Advertisements The ZEISS Photography Award contest is now in its fifth year. For this year’s brief, photographers were asked to submit a series of works focused on the theme of discoveries that transform our everyday lives. As an answer to the topic, photographers have submitted images based on different kinds of discoveries. They include personal revelations, scientific and technological breakthroughs, or ideas that led to social change. The winner of this year’s ZEISS Photography Award is Kyeong Jun Yang from South Korea, a self-taught photographer and a journalism student at the University of Texas....

What was your most common mistake when you were a beginner in photography? We all make mistakes, but fortunately – we learn from them, so we become better and better. Rachel and Daniel from Mango Studio point out three most common mistakes almost every new photographer makes, but also offer ways to overcome them. Did you make these, too? Blowing out the highlights If you don’t expose for the highlights, you won’t be able to post-process the image and bring back the information you lost from them....

As I always say, we all make mistakes, and it’s good because we learn from them. But there are some mistakes that can be avoided, or at least we can learn to overcome them much faster. In this video, Nigel Danson reflects on the five biggest mistakes beginner landscape photographers make when editing their photos in Lightroom. 1. Paying too much attention to histogram I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I was told about histogram is how an “ideal” one looks like....

It’s that time of year again and no I don’t mean that weird week between Christmas and New Year when you’re not quite sure what day it is. Nope, it’s when the company Lens Rentals publishes its data of which gear and equipment was the most-rented over the past year! OK, so I might be being a bit cheeky here, but actually, it’s very useful and interesting info with a few surprises here and there....

There’s something about floating around in a hot air balloon that just seems so peaceful and tranquil – despite the roar of burners blasting hot air into them. The views one can get from them are also quite astounding, too. And when you’re in one with a camera, they offer a level of control that a drone simply cannot. Ted Forbes at The Art of Photography recently had his old Sony NEX-7 camera converted to full-spectrum....

Aerial photography gives us an entirely new perspective and a new view of the world around us. I always find it exciting to see this new perspective, and so does Australian photographer Leah Kennedy. So, she took her gear and flew over vast landscapes of Namibia in a helicopter or a small aircraft. She played with the aerial view in search of abstraction, and this has resulted in some fascinating, painting-like images....

You knew it was coming. It was inevitable. A new iPhone is released, so somebody has to go and do a photo shoot or make a short film with it. Well, that short film is now here. Called “Made in Paris”, it was shot by Ryan Earl and Nick Arcivos of AmnesiArt. The film presents us with Elise Lepinteur, protégée of worldwide famous pastry chef, Christophe Adam. Shot entirely with the iPhone X, it’s rather good....

One of my favourite channels to watch on YouTube is Technology Connections. In each video, our host takes us on a journey through the histories of different technologies, explaining where they came from and how they work. It covers all kinds of technologies, but occasionally, the topic becomes somewhat related to photography or video. We’ve featured the channel here on DIYP before, to explain why cameras and our eyes see in RGB....

When we look up to the night sky, or even the day, we see the stars and the sun as objects that appear to move across our sky. In reality, they’re staying relatively still. It’s us that’s moving. Spinning around at up to 1,000 miles per hour. It’s a difficult concept to wrap our heads around, though. A thousand miles an hour seems incredibly fast, but things move across the sky so slowly....

Cosplay, fantasy and photographing it has become huge over the last decade or so. At comic cons around the world, people show up as their favourite video game, TV and movie characters. And every year they just get better and better, closer the originals that inspire their creation. In the last few years, developments in technology and electronics have allowed some to take it up to the next level. This particular suit of “Sovereign” armour from Melissa Ng at Lumecluster is a perfect example....

Ok, so maybe it goes a little further than suggesting it. It states quite bluntly that it’s gone too far. I’ve still never seen an example in real life quite like that shown in the video posted to Facebook page Hot Date, though. But, I definitely see a lot more bad contouring makeup jobs when I wander through the local high street than I used to. The optical illusions that makeup can play for the camera are interesting....

The aperture is one of the most difficult things for new photographers to wrap their head around. The number system seems confusing (smaller number, bigger hole), depth of field, how it affects exposure. It’s a lot to take in all at once. This five minute animated video from YouTuber Apalapse goes over everything you ever needed to know about your camera lens’s aperture. It goes over some of the issues associated with picking which type of lenses you might want to buy, too....

For those who use flash on location, the biggest issue you’ll usually face is power. More specifically, a lack of power. Speedlights start to drop rapidly once you go into high speed sync and big inverters are a pain to carry. Great advances have been made in the last few years by the likes of Profoto and Godox, but those units still lose power when you go above your sync speed....

I must admit I rarely meet teenagers interested in something other than video games and social networks. But, from time to time, I hear about kids who amaze me. Young photographer Josiah Launstein is one of them. He is only 13 years old, and he’s been into photography since he was five. He grew to become a passionate wildlife photographer, and he even started getting awards for his talent and skill....

We just posted about a particularly well made iPhone X video yesterday, profiling French dessert maker Elise Lepinteur. While it is a very nice and polished final product, the phone had a little assistance from sliders, gimbals and 3rd party lenses. In this video, though, from Matteo Bertoli Visuals, we see the iPhone X footage completely unassisted, handheld. That’s right, no gimbals, no sliders, no bolt-on lenses. He didn’t even use Filmic Pro to film it, he used the phone’s standard app....

If you shoot video with DSLR or mirrorless cameras and you want to get serious, you really should consider a shoulder rig. They basically turn your camera from being Bruce Banner into The Hulk. You get so much more stability, capability and control. They’re more versatile and dynamic than a tripod or even a monopod. But they’re also often expensive. Filmmaker, Tom Antos put together his own DIY rig to turn his Sony A6500 into the perfect shoulder mounted camera....

I’ve always found optical illusions fun and intriguing. In fact, I like them so much that I visited the Museum of Illusions three times. In this video, Andrew Steele shares an interesting optical illusion that tricks your brain into seeing a black and white photo in color. Of course, I tried it. It works, and it’s really trippy. Take a look at the video below and see for yourself....

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, many nursing homes went into a full lockdown. The elderly folks fall within the most vulnerable group, so many of them are still in isolation. But an employee at Sydmar Lodge Care Home decided to cheer the residents up during lockdown. Robert Speker recreated famous album covers with them to lift their spirits up, and his wholesome project soon got viral. Robert is an Activities Co-ordinator at Sydmar Lodge Care Home....

Sensor dust can be an absolute pain sometimes. No matter how clean we try to keep our cameras, it just seems to creep in there when we least expect it – and often when it has the most impact on our shots. There are tools in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw to let us clean it up, but we often have to zoom in and drag the image around, hoping that we find them all....

This video is one of the funniest things I’ve seen so far this year. It begins as a somewhat sombre and dramatic piece. Immediately you can feel the mood of the story, the sense of anxiety and worry felt by the protagonist. Although, that sense soon turns to amusement when we realise what it is she’s concerned about. Letter, pt. II was created by Minnesota based SkyVista Productions to test the capabilities of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K....