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Making perfect skies with luminosity masks and Blend If sliders

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Masking different layers based on brightness is an often tricky but vital Photoshop skill to have. There’s a bunch of different ways of doing it from the simple to the advanced. Two of the most common methods are by using Luminosity Masks or with Photoshop’s “Blend If” layer options.

While the two might appear to do similar things on a quick glance, there are some pretty distinct differences between the two. Black Rudis from F64 Academy looks into both methods to show us how they work. Each has advantages over the other depending on what you’re trying to achieve. And both will let you do things that the other simply cannot.

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How to shoot long exposure timelapse with direct sunlight in the middle of the day

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Shooting long exposures on a bright day can be a hassle. Even with your aperture at f/16 and ISO as low as it’ll go, you’re lucky if you can get slow enough to blur motion. This is where super strung neutral density filters come in.

Jay P Morgan of The Slanted Lens takes us out on a visit to Santa Monica beach in this video. Using Syrp’s new Super Dark variable ND to cut 6-10 stops of light from his exposure, Jay is able to get those 2-4 second exposures you need for daylight timelapse.

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Filmmaker inserts himself into stock photos for this hilarious music video

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I’ve been a big fan of Joe Penna (aka MysteryGuitarMan) on YouTube ever since I saw his stop motion rendition of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro about 7 years ago. With over 2.8 million subscribers, he doesn’t post as often these days as he once did, but when he does, you know it’s going to be entertaining. His latest video is no exception.

In the video, Joe inserts himself into a number of stock photos while he mimes along to the song Believer by Paper Lions. We’ve seen this done before with stills, but this is the first time I’ve seen anybody do it with video. As well as being well made, it’s as entertaining as we’ve come to expect from MysteryGuitarMan.

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DIYP Reviews the Saramonic UwMic9 Dual Wireless Lavalier Microphone Kit

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Getting good quality audio is often the biggest challenge faced by DSLR & mirrorless video shooters. The microphones built into most cameras are notoriously bad. They hear all kinds of background noise and echo, they hiss, and pick up a lot of unwanted sound from the camera itself, like autofocus (or even manual focus adjustments).

The easiest solution, of course, is to use an external microphone. You can then plug this either straight into your camera or a separate portable field recorder. While there are many different types of microphone out there, sometimes a lavalier is your best choice. This is where there Saramonic UwMic9 dual wireless lav mic kit comes in.

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8 creative camera hacks in under 90 seconds that you can try yourself

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Photographers are always coming up with ways to try and think a little differently. Sometimes they add a little uniqueness and interest to our shot. At other times they lets us get shots we otherwise might not be able to get at all.

In this video, photographer Peter McKinnon shows us us 8 different camera tricks he actually uses. They involve fairly every day objects you can find around the house. A belt, cellphone, and a knife are just some of the items Peter uses to bring something unique his photography.

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Meet the USAAC Navigator who possesses the only photographs of the Hiroshima atomic explosion

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The atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th & 9th in 1945 remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in mankind’s history. Six days later, Japan announced its surrender to the allies, effectively ending World War II. This event has seen much debate over the years, and likely will continue to do so throughout the future.

One of the people involved with the bombings was 2nd Lt. aircraft navigator Russel Gackenbach. Now 93, he flew into the heart of Japan on August 6th, as “Little Boy“, the 9,700lb (4,400kg) uranium-235 atomic bomb was dropped onto Hiroshima. While chaos ensued all around, Gackenbach managed to fire off some photographs of the detonation on his personal camera, which he’d taken on the flight with him.

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How to create autofocus with a 120 year old lens

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Mathieu Stern’s at it again with his crazy experiments. This time, he’s taken the lens off a 120 year old folding camera, and attached it to his Sony mirrorless camera. This is nothing new, but what is new is that he’s given it autofocus abilities.

The first autofocus lenses were released around 40 years ago, so this is quite the feat. He used an ingenious adapter designed to give autofocus abilities to manual focus Leica lenses on the Sony A7 range of bodies. Mathieu then modified the adapter to fit this 120 year old lens.

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How to use an inexpensive old analogue light meter for modern digital photography

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While it’s completely possible to shoot digital cameras without a handheld meter, they do seem to be back in fashion lately. They provide quick and easy consistency between shots, or completely different lighting setups and environments. They help you get setup and ready to shoot before your subject’s even arrived at the studio or location. They’re also very handy for street photography, too.

There’s a lot of options out there, and plenty of digital ones for all budgets. You could go with an old used digital Minolta. Or even something fancy and expensive like the Sekonic L758DR or L478DR. The least expensive meters today tend to be the very old analogue light meters. You can often find them in the used sections of local camera stores and auction sites. But how do you actually use them?

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Build your own custom vlogging rig to fit any camera setup

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Vlogging has seen a massive boom over the last couple of years. But, there still aren’t really any perfect options out there when it comes to the gear used and how to set it up. Everything seems to have a compromise. You get touch screen, but no 4K. 4K but no touch screen. Or you get both, but the AF can’t keep up. Or you get everything you want, but you can’t see the camera’s LCD and have no idea how your framing is.

There’s all kinds of different workarounds out there to make life a little easier. Some options, though, aren’t quite as versatile as others. Switching from a mounted camera to handheld (or vice versa) can be a pain. In this video from DSLR Video Shooter, Caleb Pike shows us how to build out own vlogging rig that can be easily adapted to almost any setup.

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9 last minute Christmas gifts for photographers

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Christmas is only 11 days away, and some of us might have not actually managed to make it out to buy presents yet. Perhaps you didn’t want to deal with the rush of people in the city centre. Were the prices not as low as you’d have liked online? Or maybe you’re just worried that the busy season is going to cause shipping delays that mean the presents don’t arrive in time.

Well, worry no more. The Cooperative of Photography is here to help, with some last minute gift ideas for the photographer in your life.

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