Advanced Photography Techniques

June 21, 2017

Cooke Optics UK Factory Tour
How to get the Cooke Look
DL Byron
Cooke Optics lenses
A vintage Cooke Optics lens Cooke Optics has been making lenses for 130 years, and their coatings haven’t changed much since the ’60s—that’s what contributes to the Cooke Look cinematographers want on their digital bodies, like RED and ARRI. The coatings are like pixie dust and seen here (decades of them built up) on a flange. The flange holds... Read more
June 14, 2017

Self-Assigned Challenge: Cine Lenses
Manufacturers are responding to ever more capable cameras with cinema lenses, and Byron tries out two of them
DL Byron
cine lenses
“The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?” — Louise Bogan For this journey I’m on in London, it’s an initial mystery of shooting with cine lenses, but let’s back up to the starting point. If you’ve never heard of a cine lens, that’s shorthand for cinema, and what’s... Read more
May 17, 2017

Telling A Story With Environmental Portraiture
On assignment with Jim Cornfield, as he uses a subject’s history to tell the story of an honored vet and the airplane that saved his life
Text & Photography By Jim Cornfield
portrait photography
For a recent photo assignment, Jim Cornfield chose to create an environmental portrait of Air Force Capt. Kenneth Curry, telling a story in images by connecting the pilot to his former military experience. The environmental portrait is one of photography’s simpler ideas: An image of a subject that includes his or her external life—some place or... Read more
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May 10, 2017

Adjustments With A Restrained Hand
Faithfully and creatively reproducing your images with careful post-production techniques can yield huge dividends
Text & Photography By Brian Matiash
restrained adjustment post-production techniques
The left half of this frame shows the original photo, as taken by my camera. I had a 6-stop ND filter applied, which not only allowed me to get this long exposure, it also applied a visible blue tint. The right half is the exact same photo except I applied a custom white balance that targeted the gray part of the rushing water. The improvement is quite... Read more
April 5, 2017

The Power Of Portable Light
Using speedlights to tell a more compelling visual story
Text & Photography By Tom Bol
portable light
Moai Statue At Sunset. Nikon D3, 24-70mm ƒ/2.8 lens, shot at 1/50 sec. at ƒ/8, Nikon SB-800 used off-camera to light the statue. I have traveled 4,625 miles to get this image. I’m stumbling through the volcanic landscape in the murky predawn darkness trying to find the Moai statues. The salty breeze and crashing surf remind me of early-morning shoots... Read more
January 23, 2017

The Mixed Studio
Blending modern LED lights with strobes for unique lighting options
Text & Photography By Tom Bol
Mixed Studio
This image uses two LED lights and one strobe. An 18” circular flapjack is the main light on the left, with a ring flash as an accent light on right. An Elinchrom ELB 400 strobe using a 30-degree grid lights the blue background. I love my strobes. Watching them pop away during a shoot energizes the set and amplifies my creativity. My obsession with... Read more
November 16, 2016

In Your Face: Photography In The Age Of Virtual Reality
Photography In The Age of Virtual Reality
By David Schloss
Just as this issue was going to press, Pokémon GO swept the country. Overnight it seemed like everyone was looking face-down at their phones, flicking pretend balls at pretend creatures. Thanks to the intelligent use of a smartphone’s camera, developer Niantic is able to superimpose the various wild Pokémon in a video stream of the real world, a... Read more
September 21, 2016

Why You Should Own A Light Meter But Probably Don’t
A light meter is one of the most important tools in a photographers' arsenal, and you probably don't own one.
David Schloss
Photography is about capturing light, which is why it’s confusing that many photographers don’t own a light meter. After all, if we’re trying to capture light accurately and/or creatively, then we need to know how much light there is and where it’s coming from. In this conversation at the Seikonic booth at the 2016 Photokina... Read more
September 8, 2016

DxO OpticsPro 11
The latest iteration of DxO’s RAW Raw converter and image processing software, OpticsPro 11, offers a couple of new features that really piqued our interest.
Theano Nikitas
DxO OpticsPro 11 - Herbie After
DxO is best known for DxOMark.com, a website that publishes a vast database of quantitative measurements for thousands of lenses and cameras. That information is not gathered for consumer information but to power its image-editing software. The DxO suite of tools uses the analysis of the imaging characteristics of camera equipment to correct any inherent... Read more
July 26, 2016

Stepping Up To Medium Format
A bigger platform opens up a world of possibilities
By Michael Clark
Stepping Up To Medium Format
Aaron Miller climbing on the Crystal Clear Arete (5.12c) in Diablo Canyon near Santa Fe, New Mexico. This image was shot with an 1,100 Watt seconds strobe mounted high on an adjacent cliff above my shooting position. Shooting Info: Hasselblad H5D 50c WiFi, HCD 24mm lens, F/7.1 at 1/80th second at ISO 800. © Michael Clark Michael Clark is an internationally... Read more