As the saying goes, quality lenses are a lot more important than good bodies when it comes to investing in camera gear. They last longer, retain their value more, and have more utility overall than, say, buying the latest DSLR that will become obsolete in 3 to 5 years. But if you are into photography for the first time, you’ll likely buy an entry level camera that comes bundled with an inferior, even crappy, kit lens. Or is it?

Do you really need quality gear to take good pictures? Spend thousands of dollars on red/golden rings lenses?

It helps to have experience with first aid when you're working as a photojournalists in conflict areas, and the intense video above is one example showing why. [warning: there's some blood]

On July 16th, Norwegian photojournalist Harald Henden was filming a report outside his hotel in Gaza City when there was an explosion at a beach just a few hundred yards from where he was standing.

Similar in nature to the tribute Peter Essick paid to Ansel Adams, photographer Trenton Moore is on a mission to quite literally retrace the footsteps of famed photographer Robert Frank.

In his project titled Retracing America: A Photo Roadtrip, Essick hopes to visit the exact same locations Frank did for his iconic 1957 photo book The Americans.

Want further evidence of how far the concept of a "selfie" has spread in our culture? Look no further than this wacky Selfie Toaster by the Vermont Novelty Toaster Corp. Simply provide your favorite shot of your beautiful face, and the company will send you a toaster that can burn your likeness into toast for your morning meal.

"Inspirational" probably isn’t the first word that comes to mind when you think about laundry, but for photographer Yvette Meltzer, that’s exactly what it turned out to be. Shirts strung over a clothesline, laundry being sloshed around with suds, and most recently, piles of clothes being tossed about inside the confines of a dryer.

Instagram is a popular platform for celebrities to share photos of their lavish lifestyles, but it's also a social network in which many photos are published without permission and without credit to the original creator. Both of those things happened recently with an image posted by Ludacris.

In the world of macro photography, the speedy hummingbird isn't the easiest subject. With a little patience, however, you could nail a shot that reveals details you normally can't see when tracking the bird with your eye.

That's what photographer Chris Morgan was able to do on a recent vacation in Bosque De Paz, Costa Rica (a 3,000 acre biological reserve).

As much information as we’re able to pull in through the Internet, there is one thing that can never be obtained through words or pictures on a screen: experience. Through time and experience, information turns to knowledge, and we begin to wrap our heads around the complicated concepts that baffled us in the beginning.

One phenomenal example of a man who has accrued more experience than most is renowned portrait photographer Gregory Heisler, and in the interview above with Maine Media Workshops + College, he shares valuable insight and advice for photographers both young and old.

Artist Flora Borsi -- whose fantastic Photoshop skills have made their way onto PetaPixel several times in the past -- loves coffee... so much so that she set out to use her skills as a photographer and digital artist to create a "coffee universe."

The announcement that Apple is discontinuing Aperture has left many users wondering how they’re supposed to properly transfer their soon-to-be irrelevant file structure over to Adobe's Lightroom.

Neither Adobe nor Apple have yet released an official means to do so (at least not yet), and so software developer Adrian Grah took it into his own hands and created Aperture Exporter: a free utility that automates the process of moving from Aperture to Lightroom 5.

It was 45 years ago, yesterday, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins took on what is without a doubt one of the most important endeavors in the history of humankind. Packed together into one of the most incredible pieces of engineering to ever exist, the astronauts of Apollo 11 left Earth’s atmosphere, with hopes of being the first humans to ever step foot on the Moon.

To commemorate the accomplishment many thought was impossible – and to those who still do – we have put together a chronological collection of photos documenting the entire journey. Shared by NASA as part of their Project Apollo Archive, these images are just a few from the vast archive of medium format, 35mm, and 16mm frames captured throughout the Apollo missions.

Underwater videographer Joel Kistel was filming some footage for reef-conservation nonprofit TISIRI earlier this month when he ran across a rather curious and sneaky octopus who nearly cost Kistel $15,000.

Students at the University of York in the UK spent their graduation day yesterday Tweeting images of a controversial offer by school photo agency Success Photography.

When they went on the agency's site to select their graduation picture options, in addition to how many wallet size prints they wanted and whether or not they wanted a digital download, the site also allowed them to select "Digital Slimming" and "Digital Complexion and Smile Enhancement."

Documentary and portrait photographer Angela Jimenez' series "Racing Age" is not your typical 'photos of old people' photo series. There is no frailty, no struggling with day-to-day tasks or close-ups of wrinkles. The subjects in Racing Age are competitive athletes that could probably out-run, out-jump and out-throw most people half their age.

Japanese artist Koshi Kawachi has created a interesting series of work that combines photography and music to create an experience, rather than only an aesthetic. Titled Note Drawing the series transposes the silhouettes of city skylines into musical notation. It’s with these notations Kawachi then turns these cityscapes into actual music, which then accompanies the individual pieces.

It’s not unusual for colleges with large open-source programs to put out a number of courses free for the world to browse through online. In the past we’ve featured courses from both MIT and Stanford.

The 360 GoPro rig video is nothing new, but most of the time it's used to create footage that is likely to induce vomiting... or at the very least a minor headache. Wild Child's new music video for the song 'Rillo Talk' is different.

Created by director Aaron Brown, the video uses the little planet effect to fluidly transition between dreamy, psychedelic scenes that perfectly match the song's feel.

Four years (and one day) ago, Kevin Systrom posted the first ever photo to Instagram, then a new social network with an uncertain future and exactly one photo of a cute dog in its archives.

We have another location/situation to add to society's collective "places/times I shouldn't take a selfie" list (there's one of those right?): in the middle of the road as hundreds of Tour de France cyclists barrel down towards you.

This might seem like common sense, but hard as it might be to believe, Tour de France cyclists are complaining that fans standing in the middle of the road to take a selfie as the group approaches are "the new pain in the arse" for riders this year.

If you thought surfing in Texas was absurd, then this little video and accompanying feature will truly blow you away. As part of an original SmugMug Film, Photographer Chris Burkard and professional surfers Patrick Millin, Brett Barley, and Chadd Konig fight through frigid temperatures and rough conditions, all to capture the adventure that is surfing in the Arctic Circle.

It's a day heavy with beautiful Leica news. First, we shared the photos and story behind this one-of-a-Kind Leica M4 that you can't have, and now we've caught wind of another iconic Leica that is going up for sale (and is probably just as unattainable for most of us).

What makes this Leica (a Leica III, to be exact) special isn't some particular one-of-a-kind design, it's the fact that this is the actual camera used by photographer Yevgeni Khaldei to take his iconic Raising a Flag Over The Reichstag photograph in 1945.

The World Cup is over. Germany came out victorious over Argentina, with a final that managed to bring in …

Chances are good you've never heard the term Mingi, but if you were born to one of the tribes in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, this age-old tribal tradition might have been your death sentence. These days, however, that is far less likely, and it's due almost entirely to the work of Kara tribesman Lale Labuko and his friend and photographer John Rowe.

Exposure bracketing is the practice of taking several exposures – at least two, usually more – of the same scene. With each exposure taken, the goal is to vary the exposure time, effectively giving you more range to work with in post when all is said and done. Nowadays such capability is implemented into the firmware of cameras, allowing you to automatically set this up and capture all of the exposure with only one press of the shutter.

Besides the dreaded vertical video, the worst thing about capturing video on a smartphone is camera shake, which leaves your video looking rather jerky and chaotic at times. Most stabilization rigs are built with much larger cameras in mind, but ADPLUS Co. is looking to change that with their ‘ultra-small’ Elephant Steady stabilizer for the iPhone.

Nothing like a little bit of gear porn to get you through hump day. But don't worry, it's... like... super classy gear porn. All 'hump day' and 'gear porn' word play jokes aside, this gorgeous one-of-a-kind Leica M4 is truly a work of art... and you can't have it.

Phantom, the company behind some insane high-speed cameras has announced their new flagship camera, the Phantom v2511. Bumping up the specs across the board from their current flagship device, this beast manages to pack in up to 25,600 frames per second at 1280 x 800 resolution (just over 720p).

It's true that the Internet can be a stupid and cruel place -- read any comment section on a controversial news piece for proof of that -- but it can also be a wonderful place that occasionally brings you to tears... in a good way.

This is a story about the best of the Internet: about a grieving father, a heartfelt request, and an overwhelming response.

There are few enough times when the words haunting and portraiture truly go hand-in-hand, but the work of Polish-born, Germany-based fashion photographer Sylwia Makris fits this description perfectly.

Her dreamlike photographs take you into a strange, twisted world full of sculpted subjects under the most mysterious of lights and costumes.

This post was originally published on the Joey L. Blog and is being republished here with permission

It’s been estimated that as many as 880 billion photos will be taken by the close of this year. I’m not quite sure how that statistic could ever be properly calculated, but I think it’s safe to say that with the rise of the digital medium, human beings are taking a s**tload more pictures than ever before.

With all those photos being taken, chances are you and I have at one point accidentally wandered into someone else’s frame. It’s likely, however, that you’ll never really know you’ve photo-bombed someones shot. That’s why I was surprised by a Twitter message that I received out of the blue from a photographer I’ve never met.

The possibilities for photography are endless. That's the thought that crossed our minds earlier today when we stumbled across Vantablack, the new 'darkest material on the planet.'

Created by UK-based Surrey NanoSystems, this nanotube material is designed to reflect back as little radiation as possible... and it's darn good at its job. According to Surrey, the material absorbs 99.96% of all the light that touches it.

While double-exposure photography all started in-camera – most likely by accident – it’s since become an actual style and genre of photography all its own. And while it can still be done in-camera through film or a number of DSLRs that offer the capabilities, it can also be done in Photoshop. Here to show us how is wedding photographer Andrew Klokow, with a quick and efficient workflow for nailing double-exposures in post-production.

We don't know Ohio couple Sarah and Josh personally, but we like the way they think. Because when wedding planning got to be a bit too much and they decided to elope in Iceland, they cancelled all things but one: their photographer.

They brought wedding photographer Gabe McClintock along to capture their elopement, and the photographs he left them with leave no doubt at the wisdom of their decision.

What was it like to browse Flickr back in 1989? We don’t know, because Flickr didn’t exist then. However, …

At the young age of six-months-old, Hessy Taft became the poster-child for the Nazis. Chosen as the image most resembling the ideal Aryan baby, the Nazis plastered it across propaganda. What the Nazis didn’t know is that this child was Jewish.

Have you ever come across an artist’s work and thought, "Wow, I would love to work with them!" Well, that is exactly what went through Benjamin Von Wong’s mind after seeing Michael Rosner’s work.

Fast forward two years and Von Wong finally got his wish, creating some beautiful and inspiring untraviolet photographs in the process.

It’s not about the camera, it’s about the light. Here to prove that is photographer Miguel Quiles. In the above video, Quiles proves you don’t need the best camera or lens to capture amazing results. You only need to understand how important light is and learn how to use it to your advantage.

Earlier this year, a New York judge ruled that US search warrants applied to digital data, even if the data wasn’t stored domestically. The ruling came about after Microsoft was asked to hand over the user information and contested the warrant because the info was stored on servers located in Dublin, Ireland.

In the ongoing battle to protect users’s privacy, Microsoft has made their stance very clear. But so has the government with a brief filed last week.

Film blogger, Tony Zhou, recently published a video breakdown of Michael Bay’s signature style, which he hilariously refers to as ”Bayhem.” As a lover of cinema, I watched with rapt attention as Zhou broke down the technical elements that characterize films like Transformers – rotating shots, multiple moving elements, low angles, etc.

He’s not a fan because Bay’s belief that more is more runs counter to his own tastes. Bay doesn’t just rotate the camera around the subject. He has the subject counter rotate while standing up from a crouched position to emphasize movement and epic-ness. Creating an epic shot without reason (other than “because I can”) leaves us with a story devoid of substance and meaning. The piece had me nodding the whole time, but it wasn’t until 7:21 where things really clicked for me.

Photo bogs are always speculating what the next 'megapixel war' will be. For high-end cameras, it seems the answer to that question is the high ISO war, but for the entry-level shooters, an argument could be made for a 'burst mode war.'

Case in point, Ricoh just debuted the Pentax XG-1: a new entry-level superzoom that packs in some serious speed and reach, while hobbling the camera in other areas.

Photographer and animal lover Dale Frink was on a whale watching trip earlier this month when something scary happened: two lunge feeding blue whales popped up right behind the whale watching boat he was on, capsizing it and sending Frink and all his stuff into the frigid water.

And yet, he still got the shot.

Drone photography is still new enough that we haven't really seen the true potential of this new media unlocked -- yet.

While the FAA and others bicker about privacy and regulation, some photographers are out there exploring the boundaries of this new technology... and all of them seem to have shown up for the first Drone Photography Competition put together by Dronestagram with help from Nat Geo France, GoPro and a few others.

Since 2003 astronauts have been snapping up photographs of our beautiful planet from the International Space Station. All of these photographs have been archived together into a resource called The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. It’s through the utilization of this resource, as well as a database compiled by Spanish Astrophysicists that a little project called Cities at Night exists.

If you've been following the torrent of rumors surrounding the upcoming Canon 7D replacement, you know that one of the major pieces of info floating around is that the Mark II will sport 'revolutionary' sensor technology.

What that is, however, is still a mystery -- for most of us, anyway.

Erik Kim is one of the best-known street photographers out there, today. In his continues efforts to shoot and share, Kim has put out the full presentation he used in his Introduction to Composition for Street Photography talk at Gulf Photo Plus 2014.

This short inspirational video by the folks at video production company Fidelity Format …

Once you've been shooting for a while (and becoming good at it) someone will inevitably ask you if you are interested in shooting something for a fee, either for a commercial or editorial job (but for the sake of discussion I am labeling any paid shoot as a commercial shoot).

Your first paid assignment will certainly be very exciting, but there are a few things you should know before saying yes.

Although details are still scarce, New York City fire officials say six people suffered minor burns when a piece of unknown camera equipment caught fire on the observation deck of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

In the world of analogue photography, the larger you go in format, the more time, discipline and resources it typically takes to capture and develop your photographs. And while the age-old technique of developing film takes due diligence no matter the format, large format photography in particular has a certain quality to the process that makes it stand out from the rest.

Not exactly a reliable scientific study, a recent Craigslist rant by one "Busy NYC Restaurant" that describes itself as "a popular restaurant for both locals and tourists" has gotten a lot of press time for drawing attention to a troubling intersection of food service and photography.

Posted in the rants and raves section of the online classifieds site, the restaurant supposedly compared security footage from 2004 with that from 2014 and found that taking cell phone photos and other smartphone shenanigans have added nearly an hour to the average table time at the restaurant.