Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (June 2026): Nina Lozej
The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2026, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.
The Art of Seeing: Finding Your Visual Voice
“What style do you shoot in?” or “I see a lot of [insert any photographer's name here] in your work.” These types of questions and statements, I'm sure, have been presented to you, and if you've ever wondered why, we can find out together.
Why Terminator 2's Visual Effects Hold Up 30 Years Later
Terminator 2: Judgment Day turns 35 this year, and it still looks better than most action films being made right now. The reason isn't budget or nostalgia. It's a set of deliberate filmmaking decisions that hold up under scrutiny.
The Lighting Techniques That Separate Consistently Great Wedding Photos From Lucky Ones
Lighting is the single biggest variable that separates wedding photos that look polished from ones that just look okay. Unlike studio work, weddings give you no guarantees: harsh midday sun, deep shade, candle-lit receptions, and everything in between can all show up in a single day.
Hasselblad Names Seven New Masters in Its 2026 Photography Competition
Seven photographers have been named Hasselblad Masters for 2026, chosen out of 70 finalists that the competition pulled from a pool exceeding 108,000 submissions sent in from 160 countries and regions. The seven categories this year were Landscape, Architecture, Portrait, Art, Street, Wildlife, and Project//21, with one winner in each.
Brightin Star 14mm f/2.8 Review: Shockingly Cheap, but Does It Deliver?
Ultrawide lenses used to cost a fortune. A full frame 14mm f/2.8 from Canon or Nikon ran around $1,500 just over a decade ago, which put serious glass out of reach for a lot of people. Budget manual focus alternatives have changed that equation, and the Brightin Star 14mm f/2.8 is one of the most affordable yet, coming in at around $279.
The Cheapest Way to Expand Your Micro 4/3 Lens Collection
The Panasonic Lumix GX8 is a Micro 4/3 camera, and that small sensor size gives it one genuinely unusual advantage: you can mount almost any lens ever made on it, from almost any manufacturer, as long as you have the right adapter.
How to Choose Between APS-C and Full Frame as a Beginner
One of the first real decisions a new photographer faces is sensor size, and it arrives wrapped in more anxiety than it deserves. The internet will tell you that full frame is "professional" and APS-C is "entry level," as if the sensor inside the camera decides whether your photos are any good. It does not. What sensor size actually changes is your reach, your low-light headroom, the amount of background blur you can get, the size and weight of your kit, and how much you spend, both now and over the years you keep shooting.
The Kodak Charmera Is the Ultimate Camera for Kids
So after hearing about the Viral Cameras of 2026, there was one that stood out from a familiar, but somewhat tarnished, name in the camera business: the Kodak Charmera.
While I've opined in the past about what cameras are good for kids, this might be the one: the Goldilocks camera that's perfect for kids.
Saving Your Photos Wrecked by Smoke From Nearby Wildfires
In one of my great examples of bad timing, a friend and I headed to southern Utah a few days ago. We were aware of spreading wildfires in the eastern part of the state, but where we were going, SE Utah, things were reported to be good.
My destination was Goblin Valley State Park, a bucket list destination I've always wanted to see. We stayed in nearby Hanksville, a charming Utah city with a population of around 200.
When the Gear on Your Shelf Stops Being Just Inventory
The popular rule of selling unused gear after six months describes one specific kind of author, and photographers who keep specialized equipment connected to their actual practice are not the kind it had in mind.
Why Separation Makes or Breaks a Wide Angle Forest Shot
Photographing palm trees on a tropical coastline sounds straightforward until you're actually standing in front of a tangled cluster of trunks, messy sand, and scattered coconuts with no obvious composition in sight. Finding a shot that goes beyond a simple silhouette takes deliberate thinking about separation, foreground interest, and depth.
Before Cartier-Bresson, There Was André Kertész
Long before many of the photographers we now refer to as masters of the art of photography, André Kertész was quietly changing what photography could be. Born in Hungary in 1894, Kertész wasn't chasing the spectacle or the drama. He found meaning in ordinary moments such as a shadow stretching across a wall, a lone figure crossing a courtyard, a fork resting on a plate, sunlight pouring through a window. He understood something that still resonates today: that a photograph doesn't need a grand subject to carry emotional impact.
Fujifilm X System After 11 Years: What a Working Landscape Photographer Actually Thinks
Fujifilm's X system has been a quiet workhorse for serious landscape work for over a decade, and the debate about whether crop sensor cameras can hold their own professionally never really goes away. Andy Mumford's answer, built on 11 years of real-world use across five continents, is worth paying attention to.
The Case Against Chasing Epic: Why Your Local Forest Might Be Your Best Subject
Chasing dramatic landscapes and remote destinations is easy to justify when the results look stunning on social media. But Adam Gibbs, who has photographed Antarctica, Patagonia, Iceland, and the Canadian Rockies, has spent years questioning whether spectacular scenery actually produces better photographs.
Finding Frames Inside Frames: A Summer Beech Woodland Shoot
Shooting in summer woodland feels like a compromise before you even start. The light is harsh, the shadows are heavy, and translating a complex three-dimensional forest into a compelling two-dimensional frame is genuinely difficult.
Carry-On Rules Are Getting Stricter for Photographers in 2026: Here's How to Adapt Your Kit
If you fly with a camera bag, 2026 is the year the gate finally caught up with you. The bag that "always made it on" for the last five years is now getting weighed, measured, and gate-checked with a consistency that did not exist before. For most travelers this is an annoyance. For photographers it is a real problem, because a camera kit is the densest, heaviest, and least checkable thing most people carry.
What 15 Years of Mentoring Photographers Taught Me About Photography Itself
There's something people often misunderstand about photography workshops. They think workshops exist to improve technique.
And yes, technique matters. Of course it does. Understanding timing, framing, light, anticipation, and editing—all of these things are essential. But after more than fifteen years leading street photography workshops, I've realized that the technical aspect is actually the least interesting part of the experience. The real transformation happens elsewhere.
Seven Photography Habits That Are Quietly Ruining Your Shots
Putting your lens cap back on after every shot is costing you photos. It sounds like a minor habit, but when a moment happens in front of you and your hands are fumbling with gear, it's gone.
A $999 Anamorphic Lens vs. a $3,900 Cinema Lens: How Close Is the Gap?
Anamorphic lenses produce a look that's immediately recognizable: stretched bokeh, horizontal lens flares, and a cinematic quality that's defined Hollywood films for decades. The question most people face is whether that distinctive look is worth the tradeoffs compared to a conventional spherical lens.