Blurring the background is one of the many ways to isolate or emphasize your subject. Do you need a special lens to do so? Absolutely not! In this article, we look at some of the ways you can get those creamy, beautiful backgrounds using almost any camera and lens.
Real Estate Photography Tips for Beginners
Real estate photography can be much more than just snapping some photos of interiors. Successfully capturing a property’s unique elements can challenge your skills as a photographer and as an editor. It’s this aspect of real estate photography that has made it my favorite subject as a professional photographer.
Vello FreeWave Micro Wireless Shutter Release Review
Since my earliest years as a photographer, I have been using accessories to trip the camera’s shutter without causing sharpness-robbing vibrations. In the film era, it was a threaded cable release, and in the digital camera age it has been a variety of electronic shutter releases that were compatible with...
Peak Design Capture Clip V3 Review
Every once in a great while, a company ‘invents the wheel’ with a product. What do I mean by that? I mean that the invented product is so functionally appropriate that it becomes a new standard. The Peak Design Capture Clip V3 is just like a wheel. It’s an uncomplicated,...
Behind the Composition: Amongst the Dead
It was May of 2018 when my girlfriend, Melanie, and I made the decision to use my family's cabin in northern Pennsylvania as a basecamp and travel to various state parks in New York for a week. This was the second year of what has since become our yearly vacations...
What Camera Lens Should I Buy? A Beginner’s Guide
Even if cell phone cameras keep improving and reach unimaginable levels of image quality, I'll always carry around a larger, heavier, and more complex camera. Why is that? One word: lenses! An interchangeable lens camera opens up a vast world of photographic visions through a huge variety of optics. Choosing...
Night Photography Tutorial: A Beginner’s Guide
Night photography, particularly as a beginner, can present both the opportunity to create compelling images, as well as some of the most difficult technical challenges you might face. Fortunately, these challenges are all learning opportunities to better your skills behind the camera. In this night photography tutorial, we'll look at...
Best Camera Settings for Bird Photography
Imagine that you're on a beautiful beach and you see an unusual bird fly towards you. The sun is low in the sky and golden light washes over delicately patterned wings. You raise your camera, unsure of what settings to use. When you get back home, you realize the shots...
Nikon Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S Announcement
Today Nikon officially unveiled its first super telephoto prime for the Z mount system, the Nikon Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S. Although we've known about this lens through a development announcement back in October of 2021, there was no detailed information provided, including its specifications and price. Now that...
10 Tips for Taking Beautiful Photos in the Rain
“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.” This line from an old nursery rhyme has popped into my head many times over the years growing up in the soggy Pacific Northwest. It came to mind again when I arrived at North Carolina's Blue Ridge Parkway to photograph autumn and...