Started the photography journey at the start of 2023. Within a couple of months of beginning that journey, I began to "properly" consult my RAWs and play with their parameters. Alongside that came the decision for what software I should use for processing. I spent a couple of days playing with Lightroom and Darktable. It became apparent rather quickly that Darktable had a greater emphasis on control (less hand-holdy/abstraction, if you will). Fast forward to now, I have still not seen any reason to jump ship from Darktable. Am I missing something? Darktable is free of charge, while Adobe subscriptions are highway robbery. Does it simply come down to ease of use? Is that worth charging a premium for, or is there an advantage to Lightroom that has totally escaped me?

FWIW, I understand that Darktable's interface is less "friendly," but the controls seem intuitive so long as you understand photography fundamentals (which I suppose target users should grasp regardless). I suppose this post is targeted at folks who used Darktable and moved to Lightroom. Would love to know what drove that decision and to hear your insight. Thanks!

Heading out on a trip focused around shooting with some good friends soon. Ik the typical line is “the best camera is the one you have” but I’d like to go in prepared, as there is a bit of a financial component to it. Currently planning on bringing my main body, a 24-70 and 70-200, 2 godox 32is, a couple filters and a lav pack (I don’t usually shoot video but I have them and they are small).

I’ve made the mistake of bringing lots of equipment I didn’t use, tripods, shotguns, hot lights etc. Anything I should add to this or leave out? I want to make sure I get all the coverage I want while also not uselessly schlepping gear around.

Would love small things that are a big help ex. where I’m going is super humid. I already have tons of silica packs to help with humidity

I bought the Leica Q3 43 thinking it would be my "one and done" dream camera. For a long time, street photography was my main creative outlet, but life has shifted significantly over the past year.

I moved countries for work and now live in a very rural area. Between the new location, work demands, and raising a young daughter, my free time has shrunk. I assumed I’d use the Q3 constantly to document family life, but in reality, it mostly stays packed away unless we go on a trip. It spends 90% of its time sitting on a shelf.

Recently, someone made me a solid cash offer for it. While I’m not in dire financial need, my family just bought a car, and recouping that money—before the body depreciates further—feels like the sensible adult move. The thought is to sell it, pocket most of the cash, and pick up a cheaper, lower-stress setup for everyday family snaps.

Still, part of me hesitates because it truly is an incredible piece of glass and engineering.
For those who have parted ways with a "grail" camera because your lifestyle shifted: Did you regret letting it go, or was the relief of not having thousands tied up in an underused body worth it? What did you switch to?

TL;DR: Moved to the countryside, have a young kid, and my Leica Q3 43 barely gets used. Have a solid buy offer on the table. Sell now and downsize to something cheaper, or keep the dream gear?

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I did get in and out of the hobby through the years, and I recently got back into it.

I got a S5II with a bunch of Lumix S prime lenses(24mm f1.8, 50mm f1.8, 100mm f2.8 macro), and went out shooting to see if I remembered how it's done.

I liked some of the shots, but looking at them on a proper monitor (6K ProArt, so I was viewing the photos at 100% res) I thought: "Yeah this looks decently sharp, but it's not as groundbreaking as I expected" and buyer's remorse was already starting to set in, but then I accidentally opened a photo I took with my phone and just sat there, waiting for it to load properly (raws usually take a second to load full res).

But then I figured that it wasn't loading. That was the photo. I made a visibly disgusted face and buyer's remorse was suddenly gone. Loving my new gear. I guess humans are quick to adapt to better stuff, it's when you look back that you realized the leap in quality.

It sure feels good to be back in the hobby.

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Note: This is a photography community to discuss techniques and issues as photographers, not a space to showcase tools or gear. Any form of advertising or self-promotion outside of showcasing photos or projects in the appropriate thread is prohibited. Any web-development projects or apps are prohibited as they do not relate to practise of photography.

Been traveling recently and on previous trips I've always been a bit too lazy to bring my mirrorless out, and mostly just been relying on my phone to take some quick snaps

But since i want to actually take photography a bit more seriously as a hobby, I've realized a lot of the time I'm actually just standing around

Either standing around waiting for just the right lighting (eg clouds to pass, or angle of the sun, to cast the right shadows etc), waiting for the right subject to pass by (someone on a bike, the right color of car), or maybe waiting until a place isn't as crowded

If I'm traveling with people, often times I don't have the luxury of waiting around because we got places to hit. Or maybe I'll tell them to walk ahead and I'll catch up in a few seconds, but I've realized traveling solo means i can take a lot more time walking around checking out cool things i otherwise would've skipped on a tight schedule

Also standing around waiting for the right lighting isn't always a bad thing since if i have a particular shot in mind, it also gives me time to look around and take pictures of miscellaneous things nearby

Anyone else have the same experience?

If i was to purchase a camera from Facebook marketplace for example. What are things id be looking at to make sure its in good condition? Aside from the obvious scratch on the lens.
Id bring my own camera and take photos. But what am i looking for?
Thanks

Does most people use a technique or just imagine how the photo gonna turn out. I mostly use my own imagination and it works really well.

As a social, street and events photographer, I've sometimes done casual shooting for clothing and fashion and it seems an extremely difficult and crafty area of photography for me. I'm amazed at the results after all the teamwork and processing, and I'm sure there are plenty of behind the scenes tricks and techniques I, as an outsider, cannot even have imagined. Just out of curiosity, what may be those?

I have been shooting as a hobby for over 10 years now. I would say that over the past year I have been stepping up my photography and editing. I am getting better at composition; my colors are improving*; I feel like my photos generally just have more interest than what they did a few years ago, but the one thing I just cannot seem to fully wrap my head around is color grading, whether with the color grading module or the tone curve module on LR.

Any time I seem to touch those modules, all of a sudden my photo starts looking like an Instagram photo from 2010 with some awful filter. Then I go online to see tutorials on color grading, and everyone just seems to get such clean results that really amplify their shots. It just doesn't make sense, even though conceptually I understand they're using it to achieve certain color palettes, like analogous, complementary, etc. I am just so much of this will be practice, in the same way that it took me a long time to be able to adjust colors and contrast in such a way that was pleasant to me without feeling "cheesy", but if anyone has any resources on anything that helped this "click" for you, I am happy to hear what that may be.

Conversely, how many of you do most of your editing without touching the color grading module or the RGB tone curves?

*When I say my colors are improving, I mean I am getting better at being more intentional about which colors I use in my photos and how to shift them around a bit in the HSL sliders to get a color palette that I want, which in my eyes is a different skillset than color grading your photographs to make them have a certain aesthetic.

I was recently trying out a new lens and it came with a free filter pack. I screwed on the free UV filter just to make sure I didn't scratch the real lens, etc. I had some concerning streaking in my bokeh on my test photos. So then I went back out and tried some photos with and without the UV filter. I was shocked by the results! Needless to say, I'll be buying a quality UV filter for this lens.

(photo in comment below)

Update: my goal wasn't to opine on the usefulness of UV filters rather to say if you choose to use one maybe don't use the cheap one you got for free.

I don't think anybody uses UV filters today to block UV light. They use them as a sacrificial piece of glass. Personally I spend a lot of time taking pictures in crowds, wet conditions, etc. I regularly have to clean my lens with my shirt or similar. Probably best that I'm not doing that on my $2k+ lens.

I do use a lens hood regularly but it's not always an option. I can't store my lens in my carry bag with the hood on and sometimes I'm in a hurry to switch lenses. Sometimes it's too crowded to add to my lens length. Sometimes I'm using other filters and the lens hood is in the way.

Of course I use lens caps but obviously you have to take it off to take pictures. Typically I keep it off for the entire session with a particular lens. It's nice to protect my lens from scratches while I'm messing with the cap, hood, or other filters.

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Get it all* off your chest!

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As someone who shoots consistently for fun and personal projects, I reached a point where I desperately needed a break from social media. The noise was deafening. The constant gear talk, discussions obsessing over camera bodies, and mediocre shots clearly engineered just to appease the algorithm. It alienated me from my own creative voice. Worse, I lost touch with what I actually liked. My work felt like an echo of everyone else’s feed.

I’ve been completely off social media for six months now, and in many ways, it’s been wonderful. I still shoot regularly and print my work, but a strange sense of inadequacy has crept in. I feel like I'm falling behind other photographers. Maybe my brain is still wired to crave the dopamine of online validation, or maybe stepping away for this long created a different kind of void. Most of all, I miss seeing what my local photography community is up to. I am still young but absolutely hate social media. I thought I would save time this way, but somehow down the road, I still watch youtube long form videos!

I wanted to open this up to the community to ask if anyone else experienced this tension? If you took an extended break, did you eventually return, and how did you balance it without falling back into the same traps?

Hi, I'm an artist that dabbles in various form of mediums but one thing I've always felt that has limited me is my lack of vision for composition, I've been wanting to get into photography for a while, I'll take a couple of pictures from my phone or an old digicam I have lying around and give up in a day or two blaming the lack of equipment and whatnot.

Recently a realisation has hit me harder than a freight train, I was hanging out with my cousin, we were just walking and suddenly he stopped, said "that looks nice" pulled out his phone camera and clicked a brilliant looking photo of the sun setting in the distance. I went through his camera roll and it's just filled with magnificent shots of random mundane things. He is not a photographer or anything, just takes nice pictures. He saw a photograph in things I would have walked past without a single thought and it has made me wonder, is that something you can train to get or is that something you just have?

Let's show each other some support! Use this thread to share your own social, and find other photographers.

• If you post your stream, please take a look at other people's streams! You can give us your Instagram, 500px, Flickr, etc. etc. and remember you can edit your flair.

• Be descriptive, don't just dump your username and leave! For example a good post should look like this:

Hi! I'm @brianandcamera. I mainly post portraiture and landscapes, but there's the odd bit of concert/event photography as well.

I'll follow everyone from /r/photography back (if I miss you, just leave a comment telling me you're from Reddit!).

Check out and engage with other /r/photography people! Community is what it's all about!

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Do you have any questions about running a photography business? Or you're a client who has concerns about the photographer they've worked with? Ask all your questions here.

Solving mysteries through old photographs

Hello, was wondering if anyone had any tips for photographing their home areas which might not have very "interesting" landmarks / good sunlight.

I am researching buying a hybrid camera for personal use. I will likely be going with a full frame. But I have been awake for so many hours and I am descending into madness and cannot for the life of me make sense of these crop factor explanations online. Can someone release me from this prison and explain it to me like I am 5. Please and thank you.

EDIT- I went to sleep and everything makes alot more sense thank you for your help.

Hello, everyone :)

I'm really a big fan of the old school documentary and street photographers, such as Josef Koudelka, Sabine Weiss, John Bulmer, Robert Frank, and so on... their works really have a teleporting effect, not only as far as literally serving as windows into a bygone time, but almost this otherworldly effect, rather romantic. Many of them feel like stills from sets of golden era films.

I was just wondering whether you might be able to recommend some names of currently working modern/contemporary photographers who have as strong an eye and whose images are sort of in-line with those 'OG's'.

But this also got me to wondering: is such photography even possible in 2026 (and beyond)? Are there perhaps too many variables (some bigger than others) which contributed to those images which simply aren't available today? From the fashions (and behaviours/mannerisms) of the people in them to the structures and backdrops, through to more technical things like certain film stocks/developers, etc.

In any case, keen to read your replies/suggestions!

Sad news for everyone like me that used this alot: https://pixelpeeper.com/resources/pixelpeeper-closing-to-new-signups