Fstoppers
Photography News and Community for Creative Professionals
One of the joys of shooting with a Leica M is the incredible range of lenses available. The drawback for many of us, however, is that Leica’s own superb lenses are expensive. Once we’ve saved up for the camera, then we need to figure out what lens to buy. Leica lenses can cost more than some M cameras, and this is one of the main reasons many photographers who crave a Leica haven’t made the switch.
A shallow depth of field ruins more portraits than a small aperture ever does. That claim runs against nearly everything you've been told about what makes a serious portrait setup, and it's worth sitting with before you spend money on another fast prime.
Most photographers rank a macro lens near the bottom of their wish list, filed under a specialty they'll get around to someday. That instinct sells short a piece of glass that can carry travel work, portraits, and landscapes all at once.
The biggest weakness of Sony's newest high-resolution camera turns out to be everything you expected of it before you ever picked it up. Expectations, not hardware, set the trap, and understanding that shift changes how you shoot with a resolution-first body in a market crowded with do-it-all machines.
A motion-activated camera captured the first confirmed images of a black-naped pheasant-pigeon since 1882. The rare ground-dwelling bird, known locally as Auwo, was photographed on Fergusson Island in Papua New Guinea only two days before the expedition was scheduled to end.
There is a switch on your telephoto lens that many photographers never touch. It sits in the bank of controls on the barrel, usually labeled something like FULL and 3 m to infinity, and it is one of the quickest things to check when you hit the most maddening autofocus problem there is: the lens racking back and forth through its focus range while the bird you wanted flies away.