Zach Sutton
I'm Zach and I'm the editor and a frequent writer here at Lensrentals.com. I'm also a commercial beauty photographer in Los Angeles, CA, and offer educational workshops on photography and lighting all over North America.
Posts by Zach Sutton · page 6 of 13
How Sports Leagues Build out Elaborate Instant Replay Systems
Many sports started as a somewhat primitive idea – most involve a ball of some sort, catching and throwing, and added elements to make the game competitive and unique. However, in the last few decades, technology has made its way into professional sports in a big way. From coaches making plays on…
Advanced Photography Lighting Techniques – Feathering & Zooming
Lighting within photography holds a reality – It’s easy to understand, but really takes years to master. As such, you end up seeing a progression with photographers who start using studio strobes that looks very similar to the Dunning Kruger effect chart – where they figure out basic principles,…
Comparing Studio Strobes and Constant Lighting for Photography
A common question when bringing off-camera flash to your repertoire is whether you should invest in studio strobes, or if you should be using consistent lighting for your photography work. If this were ten years ago, I’d say to invest in strobes, and this advice would look more like a tweet than an…
Short Film Contest Winner Gongoli Arrives Just in Time for Halloween
At the start of this year, we announced our first-ever [](/blog/2021/02/announcing-the-winner-of-the-lensrentals-pitch-contest/)Short Film Pitch Contest. We encouraged videographers everywhere to send us their pitch deck for a movie they wanted to create, and we’d give one lucky winner a $5,000…
How to Quickly Ruin Your Camera and Lens
Typically, this blog stands on the idea of “Please protect your gear, and if it’s our gear you’re renting from us, please absolutely protect the gear”. However, mistakes happen, and things break. When you have an inventory as large and diverse as ours, that reality happens way more than we’d care…
Is AI Art Generation Going to Destroy Art as We Know It?
Most everyone is talking these days about artificial intelligence, and the latest machine learning tools developed within the art space. Whereas 2021 was all about NFTs, this year is very much about AI and how it will change the art industry or possibly, destroy it entirely. As someone who is…
Female-Focused Nexus Looks to Push the Bounds of What to Expect in a Ski Documentary
A few months ago, we were able to sit down with Lensrentals.com customer and filmmaker Shannon Corsi, as she told us about her upcoming project, Nexus – a documentary focusing on five groups of female skiers, as they highlight their love for winter sports and the challenges that come with it. Well,…
Understanding the ‘Leica Look’
I’m always inherently a bit of a skeptic when someone’s explanation for something involves a ‘magic’ or a ‘minutia’ that can’t quite be explained. When someone offers an explanation to reasonings for what gear they use, I want them to take a pragmatic approach – This lens is much more robust than…
Can You Tell the Difference Between the Leica M10 and Leica M10 Monochrom?
Leica is perhaps, the one camera brand over any others that are willing to push the bounds within the camera market. While not all of their ideas are a hit – the LCD Screenless Leica M10-D comes to mind – it’s certainly worth commending a brand that is willing to do something different and think…
Why You Need to Consider Parabolic Reflectors in Your Work
I love using studio strobes in my photography work. The flexibility and control it gives me far outweigh any of the benefits I’ve found with natural light. However, fundamentally, strobes are designed to mimic sunlight, and modifiers are designed to mimic the weather conditions included in…
Quiz: RED Camera Name, American Gladiator Name, or Both?
In the past, we’ve put out several April Fools day posts, from Roger explaining how to find the perfect brick wall to test your lenses with the utmost accuracy, to him explaining the new numerical analysis system employed to find which lens is truly the sharpest. This year, instead of teasing our…
Comparing a Ten-Year-Old Camera to a Modern One
This month marks ten years for the Canon 5D Mark III – a camera once known as the top of the line, now superseded by a couple of different camera generations. With March of 2022 being its ten-year birthday, I thought I’d do a fun little comparison to see how far we’ve come in these ten years, and…