Recommended Sony A6300 Settings

We wrote this recommended settings for Sony A6300 guide for those who are confused by the camera buttons and the long list of menu options in the camera. The Sony A6300 is an advanced interchangeable lens mirrorless camera designed for enthusiasts and professionals, so it has many complex functions and features. In this article, we will go over important information on what settings are ideal for day-to-day photography and videography needs, as well as explain what some of the settings do.

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Recommended Nikon D3500 Settings

For many photographers, especially first-time DSLR users, the camera menu on the Nikon D3500 can be confusing and overwhelming. Even though the D3500 is easier to understand than some cameras, it still has dozens of menu options to choose from. How do you even begin to set everything correctly?

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Understanding Aperture Priority Mode in Photography

Aperture priority mode is critically useful, but even a lot of advanced photographers don't understand its power. I personally use it about 95% of the time - for everything from wildlife to landscape photography - because it provides optimal results more quickly than Manual ever could.

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Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S Announcement

The highly anticipated portrait lens for the Nikon Z mount, the NIKKOR Z 85mm f/1.8 S has finally been announced, and it already looks amazing.

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What to Bring on a Landscape Photography Trip

Photographers always talk about the best equipment for certain photographic purposes - lenses, cameras, accessories, and so on. But what about packing and carrying your equipment in the first place? For something like landscape photography, you’ll often need to pack the most versatile possible kit given very limited space.

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Blue Hour Photography Guide

The “blue hour” is one of the most interesting and emotive times of day to capture photos. I’ve taken many of my favorite pictures at blue hour - even more than at sunrise or sunset. But what is blue hour, and how can you make the most of it?

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Five Basic Rules of Post-Processing Your Photos

Take Better Night Sky Photos with Image Stacking

The night sky is one of the most alluring subjects for landscape photographers. It’s also one of the most frustrating. If you’ve ever tried to do star photography, you’ve probably run into all sorts of issues: blurred stars, high ISO noise, and shallow depth of field.

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8 Zoo Photography Tips

Today we're going to look at eight useful tips for photographing animals at the zoo. The first question we need to answer when it comes to zoo photography is probably "why would I want to photograph at the zoo?" Zoo photography tends to be fairly controversial among photographers.

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Mechanical vs Electronic Shutter vs EFCS

Many cameras today, especially mirrorless cameras, let you pick between a mechanical and electronic shutter. Others – including a lot of DSLRs – have a third option called “electronic front curtain shutter” (EFCS) which is a blend between the other two types. Each shutter mechanism has several pros and cons, more than you might have realized. If you pick the wrong one, you could be harming your image quality.

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Nikon Z 50mm f/1.8 S Review

The Nikon NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.8 S is the third lens released for Nikon’s Z-series mirrorless cameras, and one of the most important as well. In this in-depth review, we will take a look at the performance of Nikon’s first mirrorless “Nifty Fifty” and discuss whether it lives up to the high standards of Nikon’s other Z glass so far.

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Venus Optics Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Review

In this detailed review of the new Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 for Nikon Z mount, we will take a look at the world’s widest rectilinear full-frame zoom lens and see how it performs on the Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera body. We had a chance to test this lens for a few weeks and we prepared this review specifically for its official release at the end of June of 2019. Although we have not yet seen many third party lens releases for the Nikon Z mount, it is exciting to see companies like Laowa putting their resources towards bringing out lenses that do not require any adapters to work. The Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 is the first attempt by Venus Optics to bring out a Z mount lens. Let’s take a look at the lens in more detail.

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Profoto B10 Review

This is a review of the Profoto B10 AirTTL OCF Flash Head, a lightweight, portable and battery-powered flash designed for professional portrait photographers. Although Profoto had previously released battery-powered flash heads for on-location work such as the B1 (see our Profoto B1 Review), B1X and B2, they were all either too big and heavy, or small enough to require an external battery pack. The Profoto B10 was designed to strike a perfect balance of portability, power and weight, so it it is arguably the flash head that delivers the most value in the entire line-up.

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Landscape Photography Case Study [Video]

A couple weeks ago, I wanted to film a tutorial on photographing the Milky Way – but as you may have seen, that didn’t quite work out. Our video series took a further hiatus when I lost my voice the following week, but we’re back again! Since I still sound like a potato, I went through the Photography Life archives for the following case study – from composition to post-processing – of two Grand Tetons photos from our Landscape Tutorial.

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Nikon 500mm f/5.6E PF VR Initial Impressions

This is an overview of the Nikon 500mm f/5.6E PF VR lens. It has been four years since I sold my favorite Nikkor AF-S 300mm f/4D lens. Since then, bird photography for me was just a waiting game until I got a new lens. My only lens which allowed me to taste bird photography in the mean time was the Nikon AF-S 70-200 f/2.8G VR II along with 1.4x TC II – a makeshift combo for larger birds. When Nikon announced the 300mm f/4E PF VR lens, I thought about getting it together with the 1.4x TC III, but knowing that reach is always an issue with little birds, my dream was to get the exotic 500mm f/4E FL VR. However, budget was an issue for such a hefty purchase, and on top of that, the weight of 3.1 kg was also a rather big negative factor. Although a number of budget-friendly lenses with good reach potential like the Nikon 200-500mm, Sigma / Tamron 150-600mm came out in between, none of them were able to match the quality I am used to getting from my Nikon 300mm f/4D. So, it was more a waiting game and I continued to try to survive in the genre with my makeshift combo…

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Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S Review

The Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S was one of the most hotly anticipated Nikon Z lenses, especially given that it is the first ultra-wide for the new mirrorless system. So far, every Z lens has received near-universal praise for its image quality. However, photographers’ initial impressions of the ($1300) Nikon 14-30mm f/4 were… much more mixed. How does this lens really fare overall, from automatic lens corrections to sample variation? This review explains everything you need to know.

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A Failed Landscape Photography Expedition

To be brutally honest – some plans are doomed to erupt in flames the moment they meet reality. That isn’t a surprise; the only twisted part is that we almost always know what’s about to happen, yet keep chugging along anyway. I found myself in that position last week while attempting to photograph the Milky Way over mountains in Colorado. Still, there’s always something to learn from failure.

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How to Shoot and Stitch Panoramas with a Drone

Drones allow photographers to capture images and video from unique perspectives and vantage points. Although digital cameras on modern consumer-level drones have come a long way, they are still quite limited when it comes to sensor size and resolution. As a result, images that come out of drones often lack the amount of detail that is needed for high quality prints. Thanks to the ability of drones to hover in the sky without any movement, it is possible to shoot vertical or horizontal aerial panoramas. In this article, I will go through the process of capturing panoramas with a drone, then discuss how you can use post-processing software to create high-resolution aerial images.

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PL Chronicles: Nasim and Spencer

Now that we’ve started posting frequently on our YouTube channel, one overdue video is simply an introduction: who we are (Nasim Mansurov and Spencer Cox), and how we came to be running Photography Life. If you’ve ever wanted to know how we got started and who’s behind the articles you read – sit down, grab a coffee, and take a look:

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Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S: The Best 24-70mm Zoom on the Market

Making a zoom lens that covers focal lengths from wide to telephoto is no easy task for an optical engineer. We have seen a number of attempts from different manufacturers to make a solid 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom over the years, but most of those lenses disappoint when it comes to consistent sharpness across the focal length range, high levels of vignetting, distortion and lateral chromatic aberration. We have already published our assessment of the best 24-70mm f/2.8 lenses on the market for the Nikon F mount and our conclusion was that all 24-70mm had their own strengths and weaknesses, with some being better at some focal lengths compared to others. Nikon started from scratch with its Nikon Z mount and highlighted its advantages over the F mount, stating that the Z mount lenses will be superior thanks to shorter flange distance and large throat size. And as we have seen so far from our reviews, the Z mount lenses indeed offer superb performance when compared to the F mount equivalents. We have just completed our assessment of the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S lens in our lab and the results are simply astonishing – it looks like Nikon has managed to make world’s best 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.

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