It’s one of those basic things that we probably over-use when we are starting out, and as we get better we rely on less and less. But let’s face it, cropping is an integral part of the photography process, whether you’re cropping in-camera or after the fact. Here are three reminders of how to crop responsibly from Chelsea Nicole Photography. None of these points is exactly going to change your entire outlook on cropping, but they do serve as a handy reminder, particularly for

PhotoPills is a planning tool to help you create images of the Sun, Moon, stars, meteors, and more. It can help you decide the best place to focus for maximum depth of field and calculate the correct exposure when using a neutral density filter to blur water, clouds, and other subjects. What’s more, you can use it from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection to plan a photo shoot anywhere else in the world. In fact, PhotoPills (available for both iOS and Android) is

Introduction Luminar AI is claimed to be the first image editor which is entirely powered using artificial intelligence. Skylum's previous image editing software, Luminar 4, has been discontinued and replaced with AI, even though it is being pitched as a completely new and different product. Although there are some similarities with its predecessor, Skylum says that Luminar AI features a completely new artificial intelligence engine, which means that certain processes can be

One of the most common image quality challenges in photography is to get sharp corners. Landscape photographers (among others) often pay big bucks for lenses with high resolving power at the edges of the frame. But a new lens may not solve your problem – because blurry corners usually aren’t due to the lens. I feel obligated to start this article by saying that corner sharpness is overrated. Many, perhaps even most, photographers don’t need to worry about it very often at all

I’m a fan of black and white photography. A lot of subjects that fall short in color look evocative and powerful when captured in shades of gray. But it’s not always easy to decide if a photo should be color or black and white. Today, I’ll explain how I choose. When the Photo Should Be Black and White I’d categorize three broad reasons why an image should be converted to black and white: When the color in the scene is distracting or unsightly When the mood evoked by the color

The first part of wildlife photography is encountering a subject. The next is making the most out of that encounter. It is easy to end up with boring images of your subject if you get caught up in trying to document the animal and don’t look for powerful compositions. After all, the goal of a photographer is to create an image which is more than the sum of its parts. There are four questions you can ask yourself in the heat of the moment which will help you find the best comp

Do you find your interest in photography to be constant or does it waver? Passion and interest are a complex topics for me. I find myself trying to answer why my interest in photography has remained strong over the years even through distractions and challenges along the way. On Passions I used to be obsessed with chemistry, and for quite some time I was convinced I would one day have my own university laboratory. Many years ago, I actually did have a small laboratory at home

Following my article on recommended lenses for 8×10 cameras, today I’ll cover my favorite lenses on two even bigger formats: 14×17 and 12×20. These two ultra-large formats have similar diagonals as each other – in practice, about 550mm and 580mm respectively. Most lenses that work for one will work for the other. Unfortunately, there aren’t very many lenses at all which cover such massive formats, especially if you want a modern shutter and newer, multicoated glass. The good