So after the madness that was hurricane Photokina, I am trying to re-adjust to normal life, hence a short post for you this week, as my body and mind recover! This weeks post is focussing on creating depth in your images.Advertisements I was recently speaking to a friend on the subject, and came to the conclusion that depth can be achieved with two simple techniques. One, lowering the contrast of your background to create arial perspective, and two, by adding some blurry foreground elements....

I’ve been a big fan of Irix lenses since I first had the chance to check out their then-new Irix 15mm f/2.4 in person at The Photography Show in 2016. Later in the year, they let me have a bit of a play with the Irix 11mm f/4 at Photokina later in the year. They’re both very impressive lenses. The only potential issue with them, though, is that until recently, if you wanted lens profiles for these lenses in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, you needed to download them yourself and install them manually....

Lookup Tables, or LUTs, are simply amazing. LUTs are like presets, but work across all platforms and software, for both video and stills. LUTs can be used for both colour correction, to bring cameras to a standard, and for giving your footage or images a desired “look”. But how do we use them? In this video from Casey Faris, we see how to use LUTs for both correction and grading for video....

Recently Meike announced their new 3.5mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye lens. It’s a super low budget extreme wide-angle lens costing a mere $159.99 designed for Micro Four Thirds mirrorless systems. New Zealand based Photographer and filmmaker Richard Wong has been playing with one for a little while. In this video, he goes over it in quite some depth offering up his thoughts about the new lens and puts it side-by-side against the similarly-ludicrously-wide Laowa 4mm f/2....

Yup, that’s right, after a super brief beta period of only a few days, Prisma is now available for Android. The wildly popular iOS app has over 10.6 million downloads since its launch a short time ago. Prisma shows no signs of slowing down with over 1.55 million daily active users and over 400 million photos “prismed”. Opening up the software to Android adds a huge chunk to their potential userbase....

Earlier this year, Aputure announced their upcoming monster LED light: the Light Storm 300D. And now, it’s officially launched. With impressive 142,000 lux @0.5m , it’s brighter than any light in the Aputure’s arsenal, and it’s comparable to a 2,000W tungsten. But it isn’t just the brightness that makes this light so powerful. The 300D is precise, easy to shape, and it guarantees impeccable color quality. And all of its features are fit into a lightweight, portable light weighing less than 5 pounds....

Using ND filters is a great way to get creative with your photography, creating motion in your images with long exposures, being able to shoot wide open in full sun, producing smooth silky waters are just a few ways to have fun with them. In this blog I show you how I used a cheap eBay variable ND filter to produce these images below and then compare the images using more expensive and excellent quality B+W filters....

Photoshop has a wide range of tools that let us change our photos in almost every way we can imagine. But some of these tools are completely useless for most of us. In this fun video, Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect talks about five tools Adobe Photoshop has still kept in its 30-year long life, even though they have become pointless. Some of them are just obsolete, and others have much better alternatives that are also customizable....

The agreement required to cover Ariana Grande’s Sweetener tour has made photographers mad. The agreement requires them to transfer their copyright of the concert images to Grande’s tour company. And if photographers wish to use their own photos, they need to ask for written permission from the performer in advance. Because of this and several other terms, The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), along with 15 other press groups, is protesting against the agreement....

A part of adulting is having your headshot taken at one point: for CV, LinkedIn profile, your website… You name it. Of course, you want to look professional in it, and the same goes for every person whose headshots you capture. Laurence Boswell shares five common mistakes people make when having their headshots taken. It’s something to have in mind no matter which side of the camera you’re on....

It’s not often that you see a small company challenge the likes of Zeiss. It’s even less common to see one actually beat them in comparative tests. But that’s exactly what Veydra have done in some new tests from the folks at LensRentals. For those unfamiliar with Veydra, it was only just over three years ago that they were seeking funding on Kickstarter for their new line of compact Micro Four Thirds cinema lenses....

External GPUs have become a big thing for MacBook and other laptop users lately. With limited internal graphics, an external GPU can speed up your workflow tremendously – although it does kind of defeat the portability of it being a laptop. The recently announced Blackmagic eGPU, sold exclusively by Apple, might not be the best option, though, unless you’re only planning to use DaVinci Resolve. As this review from photoshopCAFE shows, it’s not so great with anything else....

After Sony and Canon pulling out of NAB 2021, the show has now officially been canceled. The show was scheduled for 9-13 October 2021. But unfortunately, the everlasting coronavirus pandemic has prevented NAB from taking place at all. In the announcement, NAB writes: I will remind you that NAB was also canceled last year, which was no surprise at all. However, this year we were hoping to start connecting and meeting at trade shows in person again....

Everything about a wedding is important. Including how they’re documented. Whether it be through photographs or video. Coverage often begins long before the wedding itself. Telling a couple’s story leading up to the big day. Ideally, you want this story to show some of your subjects personalities and humour. That personality and humour is exactly what the crews from Paul Seiler Photography and Jon Clark Weddings caught in this fantastic “First look” video with Tom and Beth Gardner....

There is no doubt that Kino Flo produce some very good lights. But they’re not exactly easy on the wallet. Sure, you can go out and buy several fluorescent tube fittings and try to build your own that way. But, like any fluorescent light, including the Kino Flos, they’re not always the most colour accurate. Incandescent tungsten light bulbs, however, are a different story entirely. In this DIY tutorial from Indy Mogul, DP James Codeglia shows us how we can build our own....

When the whole wire wool thing was pretty cool and new a decade or more ago, many photographers stocked up. Then the idiots discovered it. These days, it’s become a bit of a boring and cliché subject. Some of us, though, still have mountains of the stuff sitting in our garage that we could never possibly use. The good news is, it can still make an excellent photographic subject, especially with a macro lens....

Well, it looks like the portable flash game just got a little more interesting. After a year’s worth of apparent Godox AD200 dominance, Cactus has now announced a seemingly viable competitor. The Cactus RQ250 is a 250Ws portable bare bulb strobe offering TTL, high speed sync and it fits in the palm of your hand. It also has a built-in receiver compatible with the Cactus V6II and V6IIs trigger systems....

Earlier this week, Calgary-based business The Camera Store was robbed and $35,000 worth of Leica and Hasselblad gear was stolen from their store. Only 48 hours after thieves leaving the store, Calgary police caught two suspects and took them into custody. Hasselblad gear was returned to The Camera Store, but there is still no clue of rare Leica M-P 240 Safari. Hasselblad X1D and three lenses were put up for sale on Kijiji....

In the last few years, cine-grade gear is becoming more affordable. When I started shooting video, Cine PL lenses were basically a dream to rent. Let alone own. Laowa has been a key player in bridging that gap as they bring their new line of cinema lenses. They really knocked it out the park with their new Laowa 12mm t/2.9 Zero-D Cine. This video shows exactly just how well the $1500 dollar cine lens stacks up against an ARRI Ultra Prime 12mm T2....

Canon’s sensor lineup has expanded to add five new sensors, including one Super 35mm and one Full Frame 50-megapixel sensor. It appears as though the additions are new to third party sales, although might have existed in previous Canon models. All five sensors are rolling shutter CMOS sensors, designed primarily for surveillance, rather than photography or video, despite the physical size of a couple of them. 12MP 1 Inch CMOS 4K Sensor This is a 12-megapixel 1″ CMOS sensor suitable for both video and still image photography....