For me, it's the idea that becoming a better photographer means trying to photograph the world the way someone else does.
What's yours?
We all spend thousands on bodies and lenses, but sometimes it’s a $15 piece of plastic or a random gadget that saves the day. What’s the most underrated, inexpensive accessory in your bag that you absolutely cannot live without? Let's hear your best value-for-money finds
Can't understand what I did wrong to get the subjects blurred / out of focus.
I added all camera settings in the photos. I was standing maybe 5-10 meters from the subjects
Is there a reasonable budget camera for human subject portrait photography for around $500 (used)?
(1) Budget, country, and currency: total budget ~500-1,000 (for entire setup) USD, United States
(2) What equipment, if any, you have now and why is it no longer meeting your needs? I have ordered two YUNGNUO YN360 LED lights, I have yet to see if they satisfy needs
(3) What kinds of subjects do you intend to shoot? Human Portraits
(4) Is it primarily for photography, videography, or both? Photography but I will be more invested in videography
some of the attached images have an "ai modified" tag (pinterest), but they still capture the general idea and I found it difficult to find ones without that tag
Additional information/questions:
What is the cheapest camera/setup that can be made to satisfy all of these needs? Age is not a factor, as long as it does not tamper with reliability. If you have any other suggestions that are not related to the body text they are welcome and appreciated.
After one week of using. Brand new Lumis S5D. New lens TTart. 75mm AF
[EDIT]
It was due to the Vignette compensation.
Thank you all for the tips and funny comments! :D
My heart rate needed that…
I am a photographer living in authoritarian China.
When I was younger, I took great pride in my ability to make ugly things look beautiful. I loved showing off that skill. I enjoyed making unattractive people look attractive, and making ordinary or even low-quality products look like they belonged in high-end commercial advertisements.
I used to work as a photographer for an e-commerce company. Every day, my job was to photograph cheap, poorly made products. I became obsessed with using lighting, composition, and post-processing to make these low-quality products look like premium commercial products.
As I got older and gained more life experience, my worldview began to change.
I came to realize that, in my opinion, almost everything around me was false. From history to the news, to the propaganda that surrounded me every day, I felt that everything had been deliberately constructed rather than honestly presented. I believe the history I was taught was manipulated and rewritten. I believe the news is propaganda, written selectively and deliberately to shape public perception rather than to report reality.
I've also experienced this deception in everyday life. Many times, I bought products online because the photos made them look well-made and high quality. But when they arrived, they turned out to be cheap, poorly manufactured garbage.
Eventually, I began questioning the work that I had once been so proud of.
Had I spent years doing exactly the same thing?
Was I also creating beautiful lies?
I found myself unable to continue making the kind of commercial photographs that had once excited me. They started to feel fake. Even disgusting.
So I turned toward documentary photography. I began seriously recording the people and places around me with as little editing as possible, hoping to preserve an honest record of the present.
But that created another problem.
I can no longer survive in the photography industry this way. Today, it seems that the only photography that consistently makes money is the kind that turns fake, ugly, or low-quality things into something beautiful and desirable.
At the same time, people often misunderstand my documentary work. Because I avoid heavy editing, many assume that my post-processing skills are poor, or that I'm simply not a very good photographer.
Now I feel trapped.
I don't want to keep creating beautiful illusions, but I also can't seem to make a living by documenting reality.
Has anyone else experienced this conflict?
How do you reconcile artistic skill, commercial work, and personal ethics? If you reached this point, what path did you choose?
I am looking for a photo editing app that handles jpegs and especially RAW files that are not apple raw. I've tested each of the apps mentioned in the title but I want to see any longer term user opinions and experiences. I enjoy each of these tools however they all vary in their benefits and drawbacks in the short term I've used them (trials).
Ranking from a functional/feature POV:
Nitro -> Photomator -> Darkroom+
Ranking from simplicity and user experience:
Darkroom+ -> Photomator -> Nitro
Nitro is the latest one I've tried and it definitely has the most feature rich setup without becoming something like luminar neo. Darkroom is just clean, simple and creative. Photomator is great in performance, speed and UI but frankly the ML features are very outdated and I'm uncertain about it's future since creative studio. Apple photos app is also powerful but it's not something i enjoy using.
Prior to these testings I was a lightroom user, but alas Adobe shall be no more. I'm interested in functional sliders, features such a removal tools and batch editing/processing/exporting is a bonus. I think the one thing I disliked about darkroom was that I faced a few memory leaks and a few crashes and overall laggy while looking through 1000-3000 photos (not editing, just flagging and scrolling). Otherwise it's a solid simplified app.
As mention I'm asking for user experiences, if you have used or currently use one of these apps then could you share your experiences with bugs, development, and use case. The issue I have is finding any reviews and use cases on darkroom and especially nitro.
Other apps I've tried are luminar neo, on1, and thought of capture one or dxo but those are the upper premium options competing with lightroom, pricy but rich. Unsure if I really need that level of power. I also thought of rawtherapee and other free open source options but haven't tried them.
Does anyone know how this was achieved? I've been trying to figure out this look for a while. It feels like a mix of motion blur, long exposure, and maybe shooting through glass or some kind of translucent material, but I'm not sure.
Does anyone know if this was mostly done in-camera or is it heavily edited afterward? Any ideas or similar techniques would be awesome.
It was Jul/4 and I was ready to take some fireworks photography. I checked YouTube tips and followed them but I am not happy with the outcome. Where did I go wrong? Not trying to critique my photo so please don't delete.
Gear: (basic)
D5500
NIKKOR AF-P 10-20 mm 4.5 - 5.6 G VR
Tripod
Composition:
Went on a boat in the middle of the Lake. Opposite to me there is a boat(cannot see) around 200 meters away where the fireworks are getting fired from. Back scenery is all mountains. I thought this will cover water on the foreground and mountains on the background and nice boat to show the origin of firework. I saw many city's skyscraper fireworks photos and thought mine will end up similarly if I followed settings.
Tips followed:
Used tripod
Bulb mode
Focus to infinity
Manual Focus
Remote shutter
Shooting in Manual
VR turned off.
Photo:
ISO - 100
Exposure - 7 seconds
Focal length - 19mm
Aperture - F9
What i don't like:
Background still dark - There are other photos ar 17 second which are still not bright.
Blurry - The fireworks seems to be sharp but other objects are super blurry.
Note - Is this because I was on the boat and water under it still created little shakes and eventually caused blurring?
Update - Thank you all photographers for your observations and providing technical help. I never thought about stacking the photo (as i have not invested in post processing softwares) and always thought it was one shot shown by the photographers on YouTube. Boat ride back to the land was hard as I was not happy with myself. But it was so encouraging reading through the comments. I will definitely give it a try next year from the ground and not on water:-) and learn stacking.
I'm on an extremely tight budget, so I only shoot on my S24 as a hobby.
But I'm leaning towards this eerie, dark, a bit liminal, soviet era, brutalist vibe. I'll mainly be shooting stuff like this.
But is there any way to improve?
I used zooming, and reduced the light using the slider.
Disclaimer: These are not my photos; they are for reference only.
I’m trying to achieve this kind of look in my flower photography, including the post-processing. I love a softer, more dreamy style with pastel tones. I’ve been photographing flowers for quite a while, but my images have always been vibrant and full of rich colors. This time, I’d like to explore a more delicate, dreamy aesthetic with soft, pastel colors.
Do you have any tips or ideas on how to achieve this look, both in-camera and during editing? Also, what lenses would you recommend for a Sony mirrorless camera for this style of flower photography?
Never really edit my photos but this one looked dull before and i edited it but it looks so obvious where did i go wrong. PS this is just a random photo i took not my best xD
I was messaged on Friday to pick up a photography job for a family event for the coming Sunday, which was this morning.
All in all, I took around 800 photos, I delivered 210 total.
I covered everything from key moments, loads of candid shots, family and friend group shots, food and details of party. I edited many of the stand out shots, and main ceremony segment photos.
They've asked "Is all the photos", "But are there more ? Please". - I've never been asked this before? Looking for opinions. I was solo on this job.
I always tend to go through and remove duplicates, test shots, and any images where people are blinking or the moment isn’t right, trying to make a curated set of the images.
I can't tell if they're upset or what, but it's got me thinking - is that too little for 2.5 hours of photography with the majority of people only showing up for 1-2 hours of the event?
I am looking into getting into photography and I'm looking for some relatively cheap telephoto lenses for my Sony Alpha a6400.
I've been looking at things like the older FD lenses, which I could purchase adapters for, but I'd also be interested in looking at more recent models.
I would like to have something around the ballpark of 200mm max focal length, and I would love if it could shoot wildlife, and dabble in the astrophotography world.
I would be willing to spend around 500 dollars, and don't mind if it is an older manual lens.
Thank you.
Question: What do I do when random people ask me to take a photo with my camera, and after the photo, they say "thank you" and leave? I had like 4-6 groups do that yesterday (4th July) at a state park. Like, I had a couple ask me where they can see the photos I gave them, so I gave them my business Instagram so I can private message them the photos. But others don't ask; they just leave after the photo, and there's no way for them to see the photo of themselves. Which is like, what's the point of taking the photo when they aren't going to see it? How do you usually handle this?
Are you guys used to shot raw or normal?
What are the advantages of shooting raw?
I’m reading you guys…
(1) Budget, country, and currency:
Not a great budget, probably around $800 to $1000 max (USD).
(2) What equipment, if any, you have now and why is it no longer meeting your needs?
Current, I have a Brave 4 Ultra 4k and a Canon EOS Rebel T6i. The Canon only records at a max of 1080 with 30fps. The Brave can record at 4k at 30fps or 1080 at 60fps. I'm not really happy with the quality of either of these anymore, and want something that combines the good fps with 4k. I'm aware that that's not everything when it comes to cameras and equipment, so I'm totally open to hearing about other qualities of cameras that might help what I want to do.
(3) What kinds of subjects do you intend to shoot?
I love to film lightning, and then go frame-by-frame later and get good pictures of lightning. These are some of my better photos in the pictures above. The reason why I want higher quality is well, I want better quality pictures lol. The reason I want the higher fps is because lightning can be quick AF sometimes. If I'm only recording at 30fps, I can miss bolts entirely, or the only frames I get are ruined by the differences in brightness from the rolling shutter.
(4) Is it primarily for photography, videography, or both?
Videography thus far, but I have considered trying to actually photograph the lightning as well. I've heard of people doing some sort of "burst" shots (idk what it's called) where they setup the camera to take a ton of photos at once. If it's possible for me to do that with my Canon T6i, I'd like to know how since it's photo quality is actually quite great. The only problem with this is that I have to try and time my shots with the storm, and I hate missing out on good bolts of lightning as I only get so many chances to film. This is why I rely on video-ing the entire storm and going through the frames later.
Evening folks, hopefully a simple problem: got some nice new backdrops and am playing around with some B&W photography. Of course I chose my dog as subject. But when I've uploaded to Instagram the images all have a horrible compression in the background and I'm just wondering what I can do to fix this?
Hey all. I do a lot of traveling as an athlete and am looking for a cloud storage platform with a few characteristics.
Looks nice aesthetically. I hate how Dropbox / Google Drive look so terrible. I want it to feel like I can shoot a roll of film and have it feel complete somewhere
Nest files in different folders without having to make duplicates. I organize by different albums etc and want it to work like your camera roll.
Must have mobile app
tagging of files. I just want to be able to tag “on instagram” or “not on instagram” without having to like rename the file
Anyone have any solutions? Prob won’t have more than a 100GB.
Hi, I have a canon r50 right now and looking at lens choices right now. One thing that I’m deciding is that if I should get a full frame lens (rf mount) or a apsc lens (rf-s mount). Many crop sensor lens are cheaper but if I upgrade to a full frame camera body in the future I will not be able to use those lenses.