Three-point lighting on a budget: settings that work
A step-by-step guide to key, fill and back light placement, ratios in stops, and colour temperature, using one light, a reflector and a window if that’s all you own.
Fix a flat, muddy background with Lightroom’s Variance slider
Point Color’s Variance slider can pull colour back into a dull brown backdrop. Here are the steps, menu paths and limits in Lightroom Classic 15.5.
Four compact tripods to consider, from 270 g to 1.6 kg
A spec-led guide to four compact tripods: Peak Design, Manfrotto Befree Advanced, Sirui Traveler 5C and the new Sirui TC50 + BH-19, with load ratings, weights and picks by use.
Four third-party Nikon Z lenses matched to what you shoot
Four third-party Nikon Z lenses, from a 90 g pancake-style 40mm to a $1,249 tilt-shift, compared on weight, price, filters and the job each one suits.
Mirrorless autofocus for fast action on Sony, Nikon and Canon
A step-by-step autofocus setup for fast action on the Sony a1 II, Nikon Z8 and Canon EOS R6 Mark II, with menu paths, a settings table and fixes.
Five compact 35-40mm autofocus primes for full frame, 2026
Five small full-frame autofocus primes from US$149 to about US$400 at launch, compared on weight, filter size, sealing and mount, with picks by budget and use.
Affinity, darktable and Luminar compared with Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop in 2026
Affinity just landed free on iPad, darktable keeps shipping RAW tools, and Luminar 1.29 is out. Here is what each replaces in Lightroom and Photoshop, and what it costs.
YouTube export settings for Resolve, Premiere and Final Cut
A cheat sheet for exporting graded video to YouTube: bitrates by resolution, where each setting lives in Resolve, Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro, and how to avoid colour shifts.
Free photo editors vs Adobe’s plans after Affinity for iPad
Affinity now runs free on iPad, darktable is on 5.6.2 and Snapseed 4.2 imports Lightroom presets. Here is what each free editor does, and where Adobe’s paid plans still apply.
Matching memory cards and SSDs to your camera’s video mode
Pick media by your camera’s heaviest recording mode, not by headline speed. Six options, from SD V90 to CFexpress and a portable SSD, with a checklist and a bitrate sum.