We've come to the end of yet another year of covering the latest and greatest in the wonderful world of photography. Before we head into 2015, here's a look back at the 10 most popular stories published on PetaPixel over the course of 2014.

One of the big stories in the world of camera gear this past year has been Chinese manufacturer Yongnuo's expansion into cheap clones of Canon lenses. While Canon shooters are buzzing about their new budget glass options, Nikon photographers have been wondering if Yongnuo will ever offer clones of their favorite lenses.

We've got the scoop that answers that question: Yongnuo will offer cheaper clones of Nikon lenses by the end of 2015.

One of photographer Jeff Paradiso's big projects this past year was to create a sideways room for "anti-gravity" photos. These are images in which the viewer is disoriented in regards to which way is up.

Photographer Eric Kunz has created a new iPhone app that makes it easy to create high-quality double exposure photographs using your phone. It's called LiveBlend, and Kunz claims that it's the only app currently in the App Store that does double exposure blending in real time.

I love New Year’s. Halloween, Christmas and National Cat Day (obviously) are high on my list too, but New Year’s holds a special weight for me. It’s the resolutions that I’m so addicted to.

I love making them. I love hearing them. The idea of a clean slate, filled in with good intentions and exciting possibilities just makes me bubble with anticipation. Yes, I realize I sound like a delirious 12-year old, but my entire personality is a bit like a delirious 12-year old…plus the New Year is here and I’m all sorts of giddy!

Competition in the DSLR attachment space is heating up. Joining the likes of TriggerTrap and CASE Remote is a new product called CamsFormer, a single DSLR attachment that adds wireless camera control, time-lapse, high speed triggering, and motorized pan/tilt/zoom.

The images in photographer Emma Phillips' 'Salt' series may look like they were captured in desolate polar regions of the world, but they actually show a location in Western Australia. Phillips created the project when she came across a salt refinery with mountains of salt piled up, forming strange white alien landscapes.

Photography enthusiast Steffen Ross works as a radiologist in Switzerland who operates a CT and MRI scanner for autopsies. When he's not using the machine to look into dead bodies, Ross has been placing camera equipment in the scanner to peer inside them.

Looking back at this year, I was fortunate enough to photograph a lot of cool things and meet a lot of great people. It’s only right that I write about my biggest shoot this year -- well actually, the biggest shoot of my career to date. I'll start off by saying that everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

In the world of analog photography, "film swapping" is an activity in which two photographers each shoot through the same roll of film, creating random -- and often beautiful -- double exposure photographs in each frame.

dubble is an app that wants to bring that same experience to the world of digital photography. It allows people from around the world to create random double exposure photos with each other.

Brazilian sports photographer Marcelo Maragni likes to do experimental photography in addition to his "ordinary" sports photography. Earlier this year, he decided that he wanted to try to capture action shots at night with ultraviolet flashes and colorful paint.

The CASE Remote is a new wireless camera controller that attaches to your DSLR and turns your smartphone or tablet into a wireless remote you can use to control your camera.

Earlier this year, photographer Carl Pendle released a popular video showing himself doing street photography with a Hasselblad 500C/M, from the perspective of the photographer looking down into the camera's viewfinder.

That was simply "a test video" he says. Now he's back again with a more polished attempt at the same idea. The video above shows the "viewfinder view" of a recent project in which Pendle shot portraits of barbers in London barbershops.

When photographer Stuart Holroyd moved to Cyprus in March 2014, he heard about a woman named Kayte Wilson-Smith who runs a small rescue center for stray, abused, and/or abandoned dogs. It's called Bay Tree Rescue, is funded entirely by Wilson-Smith's pension and donations, and houses roughly 60 dogs at any given time.

Holroyd wanted to get involved in the project, so he decided to use his photography background to help. His "Bay Tree Project" is a series of fantasy portraits of the dogs that are meant to raise funds, awareness, and adoptions.

The next time you're taking a group snapshot, cut the "cheese" and tell everyone to say "cheeks" instead. This two letter change can help create more genuine smiles on the faces in your shot.

DigitalRev TV is back with another episode of the Cheap Camera Challenge. This time, renowned fashioned photographer Lara Jade is tasked with shooting haute couture fashion photographs on the streets of Hong Kong using a 0.3-megapixel Anpanman camera packed with "awful features".

Family portraits are usually meant to be idealized representation of families, with nice clothes, pleasant smiles, and beautiful backdrops. The portraits in "Best Case Scenario" are different. In each of the images in the project, lifestyle photographer Danielle Guenther attempts to capture the reality of being a parent of young children. Things aren't perfect and peaceful -- life is often chaos.

Here's a first-come-first-serve deal alert: if you're a Canon shooter in the market for a versatile zoom lens, you can currently purchase the popular Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS for just $648 new on eBay from the store getitdigital. The lens is currently priced at $1,149 from B&H and Amazon, so that's a savings of $501 (~44% off).

Want to know how much work goes into an old fashioned stop motion animation movie? The short clip above will show you. It's a short extra scene that appeared during the end credits of the 2014 film "The Boxtrolls."

The shot starts out looking like a normal scene from the film. However, the camera starts zooming out, turning the clip into a creative behind-the-scenes time-lapse that shows how it was made.

Official White House photographer Pete Souza was recently interviewed by journalist Al Hunt for his "On the Story" program. In the 17-minute interview (shown above), Souza offers a glimpse into what his life is like on the front lines of world history.

We also hear the stories behind a number of Souza's most famous photographs of President Obama and President Reagan (whom he also served as official White House photographer).

Photographer Dario Morelli is a computer aided designer and programmer by trade. Several years ago, during a period of unemployment, he began diving deeply into the world of custom-made scanner cameras. There's an entire niche of photographers who are interested in the idea of turning flatbed scanners into digital cameras.

What you see is the result of one of Morelli's experiments. It's a medium format camera created by stuffing parts from an Epson scanner into a custom enclosure.

The Admont Abbey in Austria is one of the oldest monasteries in the world, and inside is the largest monastic library in the world. The grand library hall was built back in 1776 and contains roughly 70,000 books. 48 windows fill the chamber with gorgeous natural lighting.

Photographer Benjamin Von Wong was recently given access to the historic building and used the opportunity to do the first creative photo shoot ever held there.

A week ago, we reported that some owners of the Nikon D750 are reporting a strange and ugly dark band that appears at the top of the frame, interrupting lens flare when the camera is pointed at certain angles towards light sources. Nikon acknowledged the issue today and says that it's currently looking into a fix.

There's a new way to make a difference in the world with photos. Donate a Photo is a new app by Johnson & Johnson that lets you give to charities by donating photos. For every picture you upload through the app, the company gives $1 towards a cause you'd like to support.

As the quality of cameras becomes better and better, there's a new security issue emerging that you may have not thought about: fingerprints being stolen from photos.

Hackers are reporting that a person's fingerprints can be reproduced using public photos that show their hand.

Simon Byrnes of The Pixelist operates a time-freezing camera array consisting of 140 Canon 1100D (AKA the Rebel T3) DSLRs. One client has been the UK show Got To Dance, for which the cameras are used to capture bullet-time sequences of dancers. During a period when the TV show was off air, Byrnes decided to have some fun with the rig and captured some shots that became the video above. It's titled "The Timefreezers."

Here's a note caution: when tagging Santa Claus in your Facebook photos, make sure you tag the right one.

Photographer Brian Matus had a strange experience this past weekend after tagging Santa in three of his holiday photographs. He tells us that shortly after doing so, he received a "legal notice" in his Facebook inbox.

My workflow is the most important part of being a productive and successful music photographer. Other photographers rarely ask about it, but I feel like it's something a lot of people don't think about until they're on the road and freaking out because their workflow sucks. So I'd like to share mine with all of you.

The Thomas Walther Collection at the Museum of Modern Art is a set of 341 photographs by 150 artists captured from between 1909 and 1949 -- a period in which photography "came of age."

If you'd like to explore this collection of images on a deeper level, the museum has created a fantastic new tool for doing so that's "unprecedented in its functionality". It's called "Object:Photo," and is a special website loaded with information, images, and interactive visualizations.

Want to have your own wedding photos without having an actual wedding? Apparently some people do. A Japanese travel agency called Cerca Travel has started offering a strange package this past year called the "Kyoto Solo Wedding." It's a two-day experience centered on a fake wedding shoot that's designed to pamper women and boost their self esteem.

Want to remove the glow in your model's ears when photographing them in front of a bright background? Instead of dealing with the problem in Photoshop, you can fix it during the shoot itself with just a bit of gaffer tape.

Michel Rajkovic is a fine art photographer based in Asnieres, France. He travels the world and captures photos of time passing through landscapes by shooting long exposure photographs on medium format black and white film.

Here's a nice deal for those of you planning to start a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud's Photography Program for 2015: if you subscribe through Amazon instead of Adobe, you'll get a free $30 to spend on Amazon.

I recently did a simple review that compared Yongnuo's new $40 clone of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II. Today I will dive a little deeper into how the two lenses stack up optically.

There’s only so much that can be tested in home without fancy gear (MTF charts and the like) so I did a few tests that gauge common aesthetic qualities, using techniques that are often recommended for testing at home.

There are now a number of smartphone tripods out there that are designed to fit inside your wallet when not in use. Before you buy one, though, here's a random little tip: if your wallet is thick and sturdy enough, you don't even need a separate accessory -- your wallet itself can do just fine.

Cornell offers a course on designing with microcontrollers, and this year's final project submissions featured a couple of groups who decided to build robotic photographers that help capture selfies.

Photographs captured from the International Space Station have gotten a lot of press in recent years, especially as social networking has helped to share them with a wider audience. Quite a few time-lapses have been made as well using those photos.

Usually those videos are created by video editors who combine all kinds of photos found on space agency websites. The video above is a bit different: it was created with photos captured by a single person: astronaut Alexander Gerst.

Kodak is jumping into the world of smartphones to try and make a splash in mobile photography. The company has announced that it will be launching a number of mobile devices in 2015.

If you've been eyeing a Pelican hard case for transporting your camera gear to and from photo shoots, today is your lucky day. Amazon is offering large discounts on Pelican camera cases for one day only (December 26th, 2014) as its Gold Box Deal of the Day. While supplies last, you can snag a highly reviewed case for between 59-65% off list price.

I got a $2,100 Canon 85mm f/1.2L for $145 earlier this year. To be honest, it was more like $145 plus a couple trips to Starbucks, but it was still a great adventure... and the secret to how I get most of my gear with what little budget I’ve got.

Here's how I did it: trading.

23-year-old videographer Nejc Miljak created this inspiring short film about Slovenian landscape photographer Janez Tolar. It's titled, "Before You Wake Up".

In the early hours when you probably sleep and dream, he discovers the world around us. His passion is nature and it's landscapes. With his camera he capture it's magic.

"I wake up early so I can wake the sun up, not the other way around," Tolar says.

James Tyler Shores and some friends in Macon, Georgia created this parody of the popular song "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift. Titled "Make You Look Like Taylor," the new lyrics change the song from a love song into one about the life of a professional photographer.

How do you build a quality DIY camera slider on the cheap? Who better to ask than the founder …

I will be the first to admit that I am not a street photographer, not a wedding photographer, and don’t generally shoot in low light, but I wanted to get a review out since I just received my two copies of Yongnuo's $40 clone of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II.

Want to keep time with a clock inspired by camera gear? Here's a roundup of timepieces based on cameras, lenses, and rolls of film. (Note: The clocks on this list may or may not still be available for purchase.)

Yunnan, China is home to some of the most beautiful rice paddy fields in the world. The traditional agriculture fields are sprawling in size and are often found built into slopes, creating mesmerizing patterns in the landscape. These fields are also rapidly disappearing due to urbanization.

With the risk of their extinction looming on the horizon, photographer Samuel Peck visited the region and captured a series of beautiful images to preserve their memory.

Here's a tip for operating camera drones: stay away from mommy kangaroos. One operator in Australia found out the hard way recently. They were flying their camera close to a group of Eastern gray kangaroos in Hunter Valley when a protective mother decided to deal with the strange intruder by punching the drone out of the air.

The video above shows what happened from the camera's perspective.

Want a simple battery-powered time-lapse camera that you can leave in locations for up to a year? A hacker who goes by "val3tra" is trying to build one. The goal of his project is a camera that can continuously photograph a scene for months or years on time while powered only by a handful of ordinary batteries.

Here's something lighthearted: While in New York City, Australian comedian Hamish Blake decided to create a parody of photographer Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York portrait. "Unable" to snag a feature through Stanton's camera, Blake decided to take matters into his own hands with a #hamishsofny shot.

Time-lapse photographer Chris Field spent 107 days photographing carnivorous plants with two cameras. What resulted is this fascinating look at the beauty of plants that survive by trapping and consuming insects.