How to Get Better Concert Photos With Your Phone
The best concert photography happens in the pit and around the stage, with dedicated cameras and strict access. But when we go, most of us are just fans in the crowd. With a little intention, your phone can document the experience surprisingly well without turning the night into a photo shoot.
When Photographing Protest Is the Protest
I've been covering protests for a long time, as a journalist and journalism professor, and one of the things I've noticed is that, at least in the Trump era of the last decade, more people are showing up with cameras to photograph these happenings than before. I've been trying to parse out why that is.
How to Find Who You Are as a Photographer
Finding a personal photographic style is one of the slipperiest goals in the medium. It's also one of the few things that separates a forgettable portfolio from work that actually feels like it belongs to someone.
Flat Landscape Photos? This Camera Raw Technique Adds Depth Without Plugins
Flat raw files are one of the most frustrating gaps between what you saw in the field and what ends up on your screen. You were there, the light was real, the scene had dimension, and yet the file looks lifeless.
Vibrant Butterfly Silhouette Wins Photo Of The Week
In the Sun, captured by ePz member ruurd, is a breathtaking nature image that has well deservedly won our Photo of the Week (POTW) accolade.
We love the strong silhouettes of the butterfly and the dandelion clock, with the vibrant orange sun acting as a perfect backdrop that allows the fine details of the subjects to shine through. The shot and composition are superb, creating a balanced and bold look right in the middle of the image. The use of backlighting is excellent, and the way the warm amber light glows around the edges of the butterfly and the dandelion fluff is truly impressive. This is a superb photograph that uses light and shadow to create a peaceful, warm atmosphere. Brilliant.
Every Photo of the Week (POTW) winner will be rewarded with a Samsung 128GB PRO Plus microSDXC memory card with SD adapter, providing top-tier storage for all your creative needs across multiple devices. But that's not all! In January 2027, we’ll crown our 2026 Photo of the Year winner, who will take home the ultimate prize of a Samsung Portable 1TB SSD T7 Shield, courtesy of Samsung. It’s time to shoot, submit, and showcase your best work for a chance to win these incredible rewards!
Why a Photographer Bought an 8-Year-Old Fujifilm Camera Instead of Something New
The Fujifilm X-T30 is eight years old, costs a fraction of what newer cameras do, and this photographer just chose it over every modern alternative. That's not nostalgia talking; there are real, specific reasons the X-Trans III sensor still holds up against cameras released this year.
Four Small Astrophotography Refractors Tested: Sky Rover, Tubeek, SV Bony, and NCO Go Head to Head
Picking the right small refractor for astrophotography isn't just about specs on a chart. The telescope you choose will determine which objects you can shoot well, how fast you can gather light, and whether you'll be fighting chromatic aberration every time you push your processing.
What "Dynamic Range" Actually Means and Why It Matters More Than Megapixels
When most people shop for a camera, the first number they look at is megapixels. It is the biggest number on the box, the easiest spec to compare, and the most intuitive to understand: more pixels equals more detail. But megapixels are not the reason your sunset photo has a white, blown-out sky. They are not the reason your indoor portrait has muddy, noisy shadows where the detail should be. And they are not the reason a professional photographer can rescue an underexposed shot in Lightroom while yours falls apart the moment you touch the shadow slider.
The Shot You Can't Buy: Why Access Beats Gear Every Time
Two photographers. One has decades of experience and a full professional kit. The other is a tourist with an iPhone. On paper, no contest. But the tourist did the homework and found a better vantage point. The pro trusted experience and stayed put, confident that superior gear would carry the day in a space already crowded with photographers. In that moment, the advantage was not skill or gear. It was access.
The Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S Mark II Is Nearly Perfect With One Real Weakness
The Nikkor Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S has been a flagship zoom for Nikon's mirrorless system since it launched roughly six years ago, and the original version earned a reputation as one of the sharpest lenses in its class. Now Nikon has released a Mark II version, and the question isn't whether it's good; it's whether the improvements justify the $3,196 price tag.
Can DxO Pure Raw 6 Save an ISO 25,600 Wildlife Shot?
Shooting wildlife in low light means pushing your ISO to uncomfortable limits. Here's how to handle the images in post.
The $350 Leica Mount Lens That Keeps Selling Out
The Mandler 35mm f/2 is a Leica mount lens priced at $350 that sells out nearly every time a new batch drops. For anyone in the Leica system looking for a compact, character-driven 35mm option without spending thousands, that combination is hard to ignore.
NAS Setup for Photographers: What It Actually Costs and How to Start Right
Choosing between a portable hard drive and a dedicated NAS setup is one of those decisions that quietly shapes how much friction you deal with every single day of your creative work. If you've ever moved files between computers by unplugging a drive and carrying it across the room, there's a better way to handle it.
The Value of Leica's Classic Lens Line
New iterations of our favorite tech appear regularly, and though the new version is often indistinguishable from the previous one, the manufacturer tells us we can't live without it. The previous version of the product is quickly forgotten, as it is now considered obsolete, with nothing to offer over the new model. Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Fuji have taught us not to look to the past when we select a camera or lens. Leica is the only company that understands the value of choosing tech that isn't state-of-the-art.
What "Exposure Compensation" Actually Does (and When You Need It)
Somewhere on your camera, there is a button or dial marked with a plus sign, a minus sign, and a zero. It might be a physical dial on the top plate, a button near the shutter, or a virtual slider in the quick menu. You have probably noticed it. You have probably never touched it. And that single untouched control is the reason a surprising number of your photos come back too dark or too bright even though you are shooting in a semi-automatic mode that is supposed to handle exposure for you.
How the Fujifilm X100 VI Holds Up After a Year of Travel and Paid Work
The Fujifilm X100 VI is one of the most talked-about compact cameras in recent memory, and for good reason. Owning one for over a year and putting more than 10,000 frames through it across Japan, Mexico, Hawaii, Brazil, and Australia gives you a very different perspective than a two-week review ever could.
The Viltrox 25mm f/1.7 Is Shockingly Sharp for What It Costs
Picking a fast prime lens for Fuji's APS-C system means navigating a crowded market, and the sub-$200 category doesn't usually inspire much confidence. This might be an exception.
5 Composition Mistakes That Make Telephoto Photos Look Flat
Telephoto lenses are uniquely powerful tools, but most people use them in ways that produce flat, forgettable images. The lens isn't usually the problem, the composition is.
Turning a Casual Motorcycle Snapshot Into a Moody Black and White With Lightroom and Luminar Neo
Shooting a quick phone snapshot of your motorcycle parked outside a country church might not sound like much, but this video turns a casual phone JPEG into a dramatic, film-toned black and white image, and the process reveals a lot about what these tools can actually do.
I Let an AI Desktop Agent Organize 672 Photos, and It Was More Useful Than Most Photo AI Tools
Photographers have been pitched AI from every angle by now. It will edit faster, cull smarter, retouch cleaner, and somehow save us from our own workflow. Most of those promises stay inside the image itself.
That is not where I found the real value.