Photography News

 

1. Why Use A Frame? 

Frames are a great tool for drawing attention to an image. Be it a frame we hang on the wall, one we create on the computer, in-camera or with the elements in the scene we are photographing, frames are a very effective tool that all photographers can use.

 

2. Adding A Frame In-Camera 

Frames created while taking your shots will help lead the eye through the shot, add depth to images and help give a photo context. There's also the added bonus of using frames to hide objects you don't want to appear in the shot and they can make your images generally more interesting. They can also be used to give the viewer more information on the location you've taken the shot in. 

 

 

3. What Can Be Used As Frames? 

Windows and archways are obvious choices for frames but tree branches and leaves can also work well. Frames don't have to cover four sides either - one or two branches curving around part of the image can work just as well. It's also worth considering if you want the frame to be in focus or not. If you're at a party, why not use people as your frame to draw attention to a particular person or group? You can also use frames which are positioned towards the back of the shot to frame foreground interest, too. 
 

4. Frames Don't Always Work

There are times when creating a frame within your image won't add anything to the shot so do think about your composition and if you really do need a frame before hitting the shutter button. You don't want the frame to pull attention away from your main subject either so do make sure it's not too distracting. 

 

 

5. Creating A More Traditional Frame

More traditional style frames can be added during Post Production and ePHOTOzine has various tutorials on adding a variety of frame styles to shots in the technique section of the site.

There's also a third option and that's to add a frame to your image in-camera from one of the various creative filter options cameras offer. Apply built-in frames, use vignettes or why not combine multiple shots in one frame? 

 

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Since the debut of the first Osmo Pocket series, launched seven years ago, it has quickly grown its user base with its one-of-a-kind design, tapping into a niche market segment by offering quality stabilized video at a pocketable size. While it wasn't perfect back then, it offered an innovative solution for the market's pain point, and it's commendable that they took the risk to do things out of the norm. Fast forward to 2026, the DJI Osmo Pocket 4 is currently at its 4th iteration of product development, keeping the same design language.

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There is an entire industry selling photographers the idea that their booking problems are marketing problems. Instagram strategies, SEO courses, funnel templates, lead magnets, content calendars, brand refreshes, niche-defining workshops, and $2,000 mentorships that promise to "unlock the pipeline." Photographers buy them, implement them, and wait for the calendar to fill. For most photographers, it does not. 

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© Alison Tuck / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

 

Nikon is pleased to announce the winner of the STERNA People’s Choice Award in the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, with the accolade awarded to Alison Tuck’s highly comical 2025 image titled ‘Now where is my nest?’

The People’s Choice Award is a separate category where the Nikon judging panel takes a back seat and the public gets to decide. The hilarious photo of a windswept gannet in Yorkshire on the Bempton Cliffs was the most popular among public voters, beating forty other jovial images shortlisted in the 2025 Awards.

Alison Tuck says: “Winning the STERNA People’s Choice Award means a lot to me. It was really exciting to get into the finals with my gannet, and I was honoured to get a Highly Commended. However, being awarded this category is something else and I am really grateful to all the people who voted for me - not forgetting to mention how much fun I had - it is the Nikon Wildlife Comedy Awards after all!”

A devout Nikon camera user, Alison loves taking wildlife pictures on her Nikon Z8, which “makes capturing wildlife in motion so easy.” The award also comes with a series of prizes, including a ThinkTANK photography bag, as well as a special print of the image on Hahnemühle matte white paper, courtesy of category sponsor STERNA.

STERNA’s mission it is to highlight the uniqueness of wildlife and nature through creative editing and producing Fine Art Prints.

Alison Tuck continues: “I love taking lots of photos especially of wildlife, from a tiny ant to a large elephant on land, a small crab to an orca whale in the sea or a tiny sun bird to a soaring raptor in the air, they all have their own history to tell within the world and for me capturing their stories is something very special.”

Stefan Maier, Nikon Europe, Senior General Manager Marketing says: “We’re delighted to see Alison Tuck’s image recognised as the People’s Choice Award. It captures a moment of pure, universal humour, reminding us how powerful photography can be. Nikon is proud to be part of the Comedy Wildlife Awards, demonstrating how storytelling through images can entertain, inspire, and bring people closer to nature and remind us of our shared humanity.”

Nikon congratulates Alison and all of the finalists for their excellent nature and wildlife photography. The 2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards is currently open for image and video entries until 30th June. The competition is free to enter for everyone globally through the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards website. There are numerous categories to enter and a host of spectacular prizes to win including Nikon cameras and lenses for the Nikon-sponsored categories, plus a week’s safari in the Masai Mara with Alex Walker’s Serian for the Overall Winner.

For more information, please visit the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards website.

As many flower varieties are currently in bloom, now's a perfect time to explore the art of flower photography. In this article, we take a closer look at why shade's important to a flower photographer and how, with a simple bit of card, a photographer can improve his or her flower shots without too much fuss or extra cost. If you're looking for tips on what kit is good for flower photography, advice on angles to shoot from etc., have a look at ePHOTOzine's technique section where you'll find a section dedicated to 'Flowers and Plants'. 

  Direct sun   Taken in shade

 

Create Your Own Shade

When it comes to flower photography, it's best to avoid the middle of the day when taking shots of flowers but what do you do if you're in a place you can't return to easily, you see an amazing flower and you look up at the sky and see the sun's too high? Do you shake your head in disappointment and leave the flower behind? No. You get your camera out and create your own shade.

The easiest way to do this is move your body until your shadow's over the flower. But only do this if you're taking a close-up. You don't want a shot of a colourful flowerbed with your shadowy outline sticking right out at you. 

If you're a little more organised and have room in your bag or car to carry some helpful photography props there are a few you can take. Reflectors and diffusers are the obvious choices, but a cheaper option would be a piece of card, cloth or towel. Just remember you need something or someone to hold these up or you could do this yourself and put the camera on a self-timer. Make sure your shade-creator is a neutral colour too otherwise your image will have a slight colour cast.   Left: No shade. Right: With shade.     Create Your Own Backgrounds

If you like shooting blooms on location, you need to consider the background very carefully. Out of focus highlights and objects like fence posts, wheelie bins and people can easily ruin your pictures even with judicious depth-of-field control. Getting around the problem is potentially very simple. Not only that, but you can be creative too.

You can use something purpose-made like a reflector or a store-bought background or create your own from a print or a sheet of card.

Sheets of coloured card work fine but stay away from glossy finishes because there could be reflection problems. Matt, single-coloured card works fine, but you can also be more imaginative and paint or print your own using your photo printer.

To help with keeping the background blurred, produce a blurred background in the first place so you do not have to worry about aperture choice so much when you come to shooting.

Your 'background' does not have to be big either. If you are shooting macro studies, a sheet of A4-size card will do nicely.

 

 

Please do note that this approach will not be welcomed everywhere so please do not roll up to an award-winning garden and start setting up your background system. It's also worth remembering that not all botanic gardens allow the use of tripods or at least have restrictions on use so you need to check this before you head off in search of a potential subject. If you plan on sticking to public gardens, heathlands or even your own garden, you won't have to worry. 

How you work with your background is up to you. With macro work, it is possible to handhold your camera and the card background behind the subject but it is not comfortable, nor is it great technique. You'll also need faster shutter speeds and focusing can be a challenge. As a result, it's much easier to use a tripod so you can hold the background a little way behind the subject much more easily. If you have a spare tripod or a lighting stand, use that to hold the background in place.

When composing your images just make sure the background fills your viewfinder frame – or at least enough of your subject to allow cropping.
 

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

Photographers print their work less often nowadays. It's not because they don't care; it is due to one fundamental issue: whom do you trust? 

I love printing my work. It's the last step in the creative process, but this step can also become the most overwhelming. Why? It's because some internet sites promote themselves as the best printers for your work. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Three printing companies struggle for every successful one. So who do you trust? Lumaprints.

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Erin Babnik is known internationally as a part of the nature photography team Photo Cascadia. Her work grew from experiences as an art historian and archaeologist, photographing in museums and at archaeological sites throughout Europe and the Middle East. Here she discusses her must-have gear, the value of museums, and when fixing it in post isn't cheating. 

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Turning your passion into a career is one of the most debated decisions in creative work, and the answer is rarely as clean as either side makes it sound. Scott Choucino from Tin House Studio has been living this question for years, and his take is more nuanced than the usual "follow your dreams" pitch. 

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Photoshop has dozens of tools, but a handful of them do most of the heavy lifting in real editing work. Knowing how the brush, remove, and selection tools actually behave is the difference between fighting Photoshop and actually using it. 

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Knowing when to convert a photo to black and white is one of those decisions that separates a thoughtful edit from a forgettable one. Get it wrong and you strip out color that was doing real work; get it right and you reveal something the color was actually hiding. 

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Adding smoke to a shoot can completely change the feel of an image. It builds depth, amplifies drama, and when you're working with colored backlights, it's often the only way to make that color visible in the atmosphere rather than just on your subject's skin. 

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At springtime our thoughts naturally lean towards flower photography, and none more so than bluebells, either as individual subjects or in carpets of blue. Often, but not exclusively found in woodlands, bluebells offer a magnetic attraction to photographers and as almost anything can be used to photograph them, from wide-angles to long telephotos, compact cameras to full-frame DSLRs, it's something photographers of all levels can have a go at. 

 

1. What Type Of Shots Should I Take? 

 

How you treat them photographically depends on how densely-packed they are growing. In a woodland where they provide a carpet of blue flower heads, wide-angles can exemplify the extent of the blooms, and shooting with a small aperture will give a huge depth of field, rendering all the flowers in focus. A macro lens can hone in on details and individual flowers, wait for an insect to land on a bloom to give added interest.

  2. How Can I Focus On Individual Flowers?

 

Telephoto lenses used at wide apertures can also give a narrow band of sharp bluebells amongst a sea of blur, with telephoto compression adding to the effect. This works best from low viewpoints, often only a few inches above the ground. Or your long lens can be well used to isolate individual flowers from their surrounds; often in a mass of bluebells, there will be some rogue colours – the most common being pink and white – focusing on these with a long telephoto at wide aperture will highlight the different colours, making them stand out among a sea of blue.

 

3. How Can I Get Creative? 

 

For a different effect, try experimenting with camera movement, by setting a small aperture to enable a long exposure and panning the camera vertically through the exposure. Try smearing petroleum jelly on an old filter (NOT on the lens itself!) and swirl it round to give an abstract effect. You can also leave a clear patch in the middle to give an area of clarity in the picture, amidst a swirl of colour.

So...no excuses...no special equipment needs, just get out there, find some bluebells and interpret them in countless different ways.
 

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

 

Samsung Electronics today introduced its new T7 and T9 microSD Cards, expanding the company’s removable storage lineup designed for distinct user needs. Built on Samsung’s storage expertise, the new microSD Cards reinforces brand recognition through a more intuitive naming structure and refined design, strengthening the competitiveness of Samsung's Removable Storage.

The T7 microSD Card is an everyday expandable storage for light gamers, intermediate creators and daily users who continue to accrue data across their devices. With massive capacities of up to 1TB, read speeds of up to 170MB/s, and extensive compatibility, the T7 microSD Card is designed to support daily storage needs across devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets and handheld gaming consoles, delivering a simple and dependable way to expand everyday storage.

The T9 microSD Card is built for users who require relentless performance, such as gaming enthusiasts and professional creators who handle large data files and performance-intensive workloads. Featuring read speeds of up to 200MB/s and 6-proof protection for reliability and broad compatibility, the T9 microSD Card is designed to help users transfer large files quickly and work with confidence, especially on performance-driven devices such as drones and action cameras, as well as smartphones, laptops, tablets and handheld gaming consoles.

 

 

With the launch of T7 and T9 microSD cards, as well as the P9 Express, Samsung is evolving its removable storage portfolio from the previous microSD range—comprising of the EVO Plus, PRO Plus, and PRO Ultimate—into a streamlined lineup to unify the brand identity and align the brand experience across Samsung’s removable storage portfolio. The 'T' lineup signifies 'Trustworthiness' and 'P' for 'Peace of Mind,' highlighting the ample storage and powerful performance of Samsung’s removable storage offerings. The rebranding is expected to enhance consumer clarity, allowing for more intuitive and informed product selections based on specific user requirements.

The Samsung T7 microSD Card is offered in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB options, while the T9 microSD is offered in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. Manufacturer's suggested retail prices for T7 microSD Card (MSRP) are set at £52.39 for the 128GB, £81.99 for the 256GB, £164.19 for 512GB and £303.29 for the 1TB model. T9 microSD Card starts at £60.89 for the 128GB, £96.59 for the 256GB and £193.29 for the 512GB model, available to consumers from April 14, 2026. Availability may vary by market.

For more information, please visit the Samsung UK website.

 

 

When you think of flower photography your first thoughts will usually be of shots of a single head taken from an overhead angle or a cropped in shot that focuses on the shapes and colours of the flower. There's nothing wrong with these shots as they do work well but for something different, take a look underneath the flower head.

 

What Gear Do I Need? 

Any camera with a close-up mode will be fine. If you're using a DSLR you'll need a good macro lens and consider using a tripod if you have a model that'll allow you to adjust the centre column and legs so you can work from low angles more easily. 
 

Which Flower?

Flowers, where the petals are translucent, will produce better results and if you have a flowerbed that's sheltered from the breeze head for it as if you're working in the open, even the tiniest of breezes can create blur in your final shot. If you don't have any beds hidden behind walls or hedges try using a piece of card to shield the flower from the wind or use a PLAMP to keep it still.
 

Exposure Tips

If you're shooting against a blue sky you'll usually need to allow for at least one stop extra exposure otherwise the flower will appear as a silhouette. If you're working against a dark background, such as a hedge, you won't need to do this as the camera shouldn't have any problems getting the exposure correct. Make sure you use the smallest aperture you can too to prevent blur creeping into the edges of your shot.
 

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

 

In photography, style is often discussed in terms of subject matter, color, or composition. Certainly important aspects to consider, but much less frequently do we talk about something equally decisive: focal length. Yet if you look closely at the history of urban landscape photography, focal length reveals itself as a kind of quiet grammar. 

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For most of the past decade, Adobe was not a choice. It was the default. Lightroom and Photoshop were where photographers learned to edit, where the workflows lived, where the presets came from, and where the entire industry quietly agreed to standardize. The price hikes were annoying. The subscription model was annoying. But the alternative was unthinkable, because there was no real alternative. 

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The Tamron 35-100mm f/2.8 Di III VXD is a fast standard zoom for Sony E-mount and Nikon Z-mount cameras, priced at $899 for Sony and $929 for Nikon. That longer reach comes at a direct cost: you lose the wide end compared to a typical 24-70mm, and whether that tradeoff works for you depends entirely on how you shoot. 

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Picking a 50mm lens for your Nikon Z system just got more complicated. The Viltrox 55mm f/1.8 from the Evo series is an apochromatic lens priced at $370, and it's gunning directly for the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S. 

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The Fujifilm XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR II is a significant lens for anyone shooting in the X system. It's a red badge lens, which means Fujifilm's highest standard, and the original version set a high bar that this new iteration has to clear. 

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Flash photography has a surprisingly short list of things that will quietly ruin your shots, and most beginners hit several of them before they even realize there's a problem. Knowing what those mistakes are before they cost you time, money, or a shoot you can't redo is worth more than most gear upgrades. 

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