!

Five Mistakes Photographers Make and How to Fix Them

No photographer is perfect, and we all makes mistakes from time to time that detract from the quality and power of our images. This helpful video details five such mistakes and what you can do to fix them to create more powerful and emotive photos.

How Much Video Resolution Do You Actually Need?

In the last decade or so, video resolutions have exploded and show no signs of stopping, particularly as 8K is starting to make its way to market. But at what point have you reached more resolution than you really need? This great video takes a look at the history of video resolutions and what you need as a filmmaker.

Photographer Listed as One of the Worst Jobs in the US

Being a professional photographer is certainly a lovely career if you can make it work, but it's not an easy field in which to be successful. That seems to have been confirmed by a recent report that names photography one of the 25 worst jobs in the country.

Big Size, Big Image Quality: A Review of the Sigma 40mm f/1.4 Art Lens

Part of Sigma's lens philosophy seems to be: better optical quality, compact size be damned. And perhaps no lens more distinctly shows this idea than the 40mm f/1.4 Art. But is that gigantic size worth the results? This great video review answers that question.

The Importance of Keeping an Open Mind and Being Flexible in Photography

One of the central principles we hear over and over in photography is the importance of pre-visualizing shots and planning one's work in advance. And while those are absolutely important, it's also just as beneficial to keep an open mind and to be willing to adjust to the conditions you've been given to come away with the best possible image.

Hot Lights
Critique the Community

Hot Lights

Submit your best image taken with a constant light for your chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial

Some photographers claim to shoot only natural light while others depend largely on their strobes. This episode of Critique the Community is for those images shot only with constant light. 

This contest has ended.

Critique the Community Seamless Background

Congratulations to the Winners!

Although seamless backgrounds can create one of the simplest photography setups, there were a wide variety of images that were taken for this week's episode of Critique the Community. Were the images judged fairly in your opinion? 

Three Beauty Lighting Setups Using V-Flats

V-flats are one of those studio tools that almost every photographer should have, as their price and versatility make them almost indispensable when working with artificial light. This helpful video will show you three separate beauty lighting setups using v-flats.

Getting More out of Overcast Skies in Landscape Photography

When you think of epic landscape images, the light you imagine is probably golden and dramatic, with arching shadows and radiant glow. And while that sort of light can certainly create beautiful, entrancing imagery, overcast skies can create their own sort of mood, and they're well worth embracing. This great video will show you everything you need to know from shooting to post-processing.

How to Edit Light and Airy Photos in Lightroom

Light and airy photos are one of the most popular looks nowadays for weddings, lifestyle portraits, and more. This excellent video will show you how to edit your images to get that look using nothing more than Lightroom.

Four Lesser Known but Very Helpful Tips for Wedding Photographers

Being a wedding photographer is tough enough, but there are some small steps you can take to make your job easier that really add up in the long run. This helpful video will give your four lesser discussed ideas to make your wedding photography life just a little better.

Is Your Creativity Due to Your Insecurity?

It's never occurred to me that creativity can come from a place of insecurity, but this video made me think about it. I'm a confident guy, and I get my creativity in the same way Chris Do gets it: by being optimistic and believing that reaching the top of the mountain only shows you the next peak to start climbing.

Are Deaths by Selfie an 'Epidemic'?

There is no denying that we live in a selfie-obsessed culture; just go, well, anywhere, and you'll see selfies being taken. A recent study in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care found over 250 verified "deaths by selfie" from October 2011 to November 2017, with a mean age of almost 23 years old. Has the fascination with recording ourselves wherever we go gone too far?

Photographers: Protect Your Vision With These Five Habits

Browsing a dusty used book store on the north side of Chicago in 2008, a familiar name caught my eye: Aldous Huxley. The Huxley book I saw there, published in 1942, had an intriguing title: The Art of Seeing.

Review: Topaz DeNoise AI Kills Noise but Not the Details in Your Images

I've owned lots of image de-noisers over the years. I've used external apps, Photoshop/Lightroom plugins, and I've used the noise reductions controls built into Photoshop and Lightroom. They all work to some degree, but you wind up trading noise reduction for details, and I've never found a noise reduction aid that didn't have some rather large trade-offs. Increase the noise reduction and details suffer. Preserve the details and the noise reduction is not effective. Many of you know the drill.

Every Architecture and Landscape Photographer Needs Luminar 3

I know this article is sponsored, and some of you may pull back a little because of that. I don't blame you; I mean, I'd personally have reservations too, but I genuinely mean every bit of praise I give to Luminar 3. This software is seriously awesome, and in this article, I'm going to explain why.

Lighting Tips and Tricks With JB Sallee

Do you want some new or different ideas on how to use your lighting when shooting a scene, a portrait, or both? Do you have multiple strobes or lighting but haven’t really put them to the test outside with a client? This set of lighting tips from B&H Photo Video and JB Sallee may be right up your alley.

Advice to Photographers on Pitching to a Photo Editor

Sarah Tilotta provides some words of wisdom on pitching to a photo editor. It's a short video with some gems worth remembering, like being nice. Seems like the world could use a lot more of that.

Filmmaking Is Hard. Are You Up for It?

For a lot of people who aren't in the film industry, it might see like filmmaking is all kinds of fun and glamour. Peer just a little bit behind the curtain, though, and you'll realize just how complex and stressful that life can be.

Michael Shainblum and Nick Page Photograph Death Valley

I may be a little biased having spent weeks in and around Death Valley, but it's one of my favorite places in the USA to travel to and an area that always shows you something new. Michael Shainblum and Nick Page give us a look behind the scenes of their trip to Death Valley, as well as a new set of images and time-lapses.

Five In-Camera Tricks That Will Improve Your Action Scenes

Good action scenes are not always achieved through complex VFX, expensive practical effects such as explosions, or carefully choreographed fight sequences. In this video, you will see a few simple tricks that can help you tell an action story better using your existing tools.

Five Reasons You Should Carry the Insta 360 One X

DSLR shooters may not think they need a 360-degree camera (they don't), but that doesn't mean there is no reason to get one, and Kai Wong makes the case why this 360 camera is worth your investment.

Sold: The Most Expensive Photography Books

Do you know what the most expensive photography book ever sold was? What would your guess be? How about the most expensive photography books on retail shelves? The rarest or most sought after? Take a few guesses, write them down, and then compare when you get to the end.

Five Steps to Master Your 70-200mm Telephoto Lens

When you talk about landscape photography, chances are, you associate it with wide angle lenses. Telephoto lenses are probably the least used in landscape photography, but they do have some fantastic qualities to them.

Instagram Is Testing Hiding a Post's Like Count

New screenshots suggest Instagram is toying with the idea of hiding the number of likes a photo has received. If rolled out, the change would alter the entire dynamic of the platform, given that many influencers rely on their likes count for business purposes.

How to Create 3D Photos for Facebook

Over the past few days, you may have noticed an influx of 3D photos in your Facebook feed. That's because this feature was previously limited to dual-camera iPhone devices, but on April 16, Oculus introduced new features allow users to create 3D photos and upload them into their feed from a computer. Here's how you can create your own.