Here at DIYP, we cover plenty of photography contests and their spectacular winning photos. Over the course of the year, they take us through a range of emotions: from laughing at Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards winners to crying at the winning photo of the Siena International Photo Awards. In this article, we bring you ten of our favorite photography contests we covered in 2021. There can only be ten on the list, so let’s see if your favorite ones are there, too!...

It’s summer and you’re probably in or near the water. If you have a waterproof camera: maybe your phone, an all weather point and shoot, or an underwater housing for your camera; getting good underwater portraits can be tricky. In this article, I am going to share my top three tips to capture better underwater photos. Underwater Photography Tip 1 – Pay Attention to the Direction of Light It may sound obvious, but the direction of light is just as important underwater as it is on dry land....

Some things are unforgivable! Your audience will forgive a few seconds of blurry footage, a little bit of over-exposure, but kill their audio and they will flip to another channel. Joby sent us their new line of Wavo mics (POD, AIR, and PRO) and we’re going to use them to demonstrate our top five vlogging audio mistakes to avoid, and how to fix them. Using the in-camera mic You probably know this, but using the in-camera mic will generate the worst audio ever....

Photography contests are a great opportunity to win valuable prizes and have your work officially recognized. And even if you don’t normally submit your photos to competitions, you’ll still find them usefus: they let you discover plenty of new photographers whose work you’ll love. Here at DIYP, we bring you results of dozens of different photo contests throughout the year. In 2022, we saw more amazing photos than we can count, and we thought they deserve a recap....

The FAA has relaxed his drone regulations a little in the USA. People no longer have to register them, and guidelines for hobbyists and professionals are quite clear. When Newton Massachusetts attempted take things further with local regulation, though, one resident fought back. Dr Michael Singer, a professor at Harvard, claimed the proposed ordinance was preempted by federal law and violated his rights. His case won. The court ruled that it was indeed in violation of his rights....

Chinese lens manufacturer TTArtisan has just announced a super-fast and gorgeous-looking lens for Leica M-mount cameras. The 50mm f/0.95 lens comes in beautiful red color, and it will be available in only 500 pieces worldwide. The M-mount TTArtisan 50mm f/0.95 is already produced in black and silver. The company also launched Sony E and Fujifilm X mounts last year, but only 20 were produced for each mount. There aren’t any differences when it comes to the specs of each of these models....

Twitter has developed into a photographer’s dream platform – almost. This fall, the company enabled uploading higher resolutions images, while keeping the quality. I am not an avid user of Twitter, so yesterday, when I discovered that I can add a dark theme to twitter, I was pleasantly surprised. A dark background is a perfect environment for colors, contrast and shadow detail. Images deserve that. You can enlarge an image when you click on it, and that is a very cool feature....

Whether you’re on a tight budget or just want to experiment with new techniques, it’s always good to have some DIY tricks up your sleeve. Indian photographer Sani Patel shares a cool and simple DIY method for shooting commercial video on a $0 budget, and I think it’s definitely one of those that we should have in our bag of tricks. I first saw this video in my Facebook feed, it was shared by Filmmakers....

Many photographers love using vintage lenses for their unique character. With Thorium-coated “radioactive lenses,” their yellowish tint is what gives them a distinct look. However, the downside is that the color intensifies with time, turning the lens’ “character” into something that’s more of a nuisance. If you own a Thorium-coated vintage lens that’s turned very yellow, Mathieu Stern has a solution. In his latest video, he shows you a simple and cheap method to remove the yellow tint....

Vazen is a newcomer to the world of lenses, with its Micro Four Thirds lenses first spotted during Cine Gear Expo last year in Los Angeles. There, they showed off three lenses at 28mm, 40mm and 65mm focal lengths. The 40mm T2 1.8x Anamorphic lens was launched at the end of June 2019, and now Vazen has officially announced the 28mm T2.2 1.8x Anamorphic lens for Micro Four Thirds....

Venus Optics has released quite a lot of interesting lenses over the past few years. And now, four of the most popular and most unusual ones are available in L-mount. Venus Optics has just launched the L-mount version of two wide-angle lenses and two macro lenses: 4mm f/2.8 Fisheye, 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D, 24mm f/14 2X Macro Probe, and 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5X Ultra Macro. All of these four lenses already exist in other mounts....

Macro photography is fun and it opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities. Naturally, the same goes for macro photos of wildlife such as snakes, frogs, spiders, and other tiny creatures roaming the earth. If you’d like to start photographing the wildlife up close, especially in remote locations, there are a few things to keep in mind. And in this video from B&H, photographer Colby Brown shares with you five tips to help you get started....

We know that there are people who would do anything to get likes. Boyfriends of Instagram have already shown us what we can expect from influencers and wannabe influencers on Instagram. But this time, they shared a video that left me unsure whether to laugh or cry. I shared my impressions about this brilliant page way back in 2017, and I’ve been following Boyfriends on Instagram on Facebook and Instagram ever since....

For those who’ve never seen TheCrafsMan SteadyCraftin on YouTube, you’re in for a treat – even if you already understand everything contained within this 25-minute video. For those who have, you know exactly what to expect. I’ve been following this rather unconventional channel for a while now. It covers a lot of handy DIY and crafting topics as well as the occasional random tangent. Today’s random tangent is the topic of exposure as it relates to photography....

We’re Giving Away Software, Lights, And Bags We teamed up with Luminar, Cosyspeed, and Spiffy Gear to offer you everything you need to elevate your photography kit. Grand Prize Luminar: Software packages: Luminar 4, Aurora HDR 2019, Signature Look PackCosyspeed: CAMSLINGER Outdoor Olive, PHONESLINGER Prime Kit, QUICK SALLY One-Hand Wrist-StrapSpiffy Gear: Spekular Core Kit Second Prize Luminar: Software packages: Luminar 4, Aurora HDR 2019, Signature Look PackCosyspeed: STREETOMATIC+ BlackSpiffy Gear: LUMEE Bi-color light bracelet Rules You can read the fine print by clicking terms and conditions on the sweepstakes, but here is a simplified version:...

The term “parfocal lens” has only really come into common usage amongst the general population over the last decade or so as our DSLRs and mirrorless cameras have allowed us to start shifting more towards shooting video content. But what exactly are they? And what’s the big deal? As this video from Michael the Maven explains, parfocal lenses are zoom lenses, but they are zoom lenses which keep their focus distance through the entirety of their focal length range....

Perhaps you have a dream of becoming a professional photographer or you have already started your professional photography business. If for you it’s still a dream what is it that’s holding you back? If you have already started how was it for you? Did you start part-time, nervous about taking that first step or did you, like me, jump straight in? I read so many articles and hear far too many comments from other professional photographers who tell you what photography equipment you need and what photography training courses you should go on before you even start....

I’ve been doing this long enough that I honestly can’t remember why or how I started. I mean, I remember my origin story… but as an adult I also know that is probably a distillation and summary of what exactly went on. There are no easy lessons now.Advertisements Fifteen year lessons: Photography is communication. Why I do something is 80% of what I end up doing. I like to tell stories with photos....

I’ve always had a fascination with geometry and man-made structures, their perfection has a strong attraction on me. It took me time to realize that what I appreciated most wasn’t necessarily their symmetry or the simple repetition of shapes but the parallelism between the various elements of a construction, of an image. To better understand what is parallelism you first need to deconstruct photography and bring it back to its essence....

The selfie is a social phenomenon that probably won’t go away anytime soon. While many of us will recall the days before the Internet, and without selfies plastered over social media, was there ever a time without a selfie? The BuzzFeed crew decided to research it, and they shared their findings in this humorous video.Advertisements Definition of “selfie” Before we begin, we should probably establish the difference between a self-portrait and a selfie....