How To's
How Your Camera’s Focus Bracketing System Works
For many years, photographers have had focus-stacking programs like Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker. You can now get the capability in some general-purpose image editors like Lightroom and Capture One Pro. Focus stacking software takes as input a series of images of the same subject with the focal…
Understanding Light Control – Photographing Black on Black and White on White
If you’ve dabbled in off-camera lighting or even natural lighting at times, you’ll quickly discover how difficult working with white can be. It’s no surprise that many people ask their subjects specifically not to wear white clothes, as it’s easy to blow out the highlights and ruin an otherwise…
How the Light Placement Alters Your Subjects
When teaching basic lighting principles, I break down how to light a subject into having three basic variables – Intensity of Light, Quality of Light, and Direction of Light. The intensity of light is pretty simple in its execution – how bright or dim your light is. Quality of light refers to…
How Your Flashtube Position and Shape Changes Your Light Quality
When I learned that Lensrentals.com would start carrying the Profoto Pro-11 and Profoto Pro Heads, I was really excited. Not necessarily because they’re the workhorse standard for large-scale commercial photography, or that Pro-Heads are commonly what I use in my own work, but because of an added…
Photography Fundamentals – How ISO Changes Your Photos
In recent weeks, I’ve started posting some fundamental articles on how to use your camera if you’re starting out. In the past couple weeks, we’ve discussed both how aperture affects your images, and how shutter speed changes your images, so today, we’re going to cover the final piece to that…
Photography Fundamentals – How Shutter Speed Changes Your Photos
Last week, I spoke to you about aperture, and how it correlated with the exposure triangle, and how aperture changes your images’ depth of field. That article was just part one of a three-part series that goes over the fundamentals of the exposure triangle, and how each of these settings changes…
A Production Junket: The Art of Storyboarding
A week or so ago, I started this production junket series with an article about how to budget and finance your short film. To continue that series, today I’m talking to you about part two of the multi-step process and talking to you about storyboarding your film. Putting a cohesive scene together…
Sharpening Your Skills in Pet Photography during Social Isolation
If you are like many people I know during this time of social distancing and working from home, the only friend you may be hanging out with regularly is your best friend… your doggo! While they might be super excited to have you around all day long, you might be struggling to come up with things to…
A Production Junket: A Guide to Budgeting and Financing your Short Film
_A film budget_ — it’s the large grizzly bouncer with the lousy reputation standing in the way of your talent getting beyond that golden door of opportunity where stories are made and told and, if you’re luckier than a ladybug rolling sevens, distributed. As filmmakers, we all come face to face…
Zen and the Art of Remote Presentation – Guide to Live Streaming
Like many of us at Lensrentals, people across the country are hunkered down at home either by choice or by local mandate in an effort to help slow the spread of COVID-19. This has created new challenges in how we work, how we learn, and how we experience the world around us. What were once face to…
Finally, the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S Lens Teardown
Just so you know, my original title was “_Lens Disassembly is a Complicated Profession. Don’t You Agree?_” The editor said nobody would know what the post was about. But I promise, you’ll see by the end of this; lens disassembly is a complicated profession. We were interested in this disassembly,…
Photographing the Solar Eclipse in Argentina
It was the night before totality in Rodeo, Argentina, and all the power was out. I had just returned from shooting all day in Valle de la Luna national park. Most of my batteries were dead or low, and my memory cards needed to be emptied on my also dead laptop. Fortunately, the eclipse took place…