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If you’re struggling to understand stops and exposure, you need to watch this

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What is a stop of light? Essentially, it’s a relative quantity of light. Either half or double of a pre-existing amount. But what does that really mean? And why does it take Rob Hall 8 whole minutes to explain it? Well, that simple concept comes with a lot of implications in photography, and it applies to everything from our ISO, aperture and shutter speed to flash power, flash distance, neutral density filters and more.

Understanding what a stop of light is and what it implies are vital for creating good and consistent exposures in photography, and it’s one of its most basic principles. If you don’t understand it, it can be difficult to figure out what problems might be occurring when you shoot an image and it isn’t what you expected.

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How to fix those dark underexposed shots in Lightroom

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We’ve all been there at some point or another. We’ve misjudged our exposure, knocked a dial, the sun’s disappeared behind a cloud, or maybe our flash just hasn’t recycled yet. Whatever the reason, we’ve all had underexposed shots that we would actually quite like if we could better see what’s going on in them.

Well, in this video, commercial food photographer Scott Choucino shows us how he recovers those occasional underexposed shots using Lightroom. These same techniques will also work when using Adobe Camera Raw into Photoshop, too.

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Watch YouTube’s most informed sock puppet teach you how to shoot with manual exposure

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For those who’ve never seen TheCrafsMan SteadyCraftin on YouTube, you’re in for a treat – even if you already understand everything contained within this 25-minute video. For those who have, you know exactly what to expect. I’ve been following this rather unconventional channel for a while now. It covers a lot of handy DIY and crafting topics as well as the occasional random tangent.

Today’s random tangent is the topic of exposure as it relates to photography. Although our host is a sock puppet, the principles are explained very well, in a manner that most people will be able to grasp quite easily – and probably find quite entertaining, too. So, if you’ve struggled to make that switch to “M”, this video may just help you out.

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ISO has nothing to do with your exposure – Here’s how digital ISO really works

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Everybody knows the exposure triangle by now, right? ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Once you know your scene’s exposure value, you can just balance out the three to get a good exposure. And as you adjust one up or down, you need to adjust another in the opposite direction to compensate. Well, what if one of them isn’t really anything to do with exposure?

That’s the argument put forth by Chris Lee of the YouTube channel pal2tech, and it’s a compelling one. Back in the days of film, it was a little different, and your ISO really did reflect the sensitivity of the film stock to light. These days, though, with digital cameras, not so much.

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Couple asks photographer to shoot a 10-hour wedding in return for “exposure” to their 300 guests

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I’m sure that many of us have been asked to work for free in all sorts of annoying ways. One cheeky couple recently sent an email to a photographer asking for a coverage of their 10-hour wedding. In return, they offered exposure to the incredible number of 300 guests, 117 of them unmarried. What a tempting offer, right?

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How to optimise your camera settings for street photography to get the best exposure

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Street photography is one of the more chaotic yet fun genres of photography that many people choose to pursue. Even if it’s not something that people do regularly, it’s something that many of us do anyway when we go on vacation as just a regular part of documenting our trip. But how do we optimise our camera for this sort of shooting if we’re used to doing something more controlled, like portraits or product photography?

In this video, street photographer Frederik Trovatten talks about how he sets up his camera for shooting street photography. While he’s using the Fuji X-T3, the principles he mentions are common to many DSLR and mirrorless cameras. He also touches on shooting street photography with negative film, too.

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How sharing your photos on Unsplash may (not) help you grow your photography career

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It is now exactly 2 years since I started uploading stock photos to Unsplash -the slightly controversial stock photo platform where everything is FREE for everyone.

And I thought this is a good occasion to review what I gained from my presence on Unsplash.

In this article I want to answer the question if giving away one’s photographs for free on Unsplash has benefits for photographers.

Of course, these are just my own experiences. Your mileage may vary…

Let me give you the short conclusion first. For me as a professional photographer publishing photos on Unsplash was (almost) completely useless and had no tangible benefits.

Yet I am not negative towards Unsplash and I am going to tell you why.

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The three things you need to know if you’re new to shooting in manual mode

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Shooting in manual isn’t some magic bullet that will make all your shots perfect, no matter what some photographers might want you to believe. But there are things you need to understand in order to be able to use it effectively. Those three things are ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

In this video, photographer JoshinCincinnati walks us through the three basics of manual mode exposure, what they mean, and the implications of changing each.

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This ice cream truck owner’s had enough of Instagram influencers, so he charges them double

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We’ve all heard of Instagram influencers who ask for freebies. I’ve always thought that they usually ask for pricey stuff, such as photography services, or free accommodation on exotic locations. But it turns out that some of them go as low as asking for free ice cream in exchange for “exposure.” The owner of L.A. ice cream truck CVT Soft Serve got fed up with this. So, he decided to charge Instagram influencers double.

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How dynamic range compares on film vs digital

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The film vs digital argument has been going on since DSLRs first hit the market a couple of decades ago. But it doesn’t seem to be dying any time soon, especially with films popularity growing again. One of the big debates between the two formats that regularly pops up is that of dynamic range.

So, photographer Bill Lawson put it to the test. He shot some Kodak T-Max 100 in a Nikon N90s vs the more recent Nikon D750 DSLR using the Nikon 135mm f/2 AF-D DC lens on both to see how they compare.

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