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Back in 2011, we shared how the original Star Wars lightsaber was created from camera parts using the handle from a Graflex flashgun. Joey Shanks of Shanks FX just released this 6-minute video tutorial on how you can recreate the original lightsaber on camera yourself.

Since May of 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been beta testing a new smartphone app called B4UFLY (pronounced "before you fly"). It's a portable resource that helps aerial photographers and other drone pilots stay up to date on where it's safe and legal to fly.

StikBox is a new iPhone case that's designed to make your selfie sticks unnecessary: it has a collapsible stick built right into the back.

Photographer Jay P. Morgan of The Slanted Lens made this helpful 7-minute video tutorial that provides a crash course on the different types of clamps used by photographers during shoots.

Long-time film photographer Timothy Gilbert was frustrated with existing options for processing 4x5 large format sheet film at home, so, as an engineer, he decided to create an easy-to-use and affordable system himself.

Flickr recently gathered up photo and camera data to review the past year, and now the company is doing some number crunching to reveal major trends in the cameras used by the photographer community.

Here's a short behind-the-scenes video showing how fashion photographer Yu Tsai recently photographed tennis superstar Serena Williams for Sports Illustrated magazine. Williams was featured in the cover story after being selected as the publication's Sportsperson of the Year, the first time an individual woman has taken the award in over 3 decades.

The braniacs at MIT have created an algorithm to determine the “memorability” of a photograph. The deep learning-based technology “learned” what makes a photo memorable by evaluating the rankings from 5,000 human volunteers, and even indicates which portions of an image it considers to be memorable with a heatmap depiction. The algorithm is allegedly as good as a human in determining what makes a memorable photograph.

When the first Nikon D5 photos leaked out earlier this week, sharp-eyed commenters noticed that the viewfinder appears to have little release buttons on the side, suggesting that the camera will have a larger interchangeable viewfinder piece.

Photographer Karl Taylor just released this humorous video titled: "Studio Wars, Episode XXI: Dissatisfaction Arises." It's a look at why Darth Vader is any photographer's worst client.

Sony just launched a new PlayMemories app called Sky HDR. It's designed to replace the graduated neutral density filters in Sony photographers' camera bags by making it easy to capture correct exposures for a bright sky in the background and a darker landscape in the foreground, all in one shot.

Some photographs have the power to burn themselves into our memories for a long time, while others are easily forgettable after they're seen. Scientists are MIT have been researching the science behind memorable images, and now they've created a web app called LaMem that can analyze any photo and assign it a memorability score.

The next time you are frustrated, having a bad day or negativity is simply surrounding you, break the cycle and turn everything around with your photography. It always amazes me how incredibly powerful photography is in bringing light into the darkness of life. While most of the things don’t have this almost magical power, your photography has. It’s one of the most positive things you could do, especially in moments when you need it the most.

Photographer Steve Mandel just returned from Antarctica, where he made photos of icebergs using an underwater camera, a surface camera, and a drone.

German drone manufacturer Ascending Technologies is celebrating Christmas season this year by doing some light painting photography. Each of the photos they've made was painted by an automated drone that was programmed to follow waypoints in the sky.

Louisiana-based photographer Hannah Hawkes is taking heat this week over a family portrait she shot and shared on her Facebook page. The Christmas photo shows the father holding a sign that reads "Peace on Earth" while the mother and two daughters are gagged with green tape and bound with Christmas lights.

Are you improving at photography? We probably all ask ourselves the question, yet often we don’t know how to find the answer in any meaningful way. It is something that has nagged me for years, so I finally decided to find out if I really have been improving. Here is how I did it.

This delightful photo of a hamster by Austrian photographer Julian Rad was recently selected and announced as this year's winner of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, which honors hilarious animal pictures captured by wildlife photographers around the world.

Canon's Japanese store recently began offering a miniature 5DS replica camera with two L lens flash drives. This is an official Canon product, unlike some DSLR flash drives we've seen. We shared earlier this month that Canon appears to have made a 1D X version as well.

Back in July 2013, we shared how major filmmakers had banded together to rescue Kodak by committing to purchasing film from the company. One of the big names was J.J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens this week.

Ever wonder what you look like while you're taking pictures? Orlando, Florida-based photographer Rich Johnson wants to show you. For his latest project "Behind the Mask," Johnson had photographers pose for two pictures, one with their camera, and one without.

For the past 2 years, photographer Che Chorley has been working has been working on a seascape project. Each shot is captured with the surface of the sea at about eye level, and each mainly shows the ocean, horizon, and sky.

Ever wonder what happens to a camera if you accidentally drop it into a volcano's molten lava? Well, wonder no more, because some poor photographer found out the hard way.

Adobe today announced Lightroom for mobile version 2.1. The update adds a number of new features for photographers who edit on their iPhone or iPad on the go.

Photographer Clay Cook recently traveled to Havana, Cuba, and worked directly with the Cuban government to bring a fashion editorial to an American publication in print.

Sigma today announced the Ceramic Protector, a new and novel lens filter that's the first to use a clear glass ceramic material that helps to protect lenses more than traditional filters.

For his recent project, titled "Scenic Silhouettes," photographer Miles Holden captured mountain biker Connor Macfarlane's silhouette against epic landscapes in New Zealand.

Once a year, photographer Andy Reynolds takes his camera and lighting gear to Alki Beach in West Seattle, Washington, to shoot portraits on the street. Justin Lapriore of LetsMakeMedia spent an afternoon with Reynolds this year and created this quirky 3-minute video portrait of the offbeat still portrait photographer.

A man in Houston, Texas, is being heavily criticized this week after causing traffic on a major freeway to come to a standstill while he proposed to his girlfriend -- all for "priceless" photos and a video that were shared on Instagram and Facebook.

Camera sales haven't been doing too well in recent years, but that hasn't kept picture taking from exploding. While the dedicated camera industry has seen year-on-year declines, smartphone photography has turned everyone into a casual photographer: there are now 8 times as many picture takers worldwide than there were 10 years ago.

Tragedy and drama have so far been the images of the refugee crisis. When I went out there to document the situation I knew there would be more to it and I was not disappointed.

Canon's latest billboard ad campaign in New York City does more than promote the camera brand: they can actually help you shoot better photos. Each of the fixed and mobile truck billboards is updated in real time with useful photo tips you can use on the spot.

Adobe announced its quarterly results last Thursday, and investors are happy: the company beat market expectations by doubling profits from a year ago thanks to a huge growth in Creative Cloud subscribers. It seems that the shift from boxed software to digital subscription plans is paying off big time for the San Jose, California-based company.

Here's a new inspiring and thought-provoking video from Canon Australia's The Lab project, which aims to "shift creative thinking behind the lens." For this latest experiment, 6 photographers were invited to a cemetery and asked to capture "eternal life" in a single photo... without using a camera. They simply had to think about how they could best capture the concept and discuss their ideas with each other.

Here's a 1-minute stop-motion commercial Karen X. Cheng recently produced and directed for Totspot, a resale shopping app for kids clothes. Cheng also documented the production process in order to show "how painstakingly laborious" stop motion photography is.

Street photographers Chuck Jines and Keenan Hastings both uploaded videos this week showing confrontations they had while shooting on the street -- Jines in New Orleans and Hastings in Detroit. They both came across strangers who didn't appreciate their photo being made, but Jines and Hastings had two very different ways of dealing with the situation.

For their official Christmas card this year, the Norwegian photography store Stavanger Foto decided to do a creative employee photo. This is what they came up with: the human Christmas tree.

After exploring the science of digital camera sensors, Filmmaker IQ just published this new video that explores the history and science of lenses. John Hess talks about everything from the ancient Nimrud lens from 750 B.C. up through how Japan came to dominate the lens industry.

If you're a fan of both photography and science fiction, here's a movie you can add to your queue of things to watch: "Time Lapse." Released earlier this year, the film is about a mysterious camera device that shoots Polaroid pictures that show the future.

Photographer Jay Philbrick takes his subjects where most photographers wouldn't dare to go themselves: onto the face of a cliff, 350 feet above the ground.

The FAA announced its drone registration process today, a couple of months after announcing the registry: if you operate a drone that weighs over 0.55 pounds and less than 55 pounds, you'll need to register it by February 19, 2016. There's also going to be a $5 fee.

This past weekend, we got our first look at the Nikon D5 thanks to a couple of photos that leaked onto the Web. New photos have since leaked, giving us a much better idea of what the camera will look like from all sides.

Want to see how the look of portraits have evolved with major camera developments throughout history? Photographer Leo Rosas Morin of COOPH shot 11 portraits of 1 model, and using Photoshop, he recreated the aesthetics of 11 key moments in photography history.

Polaroid is teaming up with professional photographers to launch Polaroid University, an online photography education program that provides a crash course in digital picture making.

PBS NewsHour recently aired this 6-minute feature of the life and work of Scott Schuman, the photographer behind The Sartorialist and a pioneer of the street fashion photo blog. Schuman has been the subject of many similar videos over the past half decade since the rise of his blog.

For its holiday campaign this year, the Yorkdale shopping mall in Toronto, Canada, created Fashion Santa. Instead of wearing his traditional red hat, coat, trousers, and boots, Santa posed for a photo shoot wearing festive outfits representing the latest trends in male fashion.

This past weekend was the 10th anniversary of the infamous Cronulla Riots in Sydney, Australia, race riots that resulted in 26 injuries and 104 arrests. "Party for Freedom" leader Nick Folkes decided to hold a "patriotic barbecue" to mark the occasion, but attracted less than 50 supporters. The event was attended by a throng of anti-riot police, journalists, and a counter-protest from a much larger crowd.

We're starting to get a better idea of what Nikon's next flagship DSLR will offer for professional photographers thanks to newly leaked photos and specs of the upcoming Nikon D5.