Photography News

The Fujifilm X-T5 has been on the market for nearly four years, and the question of whether it still holds up is worth asking seriously. At 40 megapixels in an APS-C body priced well below full frame alternatives, it sits in an unusual spot. 

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Choosing photo editing software is harder than it used to be. With Lightroom Classic no longer the only serious option, five credible alternatives now compete for your workflow, each with real tradeoffs in power, speed, and learning curve. 

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Shooting film won't make you a better photographer. The real argument isn't about film versus digital; it's about where creative intention actually comes from. 

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    Wonky horizons are the bane of many landscape and cityscape photographers as a horizon that's slightly off-tilt can spoil what's otherwise a perfectly good shot. Of course, there will be times when holding your camera at an angle so the horizon line is deliberately not straight but if you do want to do this, make sure it's really obvious as otherwise, it'll just look like you forgot to check your frame before hitting the shutter button.   How To Straighten Horizons    1. Line it up with the bottom or top of your frame   The easiest way to ensure you have horizontal horizons is to line it up with the bottom or top of your frame, either in your viewfinder or on the LCD screen. Some cameras also have a digital spirit level feature which will indicate to you when the camera is level  - both on the horizontal and vertical planes. It can be displayed in the viewfinder or on the back monitor when using Live View, along with all your other settings. When the marker is in the middle of the gauge and turns green, you know you're level.     2. Rule of thirds grid  If you don't have a digital spirit level, have a look in your camera's menu options to see if there's a rule of thirds grid. We know this isn't designed for this purpose but the grid will have horizontal lines on it that can be a handy guide when you're looking for a quick way to check the horizon.          3. Use a spirit level Another option is to purchase a spirit level that sits on your camera's hot shoe and to use a tripod as you're more likely to move / not hold the camera straight when you shooting hand-held.      4. Post Production  Of course, you can always straighten your images in whatever editing software you use as well but it's good practise to get it right in-camera whenever possible.    

You've read the technique now share your related photos for the chance to win prizes: Daily Forum Competition

I realize that articles about older cameras don't trend nearly as hard as shiny new toys. But my recent purchase of the Nikon Zf has paid off in more ways than I could have ever imagined. 

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Photography has a generous supply of conventional wisdom. Some of it is earned. Some of it is repeated so often that nobody questions whether it was ever true in the first place. And some of it is actively wrong, kept alive by a community that confuses encouragement with honesty. 

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Choosing the right Sony camera is genuinely hard. The lineup spans everything from pocket-sized compacts to flagship sports bodies, and picking the wrong one means spending money on specs you'll never use or missing features you actually need. 

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Getting invited onto a feature film set as a guest camera operator is not something that happens every day, and when it does, the gap between that world and smaller productions becomes impossible to ignore. The crew size, the budget pressure, the overtime math: it all adds up to something that operates on a completely different level than commercial shoots or YouTube content. 

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Choosing a 35mm lens for a Sony camera used to mean paying a premium for the Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 GM or settling for something that fell short in one area or another. The Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN Art changes that math in a meaningful way, and the second version of this lens is smaller, lighter, and improved across nearly every metric compared to its predecessor. 

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Natural light sounds foolproof until you realize the walls, grass, and brick around your subject are quietly wrecking your skin tones. Omar Gonzalez shot four portraits in four different locations, same camera, same white balance, and the color differences are visible enough to make you rethink where you've been setting up. 

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As artificial intelligence continues to advance, everyone seems to be saying AI is coming for the fashion industry, especially for photographers and models. I recently put Nano Banana Pro through a real e-commerce test to see whether it could actually do the job of a professional photographer with a full team. 

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What Is Mood?

Mood essentially relates to the lighting in a shot. Giving something mood usually means we are trying to make it dark and brooding – making it moody. But mood can relate to any lighting situation, to give your photo any mood/feeling.

For landscape photography, mood usually relates to the weather. A cloudy, unsettled day will create mood in a way most of us expect it to be - dark and brooding. Although the opposite, where streaks of the sun break through the cloud to shine light on parts of the green landscape is equally as good, it's just the mood/feeling is different. 

 

Gear Choices

To take good moody landscapes, you're going to need a tripod as dark days may be good for the style of shot you're trying to create but the lack of light can lead to slower shutter speeds and working without a tripod can result in shake. 

 

 

Be Patient

This type of photography requires patience. To get the best shots, you need to wait until there is a break in the weather to get some really interesting lighting effects from the turbulent sky. Of course, mood doesn't have to be cloudy, but with landscapes, it's more of a challenge to portray mood on bright, sunny, cloudless days. 

When the right light does arrive, work quickly as it can be gone again before you know it. The key to this is always to be ready, having your gear out and framing in-mind before the right light does show its face. 
 

Be Prepared

Check the weather forecast the night before as there's no point heading out if you find the weather isn't going to be right. You also need to have the right type of location as you'll find some subjects will work better in dark, moody shots than others. 

 

 

Convert Your Shots

Black and white is another way to create mood in your photography. Taking photos of a gnarly tree, for example, in black and white will look so much more foreboding than a shot in colour. You can shoot black and white in-camera although, if you shoot in colour, you can convert your shots to black and white in your chosen editing software, giving you more control over the tones, highlights and shadows in the shot.

 

You've read the technique now share your related photos for the chance to win prizes: Daily Forum Competition

You just bought a camera. Maybe it is a Canon EOS R50, maybe a Nikon Z50 II, maybe a Sony a6400 you found on sale, maybe a Fujifilm X-T50 that took three months on a waitlist. Whatever it is, you unboxed it, charged the battery, took a couple of test shots of your cat, and now it is sitting on the counter while you wonder what to do next. 

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The latest winner of our popular daily photography theme which takes place in our forums have been chosen and congratulations go to TheShaker (Day 18- Weather).

 

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 17

People In The Landscapes

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Day 19

Lighthouses

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Day 20

Numbers & Letters

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Day 21

'Arty' Theme

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  Day 22

'Fun' Theme

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Day 23

Flotsam

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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.

There's a sentence that keeps coming back in photography circles: street photography is dead. 

Most people say it with nostalgia. Some say it with frustration. A few say it like a provocation.

They're all wrong. And right.

Street photography isn't dead because people stopped doing it. It's "dead" because everyone started.

 The Real Problem Isn’t Death. It’s Saturation.

We are producing more images today than at any other point in history. Every street corner, every passing gesture, every accidental juxtaposition: it's all being photographed, constantly.

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Many photographers produce abstract-looking images accidentally. Far fewer build abstract photography as a discipline. 

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Many people approach editing by opening an image, applying a preset, and hoping for the best. That works occasionally, but more often it produces results that feel slightly off in ways that are hard to diagnose, let alone fix. 

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Shooting model portraits well has less to do with gear than most people assume, and everything to do with understanding light and how to pose a subject. Whether you're working with a phone by a window or a pair of strobes in a studio, the gap between a flat, forgettable shot and one that actually stops someone mid-scroll comes down to a handful of decisions you make before you ever press the shutter. 

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The Viltrox 35mm f/1.2 is already a well-regarded fast prime, but Viltrox has now released a revised version called the AF 35mm f/1.2 STF N, dropping the LED display and swapping the old control ring for a proper aperture ring. If you shoot Sony E-mount and have been watching this lens, the changes are worth understanding before you spend $999. 

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YouTube has a burnout problem, and Gerald Undone just went public with his. After more than a decade of lab-style camera reviews, Undone announced he's stepping away from the format entirely. The conversation about why is more honest than most creators ever get on camera. 

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