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I Sold My $4,000 Sony Camera for an a6700: Here’s Why

As a professional travel photographer, I’ve shot around the world with some of the best gear Sony has to offer, including the Sony a7R V and top-tier G Master lenses. But after years of carrying heavy full-frame setups and investing thousands into the latest gear, I made a decision that might seem crazy to some: I sold it all and switched to the Sony a6700, a crop-sensor camera.

How to Precisely Adjust Colors in Lightroom

Mastering color in Lightroom is about knowing the right tool for the job. Two key features, the Color Mixer and Color Grading tools, each handle color differently, and understanding their unique roles can significantly improve your editing.

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Advanced Masking Secrets for Better Lightroom Edits

Advanced masking in Lightroom gives you precise control over your edits, letting you target specific areas in your photos. Knowing how to combine different masking tools effectively helps you achieve professional results and enhances your creativity.

Why the Best Travel Photos Aren’t on Your Itinerary

You’ve booked the trip, packed your gear, and mapped out every perfect shot—but what if the best photos are the ones you never planned for? The magic of a photo trip isn’t just in the locations; it’s in the unexpected moments, the wrong turns, and the stories that unfold when you stop chasing perfection. Before you overstuff your itinerary and your camera bag, here’s what you should do (and avoid) to make your next photo trip unforgettable.

The Elements of Great Landscape Photos

Creating truly captivating landscape photos doesn't come from random luck or a quick edit. To consistently capture images with genuine visual impact, you need a solid approach built around a few essential principles.

Make Editing Faster: Master Lightroom’s Batch Editing

Batch editing in Lightroom saves you significant editing time by allowing quick adjustments across multiple images. Instead of manually correcting each photo one at a time, you edit one photo, then apply those settings to many others.

5 Practical Tips for Photography Beginners

Getting started with photography means making some practical choices that directly affect how often you'll pick up your camera. Selecting gear and understanding basic techniques early on makes a real difference in how quickly you grow as a photographer.

Liene PixCut S1 Review: A New Way To Print and Share Your Images?

If you’ve wanted a creative way to easily share snippets of your photography, you might’ve considered making or ordering stickers. Actually making custom stickers and labels requires juggling multiple machines—a more complex process compared to just printing photos at home. Liene aims to change that with the PixCut S1, an all-in-one photo printer and sticker cutter that integrates printing, cutting, and lamination into a single device. But does it live up to the promise? Let's dive into the details.

Essential Lightroom Techniques for Editing Portraits

Portrait editing is about guiding the viewer's attention directly to the subject’s face, and Lightroom Classic has powerful tools specifically designed for this purpose. Learning how to subtly enhance facial features and manipulate backgrounds can significantly elevate the visual impact of your portraits.

Cameras You Didn't Choose and the Images You Missed

The cameras you choose—and those you decide to skip—shape the kind of photographer you become. Every camera you pick up nudges you in a certain direction, subtly guiding the images you create and the style you adopt.

Hidden Costs of Adobe: Are You Too Reliant?

Adobe's subscription model isn't just a matter of price—it's a matter of dependence. For anyone seriously involved in photography, this is something you need to understand clearly.

Peakto Media Manager Now Allows You Access to All of Your Media Assets without the Cloud

For Mac users, Peakto software has always been one of the premier solutions for cataloging and easily finding your media because it automatically sorts your media as it comes in, using AI to help you find images by content, colors, time of day, camera settings, and many other attributes.

CYME now announces a groundbreaking new feature for Peakto: secure remote access to photos and videos stored locally. With Peakto Connect, creators can access their media from anywhere, across multiple devices, without uploading their content to the cloud.

Local Storage...
The Secret Sauce for Perfect Seascape Photography

Seascape photography isn’t just about showing up at the right location with good light—it’s about knowing exactly when to press the shutter. Capturing the ocean in a way that feels dynamic and intentional isn’t just about where you stand—it’s about when you click the shutter and how long you leave it open.

Five Mistakes to Avoid When You're a Second Photographer at Weddings

Second shooting at weddings is an excellent way to learn, gain experience, and build a portfolio—but if you make certain mistakes, photographers won’t keep hiring you. Knowing exactly what pitfalls to avoid is crucial for developing a solid reputation.

VTOMAN FlashSpeed 1000: An Expandable Power Station for On-Location Shoots

For content creators, working on location often comes with an unpredictable challenge: where to get power. Whether you’re in the middle of a remote landscape, shooting an all-day event, or simply trying to keep your gear running without hunting for a plug, a portable power station can be a game-changer. The VTOMAN FlashSpeed 1000 is a high-capacity, fast-charging, and budget-friendly power solution designed to keep your cameras, drones, laptops, and lighting setups running anywhere.

The Fujifilm GF 63mm f/2.8 Review: Compact Medium Format Performance

When you step up to medium format photography, lens choice quickly becomes a serious conversation about balancing performance, portability, and cost. The Fujifilm GF 63mm f/2.8 R WR attempts to strike that balance—offering a relatively compact form factor and promising image quality at a lower price point than other Fuji G-mount lenses.

There's More to Shutter Speed Than You Might Expect

Knowing what shutter speed does is vital for controlling your images. That’s not just how it affects exposure, but changing the shutter speed has a knock-on effect that can dramatically alter the look of a photo. Here’s an explanation and some exercises for you to try.

Why Putting Off Buying Your Camera Gear Might Be a Bad Idea

While trade tariffs may seem appealing to nationalists, in the long term, a trade war will damage the economies of all countries. Here are the main reasons photographers in America and around the world might not welcome them and why you might consider buying camera gear now.

Has Photography Sold Its Soul?

Is it just me, or has there been a seismic shift in how people consume landscape photography—and even how they approach it?

Why Every Photographer Should Consider Licensing Their Work

Photography is often seen as an active profession—booking clients, traveling to locations, and spending hours editing images. But what if your past work could continue making money long after the shoot? That’s where licensing comes in.

What Happens When a Photo Book Disappoints?

Photo books provide a curated, immersive experience that allows viewers to engage with photographs at a slower and more deliberate pace. So what happens when one challenges your perspective on your own photography?

Canon’s Sharpest 70-200mm Lens Yet

The new Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM Z lens is designed specifically for Canon's mirrorless EOS R cameras, promising improved optics and advanced video features. Here's a look at just how special it is.

Easy HDR Techniques for Better Photos

Creating an HDR image isn't just about capturing a wider range of light—it's about achieving control over detail and exposure that your camera can't manage in one shot. Whether you're working in challenging lighting situations, like interiors with bright windows or landscapes with intense contrasts, HDR blending can significantly improve your final images.

We Review the Slimmest Fujifilm Autofocus Lens: The Viltrox AF 28mm f/4.5

After making headlines for producing one of the slimmest full frame mirrorless autofocus lenses last year, Viltrox has made a bold move by making it available for the Fujifilm X-mount as well to fill a market gap. Introducing the Viltrox 28mm f/4.5 Fujifilm X-Mount, also known as a “chip” lens, resembling a potato chip—a reference to how thin the lens is. This Chinese lens maker even carries on the humor by featuring a bag of chips in the lens announcement poster, which was published on their Chinese social media.

How to Create Stunning Coastal Images Without Fancy Gear

Capturing compelling seascapes involves more than pointing your camera at pretty waves and waiting for good light. Getting powerful images at the coast comes down to timing, perspective, and understanding how the water interacts with your camera settings.

Understanding Rolling Shutter: Practical Insights

Rolling shutter is one of those camera specs everyone mentions but few fully understand. Knowing exactly how rolling shutter impacts your shooting can significantly improve the quality of your footage.

Bring Your Photos to Life: Easy Lightroom Color Tips

Color can transform your images from flat captures into vibrant, eye-catching scenes. Knowing how to use simple yet precise Lightroom adjustments to enhance color and detail can significantly elevate the impact of your photos.

Why Photography Is The Only Hobby You’ll Ever Need

I recently read an article that highlights three different types of hobbies you need to live an enriching life. Photography is surely one of the most popular hobbies today, practiced as it is by a huge number of people around the world. So how does photography enrich your life?

The Secrets of Accurate Color in Real Estate Photos

Capturing accurate color in real estate photography isn't as straightforward as tweaking white balance sliders. Colors often trick your eyes, impacting your photos more than you realize.

Quickly Remove People and Objects in Lightroom

Removing unwanted objects from your photos is now easier than ever thanks to Lightroom's new AI-powered removal tool. Knowing how to properly use this tool can quickly elevate your editing skills and save you significant time during post-processing.

Astrophotography Advice for Beginners

You've probably wondered whether investing in a specialized lens for astrophotography will significantly boost your results. According to this veteran, however, there's something else far more important that beginners should focus on first.

Retouch Skin Like a Top Pro (And Get Paid Like One)

People may be scrambling to find the automated AI holy grail of one-touch, realistic, high-end skin retouching, but you can have my dodge and burn technique when you pry it from my cold, dead Wacom tablet.

Back Button Focus: Still Necessary or Outdated?

Back button focus was once the default choice for photographers shooting fast-moving subjects, but advanced subject detection technology has some questioning its relevance today. Is it still useful?

Three Steps to Better Color Grading in Lightroom

Adjusting colors in your images can transform a good photo into one that's genuinely striking. Mastering the art of color grading allows you to personalize your photos, making them stand out with intentional style.

Nikon’s New 35mm f/1.2: Worth the Price?

The right 35mm lens can elevate your photography by blending wide angle versatility with striking depth-of-field control. Here's a look at Nikon's best.

Adidas SP0101: Solid Sunglasses for Active Photographers on the Go

As a professional photographer and newsprint journalist, I’m constantly searching for gear that enhances my work—and that includes more than just cameras and lenses. Sunglasses play a surprisingly important role in my day-to-day shooting, and I’ve found the Adidas SP0101 to be an excellent choice for active photographers. I have always loved the Adidas brand, especially the shoes, so I was very much on board with trying these out.

Take Control of Your Colors With Photoshop’s Latest Update

Photoshop just got a powerful update, particularly useful if you regularly work deeply with colors. The revamped Hue/Saturation adjustment now provides a significantly smoother way to isolate and adjust colors directly within your images.