Dean Bradshaw Proves Blue Can Be Bleak Aboard a Fishing Trawler

All photos by Dean Bradshaw. Used with Creative Commons permission.

It’s fascinating to follow a photographer’s epic adventures through their photos, not only to get a glimpse of their experiences but also their interpretation through choices in creative elements like color, composition, and mood. A perfect example is the cinematic documentary Icelandic Fishing series of Dean Bradshaw, where he shows us what went down during the 12 hours he spent aboard a fishing trawler in Iceland. If you’re looking for inspiration for documenting your next adventure, this set is certainly worth a look.

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Cheap Photo: Sony a6000 w/lens $498, Sony a9 Bundle $3498, A7 II $898

These Sony Mirrorless camera deals will put a spring in your step as we head toward Easter.

If you have been the market for a new Sony Mirrorless camera, or some new Sony glass, you are going to love these amazing camera deals. Right now you can grab the Sony a6000 with a 16-50mm, and two 64GB SD cards for just $498! The Full Frame Sony A7 II with accessory bundle is only $898, and the A7 II with the 28-70mm lens with accessory bundle is only $998! Has the Sony a9 been fluttering its shutter at you? If it has you can get it with a Rode mic bundle now for $3,498! Need to see in the dark? The Sony A7s II with accessory bundle is just $1,998. Other notable deals include the X-T2 and the X-T20 which are in the final week of their sales. The X-T2 is just $899, and the X-T20 is only $599! Come on in to see the other camera deals.

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The Tokina FiRIN 100mm F2.8: A $599 “Flat Field” Lens for Sony FE

tokina firin

If close-ups are your thing and you use a Sony Mirrorless camera, the Tokina FiRIN 100mm F2.8 FE Macro lens could be the one for you.

Tokina has been hitting some home runs with the FiRIN lenses they’ve been producing, so this news will likely be music to the ears of those enjoying previous Tokina FiRIN lenses. Today, Tokina announced that a new FiRIN 100mm f2.8 Macro Lens with a Sony E mount will be hitting shelves this coming April; and trust us when we say it is priced nicely too. Continue reading…

Should Your Commercial Photography Adopt a Brand Stand?

In their second visual trend of 2019, Adobe encouraged brands and designers to take a stand. Should you do the same for your commercial photography?

Now that we’re into the second quarter of 2019, it’s a good time for us to revisit some of the visual trends and predictions that companies like Adobe have put forward, and decide which of them are applicable to our work. One of these, they say, is the Brand Stand trend, which is a response to the big shift in the relationship between consumers and brands. In essence, it reinforces the fact that customer loyalty is no longer inspired by a ground-breaking product or outstanding service. People’s spending are now tied to their values, and it’s now the task of brands to take a stand to tap into their customer base. As a photographer, it might as well be up your alley to help them make a compelling visual message.

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Tutorial: A Practical Application of Rear Curtain Sync Flash Settings

If you’re fond of shooting the graceful movements of dance, you might want to experiment with shooting with flash in rear curtain sync mode using these settings.

Rear curtain sync mode is one of the creative techniques at your disposal when you work with flash. Basically, the flash fires off towards the end of an exposure, or just before the rear/second curtain closes. With this technique, you can produces some really cool-looking blur and light trails while your subject remains in focus. That makes it popular for experimenting with capturing movement using flash. In this quick tutorial, wedding and portrait photographer Jen Marino shares her go-to settings for shooting dance photos.

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12 Weather Sealed Lenses That Can Take a Beating From Mother Nature

Pair these weather sealed lenses with a sealed camera body and you can shoot no matter what the weather is doing.

Being able to shoot outside when the weather isn’t the best can yield some truly spectacular results. From reflections of lights hitting the street, to capturing falling snow, and from the light that appears at the back end of a storm, to capturing menacing clouds or lightning, the weather can help create some truly dynamic images. But you need to have the right gear to go out and play in the elements. We’re going to take a look at some of the best weather sealed lenses across multiple platforms and price points that will help you get the shots you’d otherwise miss with non-sealed lenses. Continue reading…

Cheap Photo: Save an Extra 20% on Stunning Presets, Overlays, Tutorials

photography software

You can get these amazing tutorials, and photography software deals for next to nothing, but you’ll have to act fast.

Have you been wanting to expand your photography knowledge? Do you want to edit in Lightroom and Photoshop in half the time that it takes now? We have found some amazing photography software and tutorials deals for you. Between April 19th and April 24th you can take an extra 20%  off of already ridiculously cheap, yet high quality photography software, and guides. You can get 4,000 Lightroom presets for just $39! You can grab 50 Easter Photo Overlays for only $15, 1850 Photoshop Actions for $29, and the ultimate guide to jump starting your commercial photography business is only $29. Remember you can take an extra 20% off of these prices too! Come on in to see all the deals! Continue reading…

Sweet Lineup of Rare Leicas Up for Grabs in Leitz Photographica Auction

If your need is strong and your wallet is ready, there’s a bunch of rare Leica goodies waiting for you in the upcoming Leitz Photographica Auction.

We’ve been keeping an eye on rare Leica cameras on our vintage finds features, but the upcoming 34th auction of the Leitz Photographica Auction (formerly WestLicht Photographica Auction) is most likely your best bet for scoring some of the rarest. Chances are, you’re still missing one or two (or even all) of the items in the collection, so mark your calendars and make plans for Wetzlar, Germany on June 8th if you’re keen on checking them out.

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Wundershine Reframe Lets You Easily Swap Your Photos on Display

If you’re planning to print and frame some of your photos, the Wundershine Reframe system lets you swap and “refresh” your photos with ease. 

Getting photos printed, framed, and put on display can sometimes be a tedious task, so it’s not surprising that many opt to skip it altogether for their homes and even work spaces. But looks like that’s going to change with the Wundershine Reframe System, a smart and elegant picture frame that allows you to swap photos on display with ease. Amsterdam-based Wundershine says they’ve found an elegant solution to displaying photos on our walls by reinventing the traditional picture frame. With the Reframe system, we can now print our photos on demand and swap the frames with new photos whenever we feel the need to “refresh” what’s on display.

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Review: Instant Dreams Is a Beautifully Flawed Marketing Flick

Instant Dreams is fundamentally a marketing flick that hides behind the guise of a documentary, and is as beautifully flawed as the Polaroid film it celebrates.

Since November 2017, there has been anxious hype around Instant Dreams–a documentary that is supposed to give the Instant film initiative a major pat on the back. The film, done by Willem Baptist, offers hypnotizing visuals while following the stories of a few key individuals who adore Polaroid and the culture. Those visuals are some very gorgeous scenes mixed in with perplexing shots and motion graphics that cause someone to either look away or be hypnotized without intense concentration. At the same time, Instant Dreams does very little to tell the stories of these folks, and does even less to humanize them through the lens of objectivity. Overall, it ignores a few elephants in the room.

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We Updated Our Sony A9 Review After Testing Firmware Update 5.0

The Phoblographer’s Sony A9 review has been updated to include our tests with the latest version 5.0 Firmware.

Taking a page out of Fujifilm’s books, Sony released a major firmware update for their flagship A9 last week that brings the camera’s firmware to version 5.0. This new firmware update leverages the company’s latest developments into Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and object recognition, and also adds Real-Time Tracking (first seen in the Sony A6400) along with automatic Eye Autofocus to improve upon the already unparalleled performance of the Sony A9.

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Which Light Modifier is Right for Your Portrait Shoot?

Planning to work in the studio but not sure which light modifier to use for your project? Here’s a video tutorial that will help you choose the right one.

So, you’ve decided to shoot some portraits in the studio, complete with advanced lighting setup. Apart from working out the lighting techniques to use, you will also most likely have to choose a light modifier to get the ideal lighting output for your shots. If you’re not quite familiar yet with these tools, this video tutorial by Adorama and Mark Wallace should give you an idea.

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Just How Does the Weather Sealing on Higher End Cameras Stack Up?

We asked manufacturers to show us what they’re got when it comes to weather sealing their cameras.

Weather sealing is far more important than you’d think when comes to your camera’s operability. It’s one of the biggest variables that we test with cameras that boast this. With our 10 years of testing cameras and lenses, we asked each manufacturer to show us some of their best. With that said, we asked for weather sealing diagrams on some of their best cameras–and they provided, for the most part. We incorporated this with our real world testing to see just how each system is stacking up to one another.

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Your First Real Camera: 6 Excellent APS-C Cameras Under $1000

These budget friendly, feature packed APS-C cameras have a ton of features, and being under a grand, they’re hard to ignore.

In the recent past, cameras that were priced under $1,000 were often laughed at by photographers the world over. Cheap usually meant poor build quality, less than stellar image quality, and bare bones features, but my times have changed. These days, APS-C cameras that are under $1,000 aren’t just there to make up the numbers, and they aren’t just for moms and dads who want a cheap camera to capture images of their kids.  Today’s APS-C cameras at this price point are absolute power houses that are rewriting the books on cheap cameras. Continue reading…

The MindShift PhotoCross 15 Backpack has Side Access and Weatherproofing

The PhotoCross 15 Backpack is the latest addition to all the choices out there for the daring and discerning adventure photographer.

Still on the hunt for the perfect camera backpack for your adventures and outdoor photography? The MindShift PhotoCross 15 backpack, Think Tank Photo’s latest offering, promises to keep your precious gear protected from all the brutal trips you’ll take in search of the perfect shot. Boasting of rugged materials and a faceted design, this backpack is poised to both withstand the harsh elements and provide photographers with a comfortable carry on long days out in the field.

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Canon EOS R Said to Get Improved Eye AF Firmware on April 18th

The Canon EOS R will become a little bit better with the 1.2.0 firmware update.

One of the great things about Mirrorless cameras has been the extra support they get in the form of firmware updates. While DSLR’s used to get them, they were very infrequent. However, with the Mirrorless market being so competitive, and with each company always trying to one up each other, firmware updates have become a very normal part of Mirrorless ownership. A new firmware update for the Canon EOS R has been baked by the software guru’s at Canon HQ and it will be ready to push to the masses on April 18th with some goodies in tow. Continue reading…

Could a Full Frame Mirrorless Canon Rebel Be an Ace in The Hole?

A cheap and cheerful, Full Frame Mirrorless Rebel camera from Canon really might make sense.

Everywhere you go these days it seems that Full Frame is the buzz word in the photography world. The gap between APS-C cameras and Full Frame cameras has closed significantly, but there is perhaps still an ounce of difference between the two platforms with Full Frame only just squeezing out a win. With Fujifilm and Sony dominating the APS-C markets, Canon and others may well have to move in a different direction. A recent interview with a Canon exec shed light on a rather interesting topic, and it turns out that there may be a cheaper Full Frame camera coming from Canon in the near future (yes cheaper than the EOS RP). Could this mean a Full Frame Canon Rebel is in the works instead of an APS-C offering? Lets talk about it. Continue reading…

Creating the Photograph: Donald Bowers “Why Here! Why Now?”

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they created an image with minimal use of post-production and all about their lighting. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Here’s how you can submit.

Photographer Donald Bowers is based in New York City with over 12 years of professional experience. And for “Why Here! Why Now?” Donald decided that he wanted to play around and experiment a bit. For a bit of background on Donald, he’s a contributor to Getty Images and has had a wide variety of clients including Cohn & Wolfe, Grey Advertising, CNN and Heineken. He describes his work as inspired by polished photography with elements of rawness and unpredictability. He loves collaborating with clients and is always eager to find innovative solutions to challenges that arise during the process. To put it more concisely, he says that it’s “mildly wild and slightly styled.”

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Fujifilm X-T3 Firmware 3.00 Brings Improved Eye Detection to The Camera

The Fujifilm X-T3 just keeps on getting better and better.

Fujifilm have really set the standard for customer and product support. When the Original X-T1 was released it was an incredibly flawed device, but after listening to the complaints the company pushed update after update to the camera and it become quite the powerhouse. This continued with the X-T2 and all of their other cameras as well. The Fujifilm X-T3 is no different in this regard, and Fujifilm have been incredibly consistent when it comes to pushing updates to their APS-C monster. Today firmware version 3.0.0 has hit and it packs some great autofocus updates. Continue reading…

Yes, a Photographer’s Lenses are Still More Important Than Their Camera

Years ago, we wrote about how your lenses are more important than your camera; and that’s still true.

Photography has changed, but amazingly not all that much in the terms of lenses vs cameras. And the reason why I’m coming to this is because of a number of discussions that happened over the holiday season as they pertain to cameras being crap or great. The truth: a crappy camera can take amazing images with great lenses while simultaneously a great camera can take crappy images with a terrible lens. It’s a true statement and I’m not sure that anyone should really consider anything else to be the truth.

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Cheap Photo: Final Chance to Score 9000 Lightroom Presets For Just $39

On April 19th this mega bundle of amazing Lightroom presets will see a major price increase, so don’t miss out!

Due to popular demand, the amazing bundle of 9,000 Lightroom presets will be available for just a few more days at the ridiculously low price of just $39! Yes, that’s right, $39. This bundle has a MSRP of $1,000, so at $39 you’re going to be saving a whopping 96%! This is one deal that should not be passed on. You only have until April 19th to get in on this deal! Find out about this amazing Lightroom presets package after the break. Continue reading…