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I get an email or text about once a month asking me if I think Canon, Nikon, or some other photo manufacturer will ever make something like a 25-300mm f/2.8 zoom lens. I’m usually gentle with those people, because I realize that a lot of people truly believe that if they want something badly enough, someone could make it for them. Occasionally, someone exhibits the Dunning-Kruger Effect and tells me that they know it’s a plot on the part of the manufacturer’s to make us buy multiple lenses instead of just one that could do everything.

I had another one of those emails a few days ago, so I thought it might be interesting to show everyone what a 25-300mm f/2.8 would (approximately) look like.

How many different ways can you capture a car on camera? That's what Toyota's marketing team sat down and brainstormed last year when planning a commercial for the 2014 Toyota Corolla.

The 1-minute ad they came up with (it aired late last year) attempts to use every trick in the book.

In the ongoing app battle to keep private photos safe and sound from unintended recipients (and the general public), a new app called Yovo – You Only View Once – brings an interesting technology to the table.

It's called D-fence, and is based around the idea that your eyes can see what's behind a slatted fence as you're driving by at a high speed.

One of the rarest Nikon lenses in the world has popped up on eBay. It's the Nikon 13mm f/5.6, a lens reviewer Ken Rockwell calls 'The Holy Grail' of Nikon lenses.

Just how rare is it? Only about 350 of these babies were ever produced.

Russian photographer Zhenya Aerohockey has created a photo series titled Catchingcorners. In it, he documents everyday objects in such a way that buildings, pool tables, cords and more form an almost perfect 90º angle every time.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 had a memorable cover photo showing a woman whose face is covered with what appear to be white, circular scales. The photograph is the work of Oleg Dou, a man who says he is not a photographer but rather an artist who uses photography as his medium for his works.

Amazon will reportedly be opening up its first brick-and-mortar location at a location in New York City in time for this holiday season, expanding from the online-only business it currently does through its website.

We received a tip today from a reader who asked us to take a look at the official portraits for the Miss World Philippines 2014 candidates. The tipster had harsh things to say about the images, saying the creator, "must've been bored or high when he post-processed these photos."

Formula 1 racing legend Michael Schumacher is still making his slow recovery from a serious skiing accident he suffered on December 29th, 2013. While skiing through an unsecured area in the French Alps, Schumacher crashed and slammed his head into a rock.

Doctors credit his helmet with saving his life, saying he likely would have died had he not been wearing one. But this weekend a new fact emerged: the GoPro mounted to his helmet is reportedly what caused the brain damage.

A 76-year-old man named Gunther Holtorf is back home in Germany now after an epic road trip. How epic …

In August, the rumor mill started buzzing about Canon having a new 11-24mm lens up its sleeve. The next month, a leaked photo gave us our first glimpse of that lens, an 11-24mm f/4L.

There is now more confirmation that this lens is in fact legit. That's the good news. The bad news? It will likely cost quite a pretty penny.

Photographer Jason D. Page has been capturing light painting photography for years, and over the past 3 years he has also been working on a new project for the light painting community. It's called Light Painting Brushes.

Just launched today, Light Painting Brushes is a set of light tools that aims to give lightpainters a standard set of brushes to "paint" with.

Chinese camera gear company Yongnuo has introduced a new model to its affordable line of wireless flash triggers: the RF605.

A followup to the RF602, RF603, and RF603 II, the RF605 introduces grouping to the company's affordable line of transceivers.

Front facing cameras on smartphones have traditionally been dwarfed by the camera on the back. After all, you're supposed to take "serious" photos with the rear camera, and the front one is mainly used for things like video conferencing, right?

Well, the emergence of "selfie culture" is changing the game. As more and more people snap and share self-portraits using their front cameras, phones are evolving to meet this need. HTC's new Desire Eye is one such phone: it features the world's most powerful front-facing camera.

If you're looking to get into aerial drone photography, the PlexiDrone is one robotic quadcopter you might want to look into. It's an ultra-portable drone that can be transported disassembled and snapped together in less than one minute when needed.

Photographer Christopher Schmidt was out flying his quadcopter at Magazine Beach Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts earlier this week when his humming drone drew some unwanted attention. No, not the police. Nor a neighbor with a shotgun. It was a hawk that wasn't too happy with another flying "creature" invading its territory.

Contact sheets often provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind of photographers, showing final shots among outtakes that were left on the cutting room floor.

Hollywood Frame by Frame is a new book by Karina Longworth that offers this look into the work of old Hollywood photographers. It's a collection of contact sheets showing famous actors on the sets of some of Hollywood's greatest films from the 20th century.

While it’s the fifth most common type of cancer in the United States and the deadliest of all skin cancers, melanoma can often be cured if caught early enough. So, in an effort to step up early detection efforts, a team of researchers at Duke University have developed a gigapixel whole-body camera that captures high-resolution images that will allow doctors to more quickly and effectively diagnose melanoma.

The Maersk Triple E is the largest ship ever built by mankind and is operated by the largest container shipping company in the world. Back in 2011, Maersk signed a contract with Daewoo Shipbuilding in South Korea to have 20 of these gigantic vessels made for $3.8 billion dollars.

Copenhagen-based photographer Alastair Philip Wiper wanted to get closer to this "monumental machine," so he convinced Wired magazine to send him to South Korea to photograph the ships under construction. Wired agreed, and Wiper was given unprecedented access to the shipyard and one of the finished ships.

One day soon, people around the world may be contributing vast amounts of information to the science of space using a cheap 3D-printed telescope and smartphone with a high-res camera.

The Open Space Agency (OSA) is trying to make that dream happen, and the telescope they've created is called the Ultrascope.

While taking the first of three scheduled spacewalks aboard the International Space Station this month, the Expedition 41 team decided to make the most of their 6 hour and 13 minute spacewalk by taking some incredible photographs of their mission. Beforehand though, they made sure to turn the camera on themselves, capturing a few self portraits while hanging around outside of their vehicle almost 100 miles above Earth’s surface.

At the Adobe MAX 2014 conference this past week, Adobe showed off some of the crazy technology current brewing in the company's labs. Two of them offer a glimpse at what may soon be available to photographers in Photoshop: changing the time of day (i.e. lighting) in photographs with a simple slider and removing haze from a scene automatically.

We've shared in the past how a broken lens can be used for "freelensing," or taking tilt-shift-esque photographs.

Photographer and lens hacker Witono Halim did this by buying a broken 50mm f/1.8 online for $25, sawing a piece off, and combining everything into a ugly-yet-functional lens with $2 of duct tape.

If you ever hand your phone over to family and friends with hesitance, afraid they might swipe over one photo too far when you’re trying to show them a few photos, Microsoft Research’s new app Xim might just save you from a few nerve-wracking moments.

The FlashDisc by Fstoppers is a portable softbox that can fit into your pocket when its not in use, thanks to a design that allows it to fold up in a manner similar to portable light reflectors. It allows photographers to achieve soft directional light in situations where larger softboxes are impractical.

Instagram’s Hyperlapse app is a simple way to create smooth hyper lapse videos. But beyond its basic functionality is a hidden set of features that cranks up its capabilities. It may be secret, but it's quite easy to get to.

Update: Canon tells us that "The 'Director' spot bears no relation to the individual profiled in this story," and that it is "a completely fictional character."

Canon's big "See Impossible" marketing push has received quite a bit of mockery from the creative community, as people hoped for more from the hyped-up countdown than an ad campaign and a couple of inspirational videos.

There's also a new development that hurts Canon's efforts even more: it turns out that one of the two people featured by Canon didn't actually shoot with Canon, and he's calling the company out on it.

Feminists in France are demanding that a statue based on Alfred Eisenstaedt's iconic ‘VJ-day in Times Square’ photo be taken down. They say that the original image it was based on is one that portrays sexual assault.

Nearly $2 million in cameras and production equipment were stolen from three Fremont, California businesses over the weekend. Thieves broke into the offices of Black Magic Design, Mac House Productions, and Core Microsystems, grabbing pricey high-end gear and hauling it off by the boxful.

The team over at DigitalRev is always thinking of new and interesting ideas. And their latest is an intriguing little camera exchange and review they've aptly titled ‘Camera Swap.’

A rule of thumb in design is that form follows function; however, with these clever and colorful pendants, you don’t have to worry about a compromise in either department.

Created by Vienna-based design firm TaliaYStudio, these pendants serve as jewelry, but are also built to function as colored filters when placed in front of your camera.

If you lived in Europe or Africa -- or if you're in the US and the thought of getting up between 2 and 5 in the morning repelled you -- you probably missed this week's total lunar eclipse and 'blood moon.' But have no fear, because Griffith Observatory in LA captured a close-up (if a bit shaky) time-lapse of the entire rust-colored event for you.

Connecticut-based artist Alexander Harding went a little bit meta with his intriguing photo series Visible Light. All photographers capture light, but he used light as the subject, trying to bring the essence of light to life in an almost tangible form.

Ever wonder how the tech packed inside of your new Nikon lens actually works? How does Vibration Reduction provide 4.5 stops of stabilization? And what about the silent motors, how do those work?

In a video released earlier today, Nikon Asia decided to peel away the outer shell of its glass and show you, revealing the technology that makes a Nikkor Lens a Nikkor.

Panasonic might have found the last piece of the puzzle keeping many DSLR users from switching over to mirrorless cameras.

The above image is taken from a patent that diagrams the basics behind adding an optical viewfinder to mirrorless cameras. Even more interesting, the viewfinder would be able to change focal length when synced with any Micro Four Thirds lens.

It looks like Canon isn't the only one ready to re-start the dreaded Megapixel Wars with a high megapixel camera that has been all but confirmed to exist. Nope, fresh info from highly trusted sources claims that Sony will be jumping into the fray as well with a 46MP full-frame camera to be announced at the beginning of 2015.

I have seen absolutely beautiful things happen in the photo industry. I’ve seen strangers become best friends, I’ve seen grand ideas being brought to life, and I’ve seen photographers grow from beginners to mentors. I’ve seen so many things that make me proud to be a part of such an amazing community.

In a new video released yesterday, Fujifilm offers a beautiful behind-the-scenes look at the care, attention, and technology that goes into creating each of their Fujinon lenses from start-to-finish.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration and one of its agents, Timothy Sinnigen, are being sued by a woman who claims they used the photos on a seized phone of hers to hijack her identity and create a fake Facebook profile though which they hoped to bust an alleged New York drug ring.

Two hundred million images... PhotoShelter has amassed over 200M images from over 80,000 photographers in the almost a decade since they burst onto the scene. And today they unveil a new way for those 80,000 photographers to share those 200M+ images with fans that might not even know they exist yet.

It's called Lattice, and maybe the simplest way we could describe it is Pinterest for Professional Photographers, Curators, and Photography Lovers.

Multi-layer sensors and high-megapixel DSLRs aren't the only cameras Canon is rumored to be working on in the "breaking the status quo" category. Already mentioned by Canon Hong Kong, a large-sensor, high-zoom PowerShot premium compact is being officially teased in a Canon Netherlands video.

Photographer and educator Tony Northrup and company recently put together a video that …

‘Where to Start Chart’ is an infographic designed to help beginner photographers work their way through the settings on their camera. Produced by Adorama TV, the PDF is reminiscent of the "skill trees" found in various role playing video games, but instead of having spells and skills, the tree offers photographic tutorials.

The idea of ‘average’ is strange, especially when it’s put into real-world situations and memories. The places most familiar to us change on a daily basis, even if it’s just the slightest bit, but when we look back, our brains piece together this conglomeration of what we’ve seen over the days, months and years to create a familiar, cohesive memory.

It was a similar line of thinking that inspired photographer Wolfgang Hildebrand to create his strangely chaotic compositions of city streets.

HTC's rumored action camera is now official. Today the company announced the RE, a handheld action cam that could easily be confused with a miniature periscope or an inhaler.

The device represent's HTC's desire to expand beyond the smartphone market, and is yet another attempt to steal some of GoPro's thunder in the industry it dominates.

For years and years I’ve worked on location, slowly I’ve moved over to tethered shooting and past two years I have been trying to shoot tethered as much as possible, I’m a big fan of it and I find it can really help a shoot and improve the images overall when everyone knows what they are working towards.

For those of you who aren’t up to speed on tethering it is effective connecting your camera to your computer and shooting to the hard drive on the computer rather than the memory card on the camera. There are a variety of advantages to using this method (speed, accuracy and client feedback amongst them) but there are hundreds of articles on various blogs about tethering so if you want to start using it just give it a google search. This post will be focusing on my case rather than the principles of tethered shooting.

In Google’s ongoing effort to ‘Street View’ some of the most incredible places on Earth, the company has pushed the limits of the 360-degree genre once again.

This time, Google set out to capture a panoramic view of the Liwa Desert in the United Arab Emirates, by strapping their Street View Trekker Camera onto the back of a willing camel.

Update: We've received an official response from Flickr, which you can read at the bottom.

In the past, paying Flickr for an Ad-Free experience had a dual meaning: you wouldn't see ads, and neither would the users who looked at your photographs. That definition, it seems, has changed, as some disgruntled Pro users are reporting that every 4th or 5th photo on their streams is now a full-size ad when viewed from a free user's account.

'See Impossible' debacle and subsequent parody aside, recent rumors indicate Canon really is getting ready to innovate, or at the very least take some risks and release some interesting products.

The most recent rumblings from the rumor mill today indicate that not one, but two cameras with multi-layer sensors will arrive in 2015, and a high megapixel camera is definitely in the pipeline.

Canon's big 'See Impossible' reveal turned out to be a pretty big disappointment for us gear heads. Most headlines dripped with disappointment and one article led off its coverage with an image of Bart Simpson writing "I will never hold my breath for a Canon announcement again" over and over on a chalkboard.