FStoppers

I set out to photograph and light paint a collapsing market in Desert Center, California. Here’s how I pulled it off. I'll take you behind the scenes of my desert ghost town night photography safari.

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Shiny specs like megapixels and frames per second grab the headlines, but they don’t always make a camera worth carrying every day. The real difference between a tool you love and one that gathers dust often comes down to overlooked features hiding beneath the marketing gloss.

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In the world of photography, few things inspire as much love and hate as post-production. Some photographers trust this as the place where the vision comes alive. Others (myself, for example) dread it and put it away for months at a time. AI has promised to make editing faster but was met with criticism from artists who are afraid to lose creative control. I spoke with Miles Witt Boyer, a pioneer in the world of AI editing, about this and much more.

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Photographers talk a lot about gear, technique, and style, but one of the biggest factors in whether you get hired (or keep getting hired) has nothing to do with your camera. It comes down to how you show up as a team member. A member of my private community asked how I hire for my sets and for staff. I decided to create a casual video about it, and I’m hoping you are able to benefit from my experience.

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Light can make or break a portrait. You can have the best camera and lens, but if you don’t understand how light behaves, your images will always feel flat or harsh. The secret isn’t in power settings or expensive gear. It’s in one simple principle that affects every frame you shoot.

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Canon finally shipped the portrait prime you’ve been asking for: an 85mm with speed, modern autofocus, and a body you won’t dread carrying. If you photograph people, you’ll want to know where the Canon RF 85mm f/1.4 L VCM lands against the staples in this focal length.

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Removing distractions from a photo can be the difference between a polished image and one that looks amateur. Clean edges, believable textures, and consistent lighting make or break an edit. Photoshop’s new tools make that process easier, but knowing how to combine them is what takes your work from casual to professional.

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Wind, scooters, and a single compact body on an island built for sun and stone. This video shows how a tight travel setup changes what you shoot and how you move.

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Are you looking for a full frame mirrorless camera that’s relatively affordable? Then check out the Nikon Z5 II. This entry-level model is more than just a basic camera and offers semi-professional features within reach.

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The camera industry evolves through a pattern of gradual obsolescence where features that once seemed essential slowly fade away as new technologies offer superior alternatives that better serve photographers' actual needs. Here are five features likely on their way out in the next decade.

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The 56mm lens, an 85mm full frame equivalent, has long been the crown jewel for portrait photographers using Fujifilm’s X-mount system. For years, the market has been a crowded battlefield. Fujifilm's own 56mm f/1.2 set the original standard, while the stalwart Sigma 56mm f/1.4 became a legend for its incredible sharpness-to-price ratio. Viltrox also carved out its own territory with the budget-friendly 56mm f/1.7 Air and its older, value-packed 56mm f/1.4.

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The garment industry in Bangladesh has long balanced on a thin line between progress and exploitation. It sustains millions of workers while feeding the global appetite for low-cost fashion, but it also hides deep inequality and danger for those inside the factories. Justin Mott’s latest assignment exposes this uneasy truth, showing what it really takes to tell these stories honestly and responsibly.

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Masking can make or break a landscape photo. It’s what lets you balance a bright sky against dark terrain or fix strange color casts without ruining the rest of the frame.

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Caring about validation can feel like weakness, especially in creative work. But when you’re learning photography, ignoring feedback can freeze your progress. Skill grows through friction, through seeing what others see in your images and understanding why something works or doesn’t. Confidence without calibration just becomes delusion, and the camera won’t forgive it.

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Wildlife photography often comes down to reach and sharpness. You need distance without losing detail, and that balance usually means testing limits—optically and technically. The OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm f/2.8 IS PRO lens aims to hit that balance, but how well it holds up once you start adding teleconverters is what separates an ideal setup from a compromise.

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Ranking the greatest camera designs in history isn't just about technical specifications or optical performance. It's about identifying the pivotal moments when engineering brilliance, innovative thinking, and perfect timing converged to fundamentally change how we capture and think about photography. Here are five of the most remarkable camera designs in history.

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Blending texture into a photo can turn an ordinary image into something that feels handcrafted and imaginative, giving new life to the photos that never quite clicked, the ones sitting in your library that felt flat but had potential waiting just beneath the surface.

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If you’ve purchased a lovely camera, shouldn’t you buy a lovely, luxurious camera strap for it? That’s a rhetorical question—of course you should! If your camera is your pride and joy—something you’ve aspired to own for a while—and you finally bit the bullet and treated yourself, it’s fitting to give it a beautiful handcrafted shoulder strap. I’ve done this for a couple of my indulgent camera purchases recently, after discovering a surprising number of options when it comes to skillfully crafted leather straps.

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The Viltrox AF 14mm f/4 Air lens takes the idea of an affordable, ultra-wide option and turns it into something serious for both stills and video. You get the kind of coverage that captures everything in front of you without the heavy cost or bulk of most full frame wide lenses. Whether you’re shooting tight interiors, sprawling landscapes, or simply want the space of a wide frame for street work, this compact lens offers real versatility without much compromise.

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Let’s go back to basics and learn from Jason Wong, who provides some great examples and concepts about aperture that go beyond the common beginner advice of always shooting wide open for background blur. There are multiple factors, besides the aperture value, that result in a shallow depth of field, and it's worth knowing them to elevate your photography.

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