Lens Choice

Which Lens Should You Actually Reach For? A Practical Breakdown for Real Shooters
Video Tutorials

Which Lens Should You Actually Reach For? A Practical Breakdown for Real Shooters

I used to swap lenses by feel. No real logic, just instinct built from trial and error and a lot of blurry test shots I’ll never show anyone. The question “which lens do I put on right now?” sounds basic, but it’s the kind of decision that quietly makes or breaks a photo. Get it wrong and you’re fighting your gear instead of making pictures. In this CreativeLive tutorial, photographer Erin Manning does something I wish I’d had when I was starting out: she stands in one fixed spot, swaps three different lenses, and shows you exactly what changes in the frame.

How a Pro Landscape Photographer Plans, Packs, and Shoots a Sunset Session (And What Budget Shooters Can Steal From It)
Video Tutorials

How a Pro Landscape Photographer Plans, Packs, and Shoots a Sunset Session (And What Budget Shooters Can Steal From It)

There’s a specific kind of frustration that comes from showing up to a location unprepared. Wrong light, no idea where the sun is going to land, lens choice that doesn’t match the scene. I’ve been there more times than I want to admit, mostly in my early days when I was more excited about getting outside than actually thinking through the shoot. It cost me keepers. Probably a lot of them.

Why I Was Wrong About the 50mm for Landscapes (And What Mark Denney's Fog Shoot Taught Me)
Video Tutorials

Why I Was Wrong About the 50mm for Landscapes (And What Mark Denney's Fog Shoot Taught Me)

I’ve spent the better part of three years telling people on a budget to skip the nifty fifty for landscape work. My own spreadsheet of tested glass basically had a sticky note next to every 50mm entry that said “fine for portraits, wrong tool for wide scenes.” So when I saw Mark Denney, whose landscape work I genuinely respect, title a video around changing his number one lens pick and admitting he’d been wrong about a focal length for years, I paid attention.

Zoom Lenses Aren't a Compromise - They're a Professional Choice
Video Tutorials

Zoom Lenses Aren't a Compromise - They're a Professional Choice

I spent an embarrassing amount of time in my early years convinced that shooting primes was the mark of a serious photographer. I’ve got a spreadsheet with every budget lens I’ve tested, and for a long time the prime column had a halo around it. Then reality started poking holes in that logic every time I actually went out to shoot. The gear that looks best in a spec comparison doesn’t always win when you’re moving around a subject, changing compositions on the fly, or just trying to get the shot before the light changes.