Latest Lightroom Update Restores Import Screen and Fixes Bugs

Adobe today released Lightroom CC 2015.3 and 6.3. As was promised last month, this latest update restores the old Lightroom Import experience that was found in Lightroom prior to the tumultuous 6.2 update, which Adobe ended up apologizing for. “The goal of this release is to provide additional camera raw support, lens profile support and address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom,” Adobe says. In addition to new camera support (e.g. Leica SL, Sony RX1R II, Canon EOS M10), the update also contains fixes that address the “instability, functionality, and performance issues introduced in Lightroom CC 2015.2.x/6.2.x.” If you reverted your Lightroom after updating to 6.2 in order to get the old Import experience back, you can go ahead and update to 6.3 now.

How to Use Empty Instax Film Packs as a Holder for Your Instant Photos

Here’s a trifle tip for those of you United Nations agency shoot with Fuji Instax film whereas out and about: once you’re done exposing a pack of film, you'll be able to use the empty plastic pack as a instrumentation to carry your Instax photos. Reader MJ Idzerda of London, Ontario, Canada, tells USA that she solely discovered the hack a few of days past once shooting with Instax film for four years. “When finished victimisation Instax mini (or wide) don’t throw out the pack,” writes Idzerda. “Simply take away the skinny plastic strip at the highest of the pack and insert your prints for storage and display!”

source: http://petapixel.com/

How to Make Realistic Fake Blood in 60 Seconds for a Halloween Shoot

Want to make some realistic fake blood for a creepy Halloween photo shoot? Here’s a short video tutorial by HouseholdHacker on how you can do so with household things in just a minute. You’ll need some flour, red and blue food coloring, and corn syrup. “Stir up your mixture like crazy and in no time it will start looking like Dracula made a deposit in your mixing bowl,” writes HouseholdHacker. “Boom! That’s it! Realistic fake blood… and it’s edible too so don’t worry about getting it in your mouth.”

Shooting Flash Photos of Surfers Inside Barrel Waves

16-year-old photographer Leroy Bellet recently turned an idea he had into a series of epic surf photos that landed on the covers of international magazines. He followed behind surfers in giant barrel waves and photographed them in action with a Nikon DSLR and an external flash. Bellet was inspired by the work of Laurent Pujol, who pioneered “double tow” photography, which involves a photographer getting towed into a wave by a jet ski while riding a surfboard themselves and then shooting the surfer inside the barrel. The result is a dramatic perspective that offers a new view at how surfers ride waves.

Leroy Bellet doing standard double tow surf photography.

Bellet built upon Pujol’s idea to create flash double tow photography: by attaching a Nikon SB-910 Speedlight to his Nikon D810 full frame DSLR, Bellet was able to light up his subject from behind for gorgeous photos at sunrise and sunset.

Bellet trailing a surfer in a barrel. Photo by Montgomery.

Equipment-wise, Bellet used a Nikon D810, a Nikkor 16mm f/2.8 fisheye lens, an Aquatech Elite D810 water housing, a Nikkor SB-910 Speedlight, an Aquatech Strike 910 Speedlight housing, and an Aquatech PD-50 dome port.

“My basic settings were: 1/1 (full power) on the SB-910 at 17mm (the widest flash possible), ISO of 800, shutter speed of 1/800sec and aperture of 5.6 on the D810,” Bellet tells PetaPixel. “What I’d imagined the images to look like was reflective and glossy but I was surprised at just how much clear water absorbs artificial light rather than reflecting it,” he says. “The result was an eerie image in which only turbulent water was illuminated and the surfers are either riding into the darkness or the sunrise/set.” The concept cost 4 months of time, 3 hospital visits, and 2 broken boards, but Bellet succeeded in shooting the remarkable photos that he set out to create.