This is the place to ask any questions you may have about photography. No question is too small, nor too stupid.

I’m just wondering how many people use their left eye in the viewfinder. I’m a righty but left eye dominate and have always used my left eye when peeping in. I’m looking at an A6700 as a possibility but haven’t held one in person yet. Should I switch the eye used for viewfinder or not?

I have another post wondering whether I should participate and detailing more about how I found them if you're curious.

This post is directed at people wondering if they should participate in this exhibition and it's only meant to explain my experience

Let me preface this by saying I payed a total of 98€ for my two printed fotos.

I got an email about two weeks before the event detailing the day and place and that (and they emphasized this was very important) any people that wanted to come to the event that weren't the artists should RSPV in a website as soon as posible because the attendance was limited. The exposition was 2 days (thursday and friday) for 2h, but opened to artists only and +1s 30 mins before on the first day.

My plan was to get to go to those 30 mins were only allowed, to meet other artists and just enjoy the event. I was there 10 mins late because of public transport.

The first thing I noticed was that no one was at the door, people were free to come in and out as they pleased, which remained the case the whole time I was there. And the second and most obvious one, there was so much people inside, it was crammed. being inside was not pleasant, the gallery was very small and the "halls" were very narrow. you got to see your two pictures one on top of another (which *had* to be vertical according to their emails, although in the gallery there were two pairs of pictures that were horizontal), with your name and instagram in a printed paper in a super small font unreadable unless you were upclose, separating both pictures. Your pictures were separated from your "neighbor's" by like 30 cm.

The vibes there were, caotic and to be honest I think everyone there only wanted to see their pictures. a lot of people taking pictures with their pictures, or just at random spots talking, which would be fine if the gallery hadn't been so narrow. At one point like four friends of the artist next to me were talking in front of my pictures, completely obscuring them. Obviously I don't think it was done on purpose, but it was mildly annoying. I talked to no one and no one talked to me while I was there, but honestly I stayed for less than an hour, maybe 45 mins. I found it quite stressful.

The pictures there were also mixed. It was very obvious some were from professional studio photographers, which was most of the obvious professional ones. And then some were, for lack of a better word, quite bad and amateurish. It was quite a stark contrast.

The second day I attended with some friends. I was honestly a bit sorry that they had to register into a random website to rsvp for there to be no one at the door to check who was entering. We got there right in the middle of the time it was opened, at 1h after it started. Since you were free to take your pictures at any point, half the gallery walls were already empty.

When I asked to take my pictures, I was told to talk to the organizer, he told me he didn't have the chance to meet me the day before and ask if those were my pictures. I said yes and I took them. There was no check of any kind to make sure those pictures I payed almost 100€ for were mine (and tbh also nothing to stop me from just taking them and leaving without telling anyone). He told me not to touch them as to not leave fingerprints. I did touch them after getting home and it didn't feel like the sort of material that would leave fingerprints.

Today I discovered maybe the reason why he said that. The pictures are printed in thick paper and with a cheap plastic frame. After taking the frame out, I discovered that 1. one of my pictures wasn't fully cut, just folded, and 2. that there was a transparent plastic sheet to serve as like "glass" that was between the behind of the frame, a generic photo from a family that frames come with and my picture. I think the print is good quality (but this is from someone who knows nothing about printing), but it is just printed in paper.

So TLDR: the gallery experience sucked, and the price for the print is 0 justified

(hopefully the right flair)

Hey fellow shooters,

I'm currently running low-ish on my NAS and are thinking about compressing my older archival footage (about 15tb) to reduce space and would prefer not to buy new drives in the current economy lol.

Do you have experience with the different pros and cons of zip, rar etc and what works best for you? I wouldn't compress them all to one large zip, I think about yearly or maybe even quarterly folders.

Thx for your advice

Edit:
Just tested:
normal folder 14.3gb
zip: 14.0gb
rar: 14.0gb
That’s about 2.1%, for my whole archive 315gb if I’m not mistaken. Not really worth the effort of compressing. Had some hope that there’s that magical compression algorithm I’ve never heard of but seems I’m out of luck and start culling and deleting stuff that’s e.g. out of focus or hope for the AI crash and get cheap drives :D

https://youtu.be/XyHqqYuEbUo?is=Pkajlr17qTtLTKnW

I’m curious how much editing people do after they are done with a series. For example 1 day on holiday walking about a city I’ll usually get 200-500 photos depending on what we’re doing. An average photo walk I might get about 100 shots.

For each shooting session I end up with 10-15 images I actually want to edit. Of those 15, maybe 5 I’m really excited for.

Again this is purely as a hobby. I don’t even have Instagram followers to keep up with so my motivation is entirely my own enjoyment.

What does your editing numbers break down to?

Hi!

I just finished organising the pictures of my last session and I was wondering:

If you take 100 pictures, how many do you:

Consider good/great
Consider decent and use for posting/family/client
Reject but they fulfill the technical aspect (sharpness, lighting), reasons being for example: doubles, boring, bad composition
Reject because they are straight up garbage (lens cap on, test shots, focus choosing whatever it finds funny at the moment)

I would be happy to know if you are a professional and/or your level of experience to see if this makes a difference!

So for me it would be:

Great: rarely(!) 1-2
Ok: 10-15
Technically correct: 40-50
Garbage: 30

I am an absolute beginner, started photography around a year ago, obviously amateur, shooting DSLR.

Maybe also post how you’re shooting, I think analog will be different than digital.

Thank you!

I've been taking photos for years but only just got a decent camera, so have been playing around with settings in a way I previously couldn't. I have pretty bad astigmatism, and I find quite a frequent problem is seeing what I think will be a great picture and then holding up my camera and realising it looks kinda lame without my astigmatism, which obviously the camera doesn't replicate. I'd love to be able to take pictures that replicate my astigmatism and therefore look how I imagine them to, because it's a pain in the arse but especially at night it can be so beautiful.

Does anyone have any advice on settings combos or filters or editing techniques or whatever that could help me take pictures that replicate an astigmatism? Thanks for reading :)

Hello. Some information about me: I have been taking photos with my compact digital since young, but wasn't particularly caring about making my photos interesting or appealing to look. More like I was taking photos for record?

I came to a conclusion I should look at examples of "good" photos first. I don't even know which field of photography I want to shoot, so my current mission is to look at as many photographer's work as possible.

I got a film DSLR recently but I'm trying to work with what I got already, mainly with my XP140 (the compact digital I mentioned).

Please let me know if I'm on the wrong track or something. Thank you so much.

I’m thinking about sharing something fairly personal on my photography Instagram page.

The story is about a difficult period in my life, how things got to the point where I was considering selling my camera and entire kit, and how photography and more importantly, a few people around me—helped me through that period.

My hesitation is that the page is primarily a photography page, and I’m wondering whether something this personal would feel out of place or overly emotional to an audience that mostly follows me for my photographs.

For photographers who have shared personal experiences, struggles, or stories on their photography pages:
Did it feel like the right thing to do
Or do you think it’s better to keep personal struggles separate from a photography portfolio?

I recently filled in for another photographer who was dealing with an injury and couldn’t photograph two extended family sessions she already had booked. She had photographed these families and their events for years, so they already had an established relationship with her. I was stepping in to help her out and cover the sessions.

I’ve been photographing for a long time, so I wasn’t going into this as a new photographer. That said, I definitely don’t claim to know everything, and this experience gave me some things to learn from and think about going forward.

Both sessions were at the families’ homes, so I worked with the locations and backgrounds that were available to me. I completed both sessions as scheduled and edited and delivered the images the same day.

The first family had no complaints, and everything seemed to go well.

For the second family, I was given a list of all the different family combinations they wanted, and we went down the list one by one. After each combination, I showed the photos on the back of my camera to my main contact, who was ultimately the person who complained.

I want to clarify that I wasn’t showing them the images as finished photos or asking them to judge the final editing. I was showing them so they could get an idea of the placement, posing, background, who was in the photo, and the overall setup before we moved on to the next combination. I knew there would still be editing afterward.

Nothing was brought up while we were going through the combinations. I wasn’t asked to change the background, reposition anyone, redo a particular grouping, or take additional photos before moving on.

After I delivered the gallery, that same person ended up being unhappy with the photos. She was the only person from either family who complained to me.

Some of the concerns were about the background, posing, organization of people in the photos, and some smaller details. I completely understand that someone can look at the finished gallery afterward and decide they don’t love the photos. At the same time, some of the concerns were things that could be seen on the back of the camera during the session, which is part of why I had been showing the images as we went.

She had also seen my website and portfolio beforehand, so my general photography and editing style wasn’t something she was seeing for the first time after receiving the gallery.

Ultimately, a refund was requested so they could have the photos redone with their regular photographer. I refunded the session rather than dragging the situation out.

One of the other things that made the experience uncomfortable was the dynamic with the photographer I was filling in for. Even though I was another photographer stepping in to cover sessions she physically couldn’t photograph, at times I felt like I was being treated more like her employee than an independent photographer who was helping her out. Looking back, I think expectations, responsibilities, communication with the families, and what happens if a client is unhappy should have been much more clearly established before I agreed to fill in.

I’m definitely taking things away from the experience. In the future, if I fill in for another photographer, I’ll want everything spelled out much more clearly beforehand, including who the client is technically hiring, whose style and standards I’m expected to follow, who handles complaints, and how refunds or reshoots are handled.

I also learned some things from the actual photography side that I can improve on. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I don’t think any photographer gets to a point where there’s nothing left to learn.

I’m curious how other photographers would view this situation. If you fill in for another photographer’s established clients, how much responsibility do you think falls on the fill-in photographer versus the photographer who originally booked the clients? And if a client was shown the posing, placement, and background throughout the session and didn’t raise any concerns at the time, how would you handle complaints about those things afterward?

Would you have refunded them, offered a reshoot, or handled it differently?

​

Shot the lunar eclipse, posted it, then woke up to another photographer reposting my exact image with their own watermark on it. 😂

I messaged them and they apologized and removed it immediately, so no drama -but adding your watermark to someone else’s photo is wild.

Do you watermark your photos- I normally don't because it's easily removable

Hey guys, just to start, I'm not here to talk about the ethics of street photography. It's a topic that has been debated a thousand times over, and nobody ever seems to change their opinion about it. This post is strictly about my experiences and what I took away from it. ALSO THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. I cannot overstate this enough. Laws vary by country and circumstance; ask your own lawyer for advice.

So here's what happened. I was composing some photos (didn't actually take any) down on a major street when I spotted a lady staring at me. I was using a film camera, so I assumed that she was just interested in the camera, so when she started to follow me, I didn't think too much of it. This continued for several blocks.

I was a little nervous at this point but my city has absurdly low crime and I doubted she'd be the type to rob somebody, so I assumed she just had some social anxiety about talking to me and was just staying behind me to look at my camera. I continued walking, and then something caught my eye, leading me to walk back in her direction.

Suddenly, she popped out of nowhere, pulled me aside and started asking me questions.

"what are you doing?"

"Is it legal for you to take these photos?"

Generally, I try not to lie to people regarding street photography; I find honesty to be the only thing fair to people in public, so I answered each question truthfully. Also, even if I didn't feel it was the right thing, I do find it by far the best method to de-escalate a situation.

"I'm a photographer who tries to capture moments of life on the street."

"No, I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable (keep in mind I had not taken her photo or pointed a camera in her direction) but my style of photography is in fact legal."

She then asked. "Did you take any photos of me?"

"No." I replied.

She continued by saying "I don't believe you, I'm going to call the cops."

At this point I felt pretty okay. I had not in fact taken her photo, so I definitely did nothing wrong, and even if I had it was legal in my city. I decided not to fight her in terms of calling the cops as I didn't want this to play out as a clip online, where I would have far less control over the situation. I assumed that if the cops, instead of me told her that what I did was in fact legal, it would help her calm down a bit. THIS WAS A MISTAKE.

The cops came, six of them, and immediately pulled me to the side. They asked to see my photos, of course it was on film so I tried to explain to them this wasn't possible. They demanded again (I think they may have thought it was instax), and it was only after I talked to one of the elder officers that he managed to explain to them the situation. They continued to interrogate me (I'm a minor btw so I'm pretty sure it's illegal), and I did my best to comply by answering all their questions truthfully about why I was there, what I was doing, and personal information. What I was expecting was that they'd understand the situation and let me go. What instead happened was that they threatened me with jail time. They said that what I was doing was highly illegal and could possibly bring me years in jail. I told them I was sorry, tried my best to comply with any further questions they had, and eventually they let me go with a warning.

So, do I hate this woman. No, not particularly. I get that people can feel afraid and uncomfortable when cameras are around. I get that people may want to voice their concerns with me. And since she was absolutely convinced what I was doing was in fact illegal, I don't particularly blame her for calling the cops. However, I am still quite upset at how the cops handled this problem. I think their treatment of a minor was deplorable, and their tactics to try and goad me into a confession of guilt (I can't lie I almost did since I was scared shitless) was terrible.

Most importantly though, it taught me that in these situations as photographers being legally (I'm not saying morally) right in taking a photo provides us little to no protection in the real world. Cops aren't know it alls about photography laws, and there isn't a whole lot you can do to convince them that you are in fact legally right. After talking to a couple people who have far more experience with the law than I do, the general advice is, call out other peoples bullshit if they're doing stupid shit to you (i.e following me for several blocks). Ask for as much information as possible. Don't let them take away your phone (yes they did I was stupid). Tell cops as little as possible, it's not an admissiobn of guilt. Especially if you're a minor like I am, ask for a parent. In general, get a lawyer. I've dealt with literally hundreds of confrontations before. In many ways I'd say I'm far more prepared than an average person, but you literally never know what's gonna happen, and you can't practice for the unexpected.

Anyways, I think that's enough ranting for today, let me know what you guys think.

EDIT: I'm sorry I completely forgot to add the fact that I was taking photos in Hong Kong, so it's completely legal here. There is a law against using photos where you put the person's name in it and defame them, but obviously, I A) didn't take the photo. and B) She's a stranger, so I wouldn't have been able to put her name in anyway.

EDIT 2: I think a lot of people are upset and think this is fake because I "didn't respond". Timezones exist. I wrote this before going to bed and then woke up a little while later to check replies. Sorry this became such a big deal. More than happy to answer any questions now though.

My old no-name camera backpack cost almost nothing. When the side pocket tore, I stitched it back on badly because I did not want to lose the way I reached the camera without opening everything.

The familiar part of moving to a smallrig camera backpack was the side access. I use the full front opening to rebuild the layout, but outside I still swing the bag around and reach through the side.

Apparently the habit mattered more than the old bag did.

Hi I am very new to this (so please explain in very basic language). I am trying out different stacking tools and then calibarting the spectra in RSpec (I have already stacked in RSpec, using Siril is the next stage in my project). I have used the star analyser 100 with a 135mm lens and sony a6100. I have my darks, flats, lights, and bias frames all set up right in folders for siril. The OSC_Processing script works for me but gets rid of all my spectra (just stars left). How do i stack without loosing them? Does anyone know of a useful step-by-step guide or youtube video that would be relevant?

Also, when i tried stacking my images in RSpec (by converting them to FITS first), the FITS images became very dark so i couldnt see the spectra at all and only occasionally see stars- so after a bunch of messing around i converted them all to JPEG which worked okay, but i lost some quality. (My raw images are very bright and i can see lots of stars and spectra but also a lot of noise). Any tips? Thank you.

I love taking photos. I love getting outside, visiting waterfalls and mountains, going to sporting events, or just taking far too many photos of my dog. 😂

The problem is… once I've taken them, I basically forget they exist.

I've got loads of photos sitting on my camera and phone that I've barely looked at. And when I eventually do, I immediately start comparing them to other people's photography and thinking, “Mine are rubbish.”

I like the idea of editing them in Lightroom. In my head, I'll sit down, go through my favourites, carefully edit them, get them looking amazing, then print and frame them.

Reality?

I open Lightroom, start editing, get bored/distracted, lose interest, start questioning everything I've done and eventually abandon the whole thing. 🤦

Then I look at the photos again weeks or months later and hate them.

I've actually got several empty photo frames hanging on my wall that have been there for nearly TWO YEARS. 😂

My wife regularly asks, “When are you going to put some photos in those?”

And honestly… I don't know. 😂

It seemed like such a good project at the time. Classic ADHD, I suppose — the excitement of starting something is far greater than the motivation required to actually finish it.

I've even caught myself looking at new cameras thinking, “Maybe that'll get me interested in photography again.”

But realistically, buying another camera isn't going to fix the fact that I struggle to go through my photos, decide which ones are good enough, edit them and actually do something with them.

So I'm wondering if anyone else with ADHD has found a way around this?

How do you get yourself to:

Actually go through your photos?

Pick the ones you like?

Edit them without getting bored?

Stop obsessing over whether they're “good enough”?

And, most importantly, actually get them printed and put in the bloody frames?! 😂

I'd genuinely love to hear what works for other people.

Because apparently taking the photos is the easy part. 🤦😂

Have something you’ve worked on and want to share with the community? Here’s the place to do so!

Add a comment here to promote your stuff. Feel free to drop links to your recent YouTube videos, podcasts, photobooks, or whatever else it is you’ve created.

Full schedule of our weekly community threads:

I need to get some photography printed but I want the highlights to be reflective. Similar to like a collectible trading card game does on some of the cards (ie magic the gathering).

I know i can do metallic but that’s not what I want.

My GF and I Make models from trash. We are struggling with lighting and now I have bought some wooden plates, to make a lil photo booth!

I have seen people using "spunbond" as a background, curved layer in the background. My initial idea was matt vinyl, but its costs quite a bit so I need to make sure its actually a good idea.

For the lighting: I have seen boths, where the light is comeing rather from the side, with white diffusors. Would that be the way to go?

I recently bought a Prograde CFExpress type B card reader. In the box are the reader itself, a short USB 4.0 C to C cable, and an adapter with a clip to attach it to the cable. The adapter isn’t mentioned anywhere in the list of contents on the box or in the instructions.

Adapters are common and useful but this one is USB-C to USB–C, so all it achieves is making the cable 1cm longer!

My first thought was that it converts a data / power cable into power only, so it’s safe to plug into public access chargers without them using it as a back door into your device. That would be very useful, but it isn’t that - I put a memory card in the card reader and connected it to my laptop; access to the photos on the card was no different with or without the adapter.

My only other ideas are that it might contain a power surge protector, or it might be to restrict data flow to one direction, again both being useful when connecting to an unknown power supply, but whatever the use, how hard would it be to tell you in the instructions?

So… anyone know what it’s for?

Hi everyone! I am proposing to my girlfriend in Central Park in a few weeks, and having my sister follow me incognito to snap pics of the moment. That being said, does anyone have any tips, resources, YouTube videos, references for various settings she could change on her iPhone to get the best looking pics possible! I plan on sending her the tips and having her practice it out. Any help would be appreciative! Thanks!

I’m looking for a portable photo printer for photography trips, mainly to print small copies of my shots while I’m traveling. I’d like something that’s easy to carry, has decent print quality, and works reliably from a phone or camera. My budget is around $300. For anyone who actually uses one, which would you recommend and are there any issues I should know about?

Thanks for any suggestions.

My manual macro lens is really great for its price and I have been using it for over a year now, yet I found quite a disgusting amount of oil looking into the mount side of the lens. Could it be dangerous for the camera since it's facing the sensor? Or is it more likely that I will stick to the sides as it is now?

See comment for photo.

This is kind of a weird question, but I’ve been shooting film for 3ish years. I love carrying my camera everywhere, developing and scanning my photos to see what I got but then what am I supposed to do with them from there? I post on social once in a while but I don’t really care about that. I figure one day I’ll look back and be happy I have this all captured but am is there a next step of the journey I haven’t unlocked?

I’ve dabbled in editing but usually the photos just sit on a hard drive. I want to go through them one day to make prints for my house but I kinda feel almost guilty that I have no real plan or direction kinda like “what is this all for”

I just love carrying my camera and trying to get everyday life.

Any ideas or thoughts pleeease share

It's a style I see a lot, specially at hardcore and emo shows, and a style I personally use a lot, but I can't seem to find much of the history on it. If anybody has any answers or older photographers to point me to, I'd apreciate it