Photography News

A matte black, ridged Tom Ford fragrance bottle and a Clinique moisturizer on pure white can both be lit cleanly and still fail if the light tells the wrong story about the product. Every lighting choice you make, from shadow density to color, pushes a viewer toward a feeling, whether you planned it or not.

 

[Read More]

Nikon's Z DX bodies, such as the Z50II and Zfc, are small and affordable, yet Nikon makes only a short list of lenses designed specifically for them. Choosing glass for one of these cameras means doing crop math, sorting through third-party options, and deciding whether a single zoom can carry an entire day of shooting.

 

[Read More]

A colorful lake scene photographed in Wales has won our ‘Photo of the Week’ (POTW) award.

Titled ‘A Reflective Mood’ and captured by Buffalo_Tom, this is a lovely early morning shot with a sky full of pink, orange and purple. The stone wall sitting in the water stands out nicely in the middle of the shot, and the dark patch on the left leads straight to it. We love how the calm water gives a clear reflection of the clouds, the trees and the wall itself. The dark trees on the left keep everything balanced, and the hazy hills in the distance finish it off. Lovely colors, great reflections and a well-balanced scene.

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. See the terms & conditions and prize procedure for more information.

It’s time to shoot, submit, and showcase your best work for a chance to win these incredible rewards! Want to be our next POTW winner? Just upload an image to our gallery where you'll also find all of our past POTW winners.

A shattered filter or a scratched front element rarely comes from a dramatic fall off a cliff, and more often traces back to a loose ball head, a lens swap in the wind, or a tripod slung over your shoulder on the walk to the next spot. Those small habits stack up over years of shooting, and changing them costs far less than replacing glass.

 

[Read More]

Photo by David Burleson

Add A Vignette

To create mood and to add emphasis apply a vignette to your transport shots. For more information on how to do this, take a look at our tutorial: Creating Vignettes.

Shoot Inside

As well as shooting the outside, if you can, open the doors of the car, truck or of whatever transport you’re photographing and capture some interior shots. You can go wide, capturing the whole of the interior or use a close-up lens to focus on detail such as dials, buttons and badges.
 

Fill The Frame

To really add emphasis so the car is the only focal point of the shot, fill the frame with it. This, however, doesn’t mean it has to be positioned in the centre of the shot. Move your position slightly to the left or right and you’ll see how it can make a really big difference to the overall image. Just make sure you don't clip off a wing mirror or a wheel in the process.

Photo by David Burleson

Use Reflections

Try using the car’s mirrors or some part of its bodywork to capture a reflection of another part of the car in. Just have a good look at the reflection to make sure you or any passers-by aren’t captured in the shot as you’ll have to spend time cloning them out later if you do.

Away from the car look for puddles and other reflective surfaces you can photograph. New buildings, which are full of glass and steel, are great backdrops to position new cars against.

Stepping further back so you can see the reflection of the horizon down the side of the car can also work brilliantly, particularly at sunset or if you're in a picturesque location.

Photo by David Burleson

Change Angles

Take a walk around the mode of transport you’re photographing and look for the angles, shapes and little details that make it unique. 

Get low to headlight level to make it look intimidating while shooting from the side will give you the chance to follow the lines of the car’s bodywork which will help guide the eye through the shot.

Shoot up high so you can show the car’s overall shape, just make sure the sky’s not overexposed. You can always fit an ND grad to darken the sky, creating more mood. For wider shots, make sure you can’t see what’s behind the car from underneath it as this will be distracting.
 

In January 1996, Charles O'Rear pulled onto the shoulder of California State Route 121 in southern Sonoma County, pushed a Mamiya RZ67 through a wire fence, and made a few exposures of a bare green hill. The film in the back was Fujichrome Velvia, an ISO 50 transparency stock. Two years later, that frame was sitting on a Corbis stock catalog disc as image 71810, with a copyright bar across the bottom reading "©CHARLES O'REAR/Westlight 71810WL."

 

[Read More]

[COMMENT_IMG]portfolio|56786|2621951[/COMMENT_IMG]

 

The latest winner of our popular daily photography theme which takes place in our forums have been chosen and congratulations go to NeilSchofield (Day 7 - Panoramas).

 

Daily Theme Runners-Up

If you didn't win this time, keep uploading your images to the daily competition forum for another chance to win! If you're new to the Daily Theme, you can find out more about it in the Daily Theme Q&A. 

Well done to our latest runners-up, too, whose images you can take a look at below.

  Day 1

National Parks

[COMMENT_IMG]direct|16262|16262_1793492465.jpg[/COMMENT_IMG]

 

Day 2

'Win' Theme

[COMMENT_IMG]direct|119390|119390_1793637915.jpg[/COMMENT_IMG]

 

Day 3

Fireworks

[COMMENT_IMG]direct|44488|44488_1793698891.jpg[/COMMENT_IMG]

 

Day 4

Races

[COMMENT_IMG]portfolio|229889|3703501[/COMMENT_IMG]

  Day 5

Photo Walk

[COMMENT_IMG]portfolio|70323|3969243[/COMMENT_IMG]

 

Day 6

Creative White Balance

[COMMENT_IMG]direct|309782|309782_1794003934.jpg[/COMMENT_IMG]

 

You’ll find the Daily Themes, along with other great photo competitions, over in our Forum. Take a look to see the latest daily photo contests. Open to all levels of photographer, you’re sure to find a photography competition to enter. Why not share details of competitions with our community? Join the camaraderie and upload an image to our Gallery.

In the first part of this series, I looked at why trying to define a heavy conceptual theme before taking a picture usually leads straight to creative paralysis. Holding onto a loose constraint or a wide idea gives you room to react in the field, but it leaves an obvious question: if you don’t define the story beforehand, how does a coherent series actually come together?

[Read More]

A sharp subject against a background that's one flat wash of brown can feel lifeless, even when the exposure is spot-on. Lightroom's Point Color tool includes a Variance slider that spreads or squeezes the range of colors in a selected area, and it gives you a fast way to put life back into a backdrop without opening Photoshop.

 

[Read More]

At $149, the Sirui Swift 40mm f/2.2 costs less than Sony's, Nikon's, and Viltrox's compact 40mm autofocus primes, and only Nikon's is brighter. If you've been eyeing a small prime as your first step up from a kit lens, the trade-offs at that price turn out to be modest: a little extra weight and some color fringing.

 

[Read More]

Gray skies on a wedding day leave you with flat, shadowless light right when the couple expects their most romantic evening portraits. Faking a sunset with a single gelled flash is one of the few ways to rescue that hour without waiting for weather that may never show up.

 

[Read More]

Titanic is the most famous ship ever built, yet only a little over 400 photographs of her are known to exist, and that count grows only when an old album or a forgotten newspaper turns up. 

 

[Read More]

Remembrance Sunday is a day that commemorates the sacrifices of armed forces and civilians in times of war and artificial poppies are bought and worn as a mark of respect. Although the 11th is the actual Remembrance Day, a two-minute silence is observed at war memorials and other public spaces across the UK at 11am on Remembrance Sunday. At these locations and for weeks after you will see decorative wreaths of poppies placed at these memorials which can make an interesting subject for photographers.

 

What sort of kit is best?

Any compact camera can be used to photograph memorials and artificial poppies. As long as it has a lens with a fairly close focus you will be able to shoot closer shots of individual poppies or wreaths, and a wide angle will help you take a more overall view of the scene.
 

The main thing you need is imagination.

Respect your surroundings

At all times respect the location. These are areas marked for people who lost their lives and people come to pay their respects. The last thing they want is a disrespectful photographer interrupting their moment.  

Memorials are often grand structures and dwarf the wreaths placed below them so consider moving in closer with a tighter crop of the scene. Use a wide-angle lens and move in close placing the memorial to one side and allow the background scenery/cityscape to contrast against the scene.
 

Utilise the colour of the poppies

Consider the bright colour of the poppies against the often cold dark tones of the memorial and underexpose slightly so the darker areas become a stark contrast behind the vibrant red of the poppies. You can adjust the contrast and colour saturation using your image editing program to enhance the poppy colour.

Try focusing on a single poppy and isolate it from the rest of the scene. Placing one strategically on a part of the memorial will give an interesting still life set. Use a polarising filter to prevent reflections from the statue or polished marble.
 

Be creative with your angles

Hone in on a single poppy in a wreath and use a wide aperture to throw the rest out of focus. Choose the right angle and the rest will be a blur of red as a background.

Many of the memorials have very poignant messages engraved in the marble. Try including one of these in the shot with a wreath. Have the wreath on the foreground and the message tailing off to the distance. Photography the message head-on and cropped so just a few of the words are visible with a single poppy laid over them.

 

Don't forget the people at the ceremonies

Candid shots of old war veterans wearing poppies can make good photographs. Again, respect the person. Asking if you can take a photograph is polite and then you don't have to grab the moment. You can spend a few minutes composing the shot and making sure the viewpoint is good. If the person is in a wheelchair get down to their level for a better perspective.

A photo of a person placing a poppy on the memorial could look good from the right angle. Again, take from a low viewpoint and makes sure the face and the poppy are in frame. 

Shoot past frame 9,999, and the camera does not run out of numbers. It closes the folder it has been writing to, opens the next one, and starts again at 0001, which is how two shoots two years apart both end up holding a file called IMG_0473.CR2. The 0001 to 9999 numbering space, the DCIM folder those files live in, and the four-letters-plus-four-digits name itself all come from one short specification a Japanese trade group published in 1998. The rollover is the manufacturer's own choice, made inside the room that specification built.

 

[Read More]

© Retouch4me

 

Retouch4me is making all of its cloud-based AI retouching tools free for 48 hours on November 21 - 22, 2026, with no limit on the number of photos. The offer is open to new and existing users, and no credit card is required. The event centers on Retouch4me Apex, an all-in-one AI plugin with 13 retouching tools for skin, eyes, teeth, hair, clothing, background, and glasses glare, available as a standalone app or a Photoshop plugin on Windows and macOS.

 

From Retouch4Me:

 

Retouch4me will make all of its cloud-based AI retouching tools free for 48 hours on Nov. 21-22, with no limit on the number of photos.

The offer is open to new and existing users, and no credit card is required.

Free Weekend centers on Retouch4me Apex, the company’s flagship all-in-one AI plugin. Apex brings 13 professional retouching tools into one interface, covering skin, eyes, teeth, hair, clothing, background and glasses glare. It runs as a standalone app or a Photoshop plugin on Windows and macOS. More about Apex: https://retouch4.me/apex

“We’ve made big updates to our cloud AI retouching lately, adding new tools for moles, glasses glare, backgrounds and object removal, and now we want everyone to try them,” said Oleg Sharonov, founder of Retouch4me. “We’re photographers ourselves, and we know how many late evenings go into retouching. We can’t wait to see photographers try Apex on their real shoots, save hours and get results that look natural.”

 

 

How it works

Users register at https://promo.retouch4.me/free-weekend-2026, download Apex and sign in. Unlimited processing starts at midnight CET on Nov. 21 (6 p.m. EST on Nov. 20) and ends at 11:59 p.m. CST on Nov. 22.

Free Weekend is followed by Retouch4me’s Black Friday sale, which runs Nov. 23-30.

 

About Retouch4me

Retouch4me is a software company that provides innovative solutions for photo and video editing. With neural networks, its software automates manual tasks and delivers natural results, allowing creatives to focus on their artistry. We believe that combining AI and human creativity helps achieve superior results. Retouch4me improves the workflows of creatives in over 115 countries. Discover how to elevate yours at https://retouch4.me

Think Tank released two new slings earlier in the year that are perfect for street, urban, and travel photographers. Depending on your gear, there are 11L and 14L options to choose from. I got my hands on the 11L in a rather fetching Desert Sage, and have been using it for around four months on the streets…

 

[Read More]

A lens is usually the biggest purchase you make after the camera itself, and the spread runs from a $300 35mm prime to a Sony G Master zoom that costs well past $2,000. Spending more feels like the safe move, yet a pricier lens only earns its cost when you can name exactly what it's supposed to fix.

 

[Read More]

Camera makers, Fujifilm in particular, treat color science as a reason to buy into their systems, and plenty of people pick a brand on that point alone. If you shoot raw files of landscapes or travel scenes, it's fair to ask how much of that brand color makes it into your finished image before you consider switching.

 

[Read More]

Sony's a7R line has carried a large share of high-resolution portrait and wedding work for a decade, yet each model had a weak point somewhere, usually slow sensor readout or video that was merely passable. The Sony a7R VI is the first in the series with a fully stacked sensor, and that change affects how you expose, when you can trust a silent shutter, and whether one $4,500 body can handle both stills and video.

 

[Read More]

Manual mode has a reputation as the serious way to shoot portraits, and plenty of people switch to it the moment they feel comfortable with their camera. Outdoors, with clouds drifting across the sun and subjects walking in and out of shade, that habit can leave you chasing exposure instead of watching your subject.

 

[Read More]