No matter what gear you use, sharpening is just a fact of life. Even if you’re using a super sharp Sigma Foveon sensor, or a Phase One Achromatic back, all digital images can benefit from a little sharpening assistance. Photoshop and other applications offer a million different ways to sharpen your images. Some are more effective than others. And a few are quite versatile, while others are a little more rigid....

Drone parachutes are a cool invention that can protect both your drone and people below it in case something unpredictable happens. There are already some solutions on the market, and Fruity Chutes has recently launched the first available drone parachute system for the Mavic 2 Pro and Zoom. The full name of the system is Fruity Chutes Mavic 2 Automatic Emergency Drone Parachute. The company writes that it’s “lightweight, easy to use, and reliable....

The world of commercial shooting, whether stills or video, is an attractive one. It can be a tough one to break into, but it can also be a lot of fun. But it’s not like shooting for yourself or for personal clients. There’s often big crews to deal with, time and budget constraints, venue hire, actors, and a whole host of other potential issues to deal with. On a recent commercial shoot for Nu Skin, filmmaker Parker Walbeck documented what went into making it....

I love photography, but I love chocolate just as much. Hell, I probably even love it more! And Ann Reardon of How to Cook That brought my two loves together. No, she didn’t take photos of chocolate – she made her own camera out of it. In the video above, she shows you how she did it. And if you’ve got some skill, you can even make one yourself....

One of the great channels on YouTube is the BBC Archive. And while it covers a wide range of topics, particularly retro tech, it also looks back at old news broadcasts. This one’s particularly relevant here, as it details the introduction of cameras into cell phones (or “mobile phones”, as we call them here ) to the UK back in 2001. It’s an interesting look back at what people thought back then....

I think it’s fair to say that most photographers will at some point in their career have to work with models at least once. Whether you’re a still life shooter that photographs models’ hands holding a fork full of food a couple of times a year or an e-commerce shooter that works with models every single day. We all need to know how to contact a model, book a model and what to expect when working with a model....

I switched over to mostly using fluid head video tripods for stills photography about 8 years ago. I still have a couple of Manfrottos with ball heads. I also use ball heads with sliders. But, my go-to is a Libec video tripod with a fluid bowl head. They just make life so much easier, especially on location. It seems I’m not the only one who prefers to work with video tripods for photography, either....

Photographing your children as they grow and blossom into the young adults they will become is common to almost all parents. Some parents, however, like to think a little differently. Commercial photographer Grace Chon is one of those people. With assistance from the family’s 7 year old rescue dog, Zoey, Grace created an adorable series of photographs of her young son, Jasper. Zoey’s story begins with a tale that is as sad as these photos are cute....

There’s a whole lot one can do with Photoshop these days to put your subjects into any environment we wish. But, for me, nothing beats the authenticity of shooting on location. It seems Ben Von Wong feels the same way. For his latest project he took his model, Tau, and crew out into the middle of Hawaiian lava fields. The project is part of Ben’s work to raise awareness for climate change, and to give back to those who have been victims of natural disaster....

The Leica M6 is undoubtedly one of the most iconic, and most sought-after cameras ever. But what if you found one with a plate that partially obscures the viewfinder, would you buy it? That’s precisely the type of camera that eBay seller optixexchange is offering for $9,999.00. Called the Leica Post M6, this modified camera is arguably one of the rarest in the world. According to the seller, South Africa’s post office TELKOM ordered 8 of these between 1992 and 1993....

Since only around 20% of the ocean has been discovered, there are still so many creatures we need to learn about. Some of them are beautiful, some are terrifying, and some are, strangely, both! The giant phantom jelly is in this last group, and I can’t get enough of looking at it. The rare jellyfish was recently caught on camera, and MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) has shared a video of this strange creature with the world....

There are several ways to convert your images to black and white in Photoshop and Lightroom, and to edit their final look. But Colin Smith of photoshopCAFE suggests a method that you may not have tried before. In this quick tutorial, he’ll show you how to use the Color Temperature slider to edit your black and white photos. When you open Lightroom you can convert the photo to black and white by clicking on “Black & White” icon under the Basic panel....

We’ve seen a couple of camera gear factories, like Sony, Leica or Sigma. This time, George Muncey and the Negative Feedback team take you to Rochester, New York for a tour of the Kodak Headquarters. In this video, you’ll see the place where Kodak’s 35mm films are born and hear plenty of information about the place. The Kodak headquarters is huge, “twice the size of Central Park.” In the video, you can see both the inside and the outside of the place, which consists of several large buildings....

If you like retro-style cameras and photos, but you’re not confident with shooting film, you’ll love this DIY project. Photographer and cinematographer Ryan Ao brought retro and modern together, blending a Rolleiflex-style DIY camera and a smartphone. I loved his invention so much, that I just had to learn more! So, I chatted with Ryan and he shared a bit of information about “Phoneiflex” along with some tips for building it and the photos he took with it....

[editor’s note: Joel Grimes just released a new portrait photography tutorial. We took the opportunity to ask Joel for his best advice and it is outlined below., you can download a sample lesson (#2) down the page here if you want to check it out] The photographic process can often be a difficult world in which to navigate. There is this “tug of war” that occurs between the technical and creative sides, in which most of us gravitate to one or the other....

According to Israeli company, Corephotonics, while mobile sensor resolution increases, the effective resolution and image quality of cameras in mobile devices remains relatively low. Although the technology is improving with each new generation of smartphones that gets released, as well as other oddities, things like motion blur, lack of optical zoom, low light performance and focus issues still plague these devices. These are the problems which Corephotonics has been looking to overcome, and they think they’ve found the answer with a twin lens configuration and some fancy software....

Coronavirus has hit all of us, but artists and creators are among those who were hit really hard. UK Government decided to hit them even harder in a marketing campaign that completely devaluates their jobs. Not only does it mock artists, but it also uses free photos found on Unsplash, So, it’s no wonder that it faced a strong backlash and it was soon taken down. Choreographer and director Sir Matthew Bourne tweeted one of the campaign photos and wrote: “This has to be a joke?...

Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska has sparked an online trend of women sitting in a traditionally masculine pose. The trend is hashtagged “Sit like a girl” after Zelenska was featured sitting in this position on the cover of Vogue.Advertisements The image was shot by Annie Leibovitz and shows her seated on some steps, front facing the camera, legs apart, elbows resting on knees. The stance apparently provoked a wave of criticism that it wasn’t ladylike enough for a leader’s wife....

Picture the scene: You’re up at dawn to photograph the local wildlife. Your car is miles away, and you’ve hiked in the dark. A stag pops his head up out of the foliage in the distance. You reach for your long lens, you want to make sure this is a pin-sharp killer image, and then Dang! You realize you’ve left your monopod or tripod at home! This is exactly what happened to London based photographer Hiren Vekaria when he was out photographing deer with his Nikon Z6 and 500mm lens....

Well, this is a strange one, but given how things have been going the last few years, maybe not so much. The D.C. Circuit Court has ruled that First Amendment rights no longer apply to filmmaking, sort of. At least, not in National Parks and not if you intend to make even a single penny out of the resulting footage – even if just posting to your own social media....