Fstoppers

Photographs That Stay: A Quiet Approach to Making Memorable Images

Alex Coghe — Fri, 22 May 2026 12:03:01 -0400

You know, there is a difference between a good photograph and one that stays. Not louder, not more dramatic, not even technically better. Just… harder to forget.

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No Reflector, No Assistant: Making Harsh Light Work for Portraits

Alex Cooke — Fri, 22 May 2026 10:03:01 -0400

Shooting in harsh midday light near water is a situation where photos fall apart fast. Without a reflector or an assistant, that direct sun creates unflattering shadows and a dynamic range that's nearly impossible to manage in a single exposure.

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What Happens When the Landscape Refuses to Cooperate

Alex Cooke — Fri, 22 May 2026 09:03:01 -0400

Shooting unfamiliar terrain forces you to adapt fast. When the dramatic mountain backdrops you rely on aren't there, the images you make either show your range or expose your limits.

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How to Stop Losing Bookings: 5 Business Fixes That Actually Work

Alex Cooke — Fri, 22 May 2026 07:03:02 -0400

Booking weddings consistently is one of the hardest parts of running a photography business, and most of the problems aren't about your camera or your shooting skills. They're about how you're running your operation, and the fixes are more straightforward than you might expect.

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Is Your Photography Too Perfect to Be Interesting?

Alex Cooke — Fri, 22 May 2026 05:03:01 -0400

Shooting the same iconic locations as everyone else is a trap most fall into without realizing it. This video makes a compelling case that the most memorable images aren't the ones that show everything perfectly; they're the ones that leave questions unanswered.

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A Love Letter to the Disposable Camera

Alex Cooke — Thu, 21 May 2026 17:03:01 -0400

There is a specific feeling that I am going to try to describe, and I am not sure I will succeed. It is the feeling of being nine years old in 1996, holding a plastic Kodak FunSaver on a wrist strap, with the flash recycling and the little red ready light blinking on and off, knowing that I had 27 chances to take a picture and that I would not see any of them until my mom got the envelope back from the grocery store a week later.

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Time To Try Film Photography? Forget an Expensive Leica M6, You Need a Cheap Nikon FM!

Simon Burn — Thu, 21 May 2026 12:03:01 -0400

There was a moment recently when I realized the digital noise became too loud. Influencers and brands constantly talking about the latest technology and how it can improve your image quality. Menus became complicated. Firmware upgrades necessary. Increasingly faster eye-tracking and endless focus modes you never asked for. At some point, you start to miss something simpler—something quieter. Something that feels like photography again.

Cue film photography discussions.

And that's also when people—typically younger people—start telling you that you need a Leica.

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Costco's Cheap Acoustic Panels Are Amazing

Lee Morris — Thu, 21 May 2026 12:00:38 -0400

Whether you want to record clean audio, or you want a quite room to enjoy music in, room treatment is imperative and usually extremely expensive. Costco just brought the price way down.

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Is a 50mm Prime Really All You Need for Portraits?

Alex Cooke — Thu, 21 May 2026 11:03:01 -0400

Choosing between a 35mm and 85mm prime for portraits is one of the most common debates in portrait shooting, and most people assume you need both. This video makes a strong case that a single 50mm prime not only covers the middle ground but can actually outperform the two-lens setup in more situations than you'd expect.

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Staying Longer Than Necessary

Alex Coghe — Thu, 21 May 2026 10:03:01 -0400

I realized at some point that most of the photographs I was making came from leaving too early — not physically, but mentally.

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10 Things Landscape Photographers Should Learn That Have Nothing to Do With Cameras

Alex Cooke — Thu, 21 May 2026 09:03:01 -0400

Improving as a landscape photographer has less to do with mastering technical settings and more to do with building the life skills that get you out the door, keep you in the field longer, and make your images mean something when you share them. These aren't camera skills. They're human skills that happen to make your photography better as a side effect.

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Photoshop's AI Depth Masking Can Separate Your Subject From the Background With Surprising Precision

Alex Cooke — Thu, 21 May 2026 07:03:02 -0400

Selecting a subject in Photoshop has always required some combination of patience and compromise, but AI depth masking changes the math on that. Instead of identifying edges or colors, it reads the three-dimensional depth of your scene and lets you select based on where things actually sit in space.

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What 50 Megapixels Lets You Get Away With on a Wide Angle Lens

Alex Cooke — Thu, 21 May 2026 05:03:01 -0400

Shooting architecture with a wide angle lens is harder than it looks. Converging verticals, contrast extremes, and the question of what clients actually want from your images all collide in ways that catch a lot of people off guard.

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Behind the Scenes Shooting Both Photo and Video for E-Commerce Fashion

Fynn Badgley — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:03:01 -0400

You all see the classic e-commerce shots on any fashion designer's website, but seldom do you get to see the full behind-the-scenes of what it takes to make them. Recently, I did an e-com photo and video shoot for a brand that I work with. Here is the process, how I lit it, how I shot it, as well as the overall behind-the-scenes look at what goes into a relatively simple shoot like this.

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Sometimes, You Have to Plan in Order to Be Creative

Ryan Carignan — Wed, 20 May 2026 17:03:01 -0400

Technical proficiency and a good eye are extremely important aspects of success for a motorsports photographer, but so is something many photographers do not want to do—planning. The cover photo would lack interest without the sun rising behind the cars.

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TerraMaster D1 SSD Enclosure: Rugged Performance and Pocket-Friendly

Kim Simpson — Wed, 20 May 2026 15:03:01 -0400

Following the strong reception of its D1 Plus and Pro models, TerraMaster has introduced the D1 SSD Enclosure, and its timing couldn't be better. As AI and machine learning workloads continue to drive unprecedented demand for flash storage, SSD prices have climbed sharply, forcing creators to rethink how they invest in capacity. Instead of committing to expensive, fixed solutions, the D1 offers a more flexible approach to pair with the SSD that fits your budget and your needs.

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The Shutter Speed Rule Most Beginners Don't Know About

Alex Cooke — Wed, 20 May 2026 12:03:01 -0400

There is a simple rule that will immediately reduce the number of blurry handheld photos you take, and most beginners have never heard of it. It is called the reciprocal rule, and it gives you a minimum shutter speed based on the focal length of your lens. The math takes about two seconds. The payoff is permanent.

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Canon's Answer to the FX3? Canon C50 Review

Fynn Badgley — Wed, 20 May 2026 11:03:01 -0400

Recently I got to go hands-on with the all-new Canon C50 for a couple of projects, and ultimately I wanted to see if this could be the right compact cinema video camera, delivering high-quality video up to 7K that would work not only for content creation and brand videos but also for some indie filmmaking projects.

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Why So Many Photographers Hate Juergen Teller

Alex Coghe — Wed, 20 May 2026 10:03:01 -0400

There's a particular kind of photographer who becomes visibly uncomfortable the moment Juergen Teller enters the conversation. You know the type. They can explain sensor readout speeds like nuclear engineers. They spend three weeks comparing corner sharpness at 400%. They speak about cameras the way Formula 1 mechanics speak about engines. Their hard drives are graveyards of technically flawless emptiness.

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Can You Match Leica, Fujifilm, and Sony Colors in Lightroom?

Alex Cooke — Wed, 20 May 2026 09:03:01 -0400

Buying a camera because of its "color science" is one of the most common and costly mistakes in photography. Whether it's Fujifilm, Leica, or any other brand with a devoted following, the idea that one manufacturer has access to a secret color palette that others don't is worth examining before you spend thousands of dollars chasing it.

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Canon RF 20-50mm f/4 L IS USM Power Zoom: Is This the Best Lens for Lightweight Video Rigs?

Alex Cooke — Wed, 20 May 2026 07:03:02 -0400

The Canon RF 20-50mm f/4 L IS USM is one of the more interesting lenses Canon has released in a while, and the weight alone makes it worth a serious look. If you've been building a run-and-gun or content creation kit around a Canon EOS R6 Mark III, this lens changes the math on what that rig actually costs you in terms of bulk and fatigue.

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Donut Bokeh With Autofocus: The Unique Kase 150mm f/5.6 Mirror Lens Tested

Alex Cooke — Wed, 20 May 2026 06:03:01 -0400

Choosing a telephoto lens usually means choosing between size, cost, and autofocus capability. The Kase 150mm f/5.6 autofocus mirror lens is trying to hit all three at once, and that's not something any lens has really pulled off before at this price point.

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Manual vs. AI Retouching: What Happens When You Zoom In

Alex Cooke — Wed, 20 May 2026 05:03:01 -0400

Portrait retouching is one of those skills where the gap between fast and good is enormous. Generative AI can fill in a blemish in seconds, but the moment you zoom in, the skin texture looks synthetic, the pores disappear, and the person starts to look like someone else entirely.

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Why Your Landscape Skills Are Perfect for Street Photography

Adam Matthews — Tue, 19 May 2026 17:03:01 -0400

Street photography can be intimidating for those of us who usually stick to nature. But after spending years shooting landscapes, I've realized that the transition to the city isn't really about learning new techniques. It's about realizing you already have most of the tools.

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Dear Lisa: I’m Fully Booked and Still Broke

Lisa Plumb — Tue, 19 May 2026 15:03:01 -0400

A photographer can shoot 30 weddings a year, stay booked months in advance, and still feel a quiet dread every time an unexpected expense hits the account. This advice-column piece tackles that disconnect — why so many working photographers are fully booked and still broke, and what actually fixes it.

The Letter

Dear Lisa,

I feel ridiculous writing this because if you looked at my Instagram, you'd probably think I was doing really well.

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The Best Speakers We've Ever Heard Cost $99 (Part 2)

Lee Morris — Tue, 19 May 2026 13:30:45 -0400

A while back, I made the mistake of comparing my old Polk TSi100 bookshelf speakers against much more expensive speakers. Somehow, my cheap speakers won. Now it's time for round two.

In that first test, I preferred the Polk TSi100 speakers. So did everyone else who listened blind. Naturally, that made audiophiles angry. The main criticism was that I was using bookshelf speakers as near field computer speakers, and that I should be comparing them to proper studio monitors instead.

So that is exactly what I did.

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AI Has Made Real Estate Videography Obsolete

Lee Morris — Tue, 19 May 2026 13:15:25 -0400

New AI software can now create incredibly accurate video from still images, and the Real Estate video market is about to change forever.

For years, real estate video has followed the same formula. You show up with a camera, maybe a gimbal, maybe a drone, and you create a polished walkthrough of the property. You glide through the front door, pan across the kitchen, show off the pool, and end with a dramatic exterior shot. It has worked because there was no better option. This is now outdated.

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The Authenticity Trend Is the Best Thing to Happen to Photography in a Decade

Alex Cooke — Tue, 19 May 2026 12:03:01 -0400

Every January, the trend forecasts roll in. And every year for at least the last five, "authenticity" has appeared somewhere on the list, wedged between AI predictions and whatever retro aesthetic is cycling back. By now, it would be reasonable to dismiss it as an empty buzzword, the kind of thing that sounds important in a webinar and means nothing in practice.

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Everything You Need To Know About Shooting Log Video Footage (S-Log3)

Lee Morris — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:57:55 -0400

Most of us know that shooting in a flat log picture profile will give you the highest quality video footage but the workflow has always been too difficult to deal with. I've created Fstoppers' LUTs for Sony cameras and a shooting and editing workflow that changes everything.

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Canon EOS R6 Mark III vs. Sony a7 V: Which Full Frame Camera Wins in Real-World Use?

Alex Cooke — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:03:01 -0400

Choosing between the Canon EOS R6 Mark III and the Sony a7 V is one of the more genuinely difficult calls in full frame photography right now. These are the two cameras sitting at the top of the hybrid market, and the differences between them are real but subtle enough that the wrong choice is easy to make.

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