Well known photographer and blogger Scott Kelby recently pointed to the 18-55mm kit lens as a reason why beginners find it difficult to take good shots -- it is neither wide nor long enough to create visual impact, he wrote. I'd like to respectfully disagree.

It's precisely because the 18-55mm kit lens is cheap and common that I relish the challenge of capturing great images with it. I just love the “You shot that with a kit lens?” wide-eyed reaction when people realize how learning to read the scene and lighting makes more difference than splurging on an expensive lens upgrade.

The Salt of the Earth is a documentary film released last year by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, the son of renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. It explores the work of the elder Salgado, who has traveled the Earth for the past 40 years in order to document our planet and the human condition. Above is the trailer for the film (note: there's a bit of nudity in these clips), which will be hitting theaters in the US starting later this month.

Sapphire glass was used by Apple for the iPhone 5 camera, and more recently it has appeared on the screen of the new Apple Watch. It will soon be available for DSLR camera lenses as well. A new company called Novo is getting ready to launch a new line of camera lens filters for photographers. The lineup will include the world's first filter to use sapphire crystal glass, and other filters will feature Gorilla Glass.

After doing offline auctions for 270 years, Sotheby's is partnering up with eBay to deliver its high-end auctions more widely in the Internet world. Starting next month, prospective buyers of the auctioned items will be able to submit bids in real time through the new website, found at eBay.com/Sothebys. The very first auctions to be held on the service is a collection of famous photographs.

PBS series Art in the 21st Century recently released this 6-minute look at the work of photographer Trevor Paglen, a guy who points his camera through astronomy telescopes at secret military sites to photography things that are off limits to the public. As we shared back in 2012, Paglen calls his imagery "Limit Telephotography."

A couple of years ago, photographer Kevin Russ packed some belongings into his car, traveled tens of thousands of miles across the US, and documented his journey with his iPhone camera. The trip earned Russ quite a bit of media attention and a sizable online following.

Last year he embarked on an even more rugged journey: traveling across the Southwestern United States by freight train with just his phone and a few possessions.

Here’s a fun and very easy way to do professional product photography light painting using your iPhone, or any other phone or tablet for that matter. The bigger the screen the better the results, but a standard phone screen will absolutely do the job.

This tutorial uses the light painting technique. Rather than the typical light painting technique where the light is used as the subject to draw out words or simple pictures; this technique uses light painting to light, highlight, and backlight the your subject. This will give you studio quality professional product photos worthy of any usage.

The low light performance in your future camera may be improved thanks to new research in "nano earthquakes." Researchers have found that sound waves can be used to improve the electronic properties of 2D materials, paving the way for things such as camera sensors that can capture better shots in dark environments.

A graduate photo conservation class at the University of Delaware recently devoted its skills toward restoring damaged photos for grieving parents who lost three children to a fire late last year. 260 photos were recovered through restoration techniques usually seen at museums and returned to the family.

Just two months after partnering with Polaroid for a rebranded version of its service, the pioneering photo-a-day website Blipfoto has now gone into liquidation.

The AmazonBasics 60-Inch Lightweight Tripod is a $24 tripod that's the #1 bestseller over on Amazon. The #1 review on that tripod is the 8-minute video above, submitted by a man named Michael Trimble.

"As you can see I have no arms so I need a tripod that is lightweight but full on perks," Trimble his writes. "This tripod is EVERYTHING I hoped for & then some!"

Want to understand the concept of depth of field better? Polish photographer and programmer Michael Bemowski has created a fantastic and feature-rich online depth of field calculator and bokeh simulator that can help you wrap your mind around what's going on when you change things like focal length and aperture.

Did you know that some creatures can actually see the world in long exposures? Scientists recently discovered that cockroaches are the latest insect found to have that feature built into their eyes and brains. It allows the resilient little bugs to see in near-pitch black environments.

Arne Svenson is a well-known fine art photographer who is currently represented by the Julie Saul Gallery in New York. For his last exhibition, Arne experienced quite a controversy recently when he was sued by one of his subjects for his series The Neighbors, after they learned that he photographed them without their knowledge with a telephoto lens from his apartment.

The news made worldwide headlines, but Svenson won the case in August 2013 (the subject is currently appealing the ruling). Many viewed the outcome as a victory for creative artistic rights. I spoke with Arne recently about this and other aspects of his innovative viewpoints on life and art. His new exhibition Workers is due out in a few weeks.

Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.

Vesa Lehtimaki, Shelly Corbett, and Boris Vanrillaer are three photographers living in three different places (Helsinki, Seattle, and Stockholm, respectively) who share a common photography interest: fine art photos of LEGO figurines. Their passion for LEGOography, as it's known, led them to band together to form a collective known as Stuck In Plastic. In addition to sharing their work online, they've also begun to hold real life fine art photo exhibitions.

Visitors to Google today are being treated to a Doodle logo replacement that pays tribute to photography pioneer Anna Atkins. Atkins was born 216 years ago today, and in her life she became one of the first -- if not the first -- women to create a photograph.

Photography is an analytic art form. We aim our lenses to specific parts of the world around us to pick a frame because, in our analysis, that particular frame presents the photograph we wish to take. We can certainly raise the camera, lower the camera, rotate it, pitch it, yaw it, aim at a different part and end up photographing something different.

You should realize that there are infinite number of photographs you can take from where you are now. How then do we aim the camera to “that particular frame” to photograph?

Here's a great video on photographic composition, created by The Cooperative of Photography using tips and photographs by legendary photojournalist Steve McCurry. Each of the 9 composition tips is illustrated with examples from McCurry's impressive body of work.

Photoshop’s Auto Color adjustment is a simple way to color correct a photo in just a couple of clicks, …

It is often said that "luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." This photo may be a good example of that. It's a single long-exposure photo of mountains in South America with the stars properly exposed in the background and the landscape in the foreground illuminated by the rising moon.

When Israeli freelance artist Ynon Lan visited New York City earlier this year, he wanted to capture the things he saw in a way that conveyed the constant energy he felt as he walked around. He then came up with the idea of taking thousands of still photographs of particular themes and combine them afterward into a video as a flowing visual experience.

Israeli photographer Ronen Goldman was recently commissioned by UK-based premium luggage manufacturer Redland London to shoot a series of advertising photos promoting an upcoming line of luggage. The company wanted to show the durability of the product and how it helps you "be prepared for anything," so Goldman created a photo of a man protecting himself from a cloud of falling lemons. The video above is a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how the image was created.

Director David Robin created this humorous spoof of the TV show …

This past Valentines day, photographer Kendrick Brinson was tasked with what she calls "the strangest assignment" of her career thus far. She was asked by OZY magazine with shooting as a fake paparazzi photographer, chasing after editor Sanjena Sathian as she walked the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard through crowds of tourists. Sathian later published an account of the experience in a story titled "Almost Famous."

Photographers Tony and Chelsea Northrup shot a hands on test video that pits …

Photographer Josh Cripps of Professional Photography Tips made this short and sweet introductory tutorial on how you can use 10-stop neutral density filters to capture long exposure photos in bright daylight. These filters drastically reduce the amount of light hitting your lens, allowing you to blur slow-moving things in your scene (e.g. clouds or streams).

Photography is one of the most popular hobbies on the planet, but you’d never know it by reading most photography blogs, podcasts, books, and tutorials. It’s treated as a profession, where the goal is making money, buying more expensive gear or getting your prints into galleries around the world. You’re being enticed to “Go Pro,” and that’s just not realistic for the vast majority of photographers. Most photographers could benefit from going amateur.

Photographer Thomas Blanchard just released this time-lapse video that took him 4 months …

I was photographing families and toddlers in 2010 and 2011 and my work was a bit uninspiring. Then I saw American photographers creating these beautiful, arty, creative sleeping newborn photos and I wanted to do it too!

It wasn't easy. No one in the UK really saw my vision, but I managed to get a sweet family with a beautiful newborn called Daisy to help me launch this style of photography to my business. That was back in 2012 - and I haven't looked back since.

I was working on a commissioned artwork in Photoshop today and I noticed something. I keep my left hand over the shift key pretty much the entire time I am working in PS. That little button does a LOT. So I thought I would take some time and show you guys what you have been missing out on if you haven’t taken advantage of shift key functionalities in PS before.

Wedding photography, much like the entire business of weddings, is highly influenced by the ebb and flow of trends. They come, they go, and they’re cyclical. When I plunged into the business in early 2012, I committed myself to research the industry: what works, what’s popular, and what sells? I quickly discovered that there’s a common, predictable, and heavily relied upon set of post-processing trends in wedding photography.

Virtual reality is posed to become one of the next big things in the tech world, and YouTube is preparing itself for that future. The video hosting service announced today that it is starting to support 360-degree video uploads to allow for immersive video experiences.

Smartphones and social networks have made snapping and sharing photos extremely easy to do, allowing us to preserve our memories and broadcast our experiences. It's not all positive, though: there are downsides to our snap- and selfie-happy culture.

A new study has found that 58% of people believe that "posting the perfect picture has prevented them from enjoying life's experiences."

Here’s a tutorial by New York City-based photographer Jeff Rojas that offers a …

It's the end of the road for the company behind Rolleiflex cameras. Just two months after Fujifilm put up one of its major film factories at auction, DHW Fototechnik is doing a liquidation auction of its own, selling off the massive amounts of equipment used in manufacturing twin-lens reflex cameras.

The auction gives us an unprecedented glimpse into the tools and spaces that were once used to great cameras with the iconic Rollei brand.

We recently shared an impressive demo of the 65x optical zoom lens on the Canon SX60. If you're a smartphone shooter who wants the same reach without having to buy a new camera, check out this ridiculous 80x lens for smartphones.

Less than a month after a photographer was knocked over by a horse and broke a collarbone at a race in Finland, a similar freak accident has just happened in England. A photographer broke his leg this past Wednesday after a horse knocked over the rail on the side of the track.

Load up the vehicle and check the essentials. Coffee. Jerky. Camera. All here. Exploring the Canadian Rockies. It never …

Here's how much the average couple spent on wedding photography for their big day in 2014: $2,556. That's nearly a 5% increase from the average cost the previous year of $2,440.

A week after Los Angeles agreed to train its law enforcement that public photography is not a crime, a bill has been proposed in Texas that would make it a crime for citizens to photograph or film police from within 25 feet of where the are.

Want an easily digital way to keep track of your camera gear and all the documents associated with it? A new app called Zither wants to help. It's a stuff organization app that was developed by Marc Silber of Advancing Your Photography, so it's optimized for things like cameras, lenses, and accessories.

Alison Zavos of Feature Shoot recently had the opportunity to sit down with …

Some street photographers like to operate stealthily, while others are bold and confrontational. Very few will look as strange as Nicholas Williams to the people they photograph. The Ann Arbor, Michican-based artist visited New York City last year and shot a series of photos using a strange-looking pinhole camera that he strapped to his face with twine.

Photoshop experts who teach the software for a living generally know it like the back of their hand. But …

See this house? It languished on the Orlando, Florida, market for 224 days. It’s no wonder; with a photo like that who would want to come see it? A new realtor took over -- one who understands the importance of professional photography for his listings.

I was hired to photograph the home on February 28 and delivered the images the next day. On March 10 he told me a buyer had made an offer. To put it another way, after almost 8 months on the market, the home was under contract within 8 days after I took new photos.

Eye-Fi has announced the new Mobi Pro, a 32GB WiFi SD card that the company is calling "the most powerful wireless SD card ever." As more and more cameras are being launched with built-in Wi-Fi functionality, Eyefi is rolling out improvements to its memory card offerings to try and keep up.

Bloomberg Politics is apologizing for a bad Photoshop job after readers noticed that a promo photo shared by the publication featured a strange-looking shot of Hillary Clinton.

The tumult surrounding the World Press Photo awards for the last couple of weeks has been quite earth-shaking. An Italian photographer, who had been awarded for “Contemporary Issues” was, finally, disqualified for having mis-labelled where a picture was shot (not in the town of Charleroi which was listed on the entry but 30 miles away in Bruxelles.)

For the past couple of years, photographer Navid Baraty has been experimenting with the idea of creating photographs of the universe without having to leave his home... and without having to point a camera up at the sky. His WANDER Space Probe series of images may resemble photos captured by NASA using its Hubble telescope camera, but the photos were actually created by putting ordinary kitchen items on an Epson flatbed scanner.

Light field photo studios are now a thing. This morning Lytro launched the world's first light field imaging studio in Tokyo, Japan.