Shutter Release: Using a drone to carry lights, a guide to layers, the story of the first cellphone pic and more

In Shutter Release, we find the most interesting photography news and videos from around the web to share with you. Alongside links, we supply short descriptions of the content to help you determine if it is something which will interest you. Today’s stories include a guide to radio triggers, SANDMARC iPhone filters, the use of drones to carry off-camera flashes, a guide to layers in Photoshop, a story about the cellphone image that started it all, bad news for Sony night sky photographers and excellent images by women on the frontlines of conflict around the world.

A guide to radio triggers – The Digital Picture

When using off-camera flashes or strobes, you sometimes need radio triggers. However, it can be daunting at first to select which radio trigger you should use and how to set it up. The Digital Picture has published a nice guide covering the use radio triggers, check it out here.

SANDMARC iPhone filters – Kickstarter

SANDMARC has an ongoing Kickstarter project where they hope to fund the release of neutral density and polarizing filters for iPhone photography. Learn more through the above link and in the below video.

Lighting portraits with a drone-mounted flash – PetaPixel

Photo assistants are excellent but cannot go everywhere you might want to have a light. Chinese photographer Fuyan Liu attached a flash to her DJI Inspire 2 drone and lit subjects from high above the top of the building on which she was shooting.

Reasons to use layers in Photoshop – Digital Photography School

Layers are very powerful when editing photos in Photoshop. Sarah Hipwell has written an article covering “3 Good Reasons to Use Layers in Photoshop” for Digital Photography School. In the article, she gives an overview of different types of layers, including adjustment layers and how to use layer masks and smart objects for non-destructive, extensive editing in Photoshop. If you want to better understand layers, give it a read.

20 years ago, the first cell phone photo was shared online – DIY Photography

In 1997, Philippe Kahn shared a cell phone photo online for the first time ever. TIME Magazine recently selected the image as one of the "100 Most Influential Images of All Time.” See a recreation of the story behind the photo below.

Recent Sony firmware fix doesn’t stop the A7S II from eating stars – Sony Alpha Rumors

For photographers who enjoy using their recent Sony cameras to photograph stars, firmware updates last year made it much harder to capture highly-detailed night sky images. This issue has been widely discussed and users have been eagerly awaiting a fix from Sony. A new firmware update unfortunately did not fix the issue, as is seen here.

Women at the forefront of conflict celebrated for powerful imagery – National Geographic via Reddit

In an article celebrating the work of Stephanie Sinclair, who has recently been honored with the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award, National Geographic discusses the work of numerous women working in testing geopolitical climates. There are many powerful images in the article, so please go check it out.