light

I had kind of a hard time coming up with an appropriate title for this post... I'm still not totally sure if it conveys what I'm trying to show you today. As you may hopefully have guessed by looking at my new image, I'm going to be talking about how I made the shadow that the eagle is casting. The problem was I couldn't really call this post, "How to Create Long Shadows Cast By A Subject That Is Suspended In An Epic Beam Of Light." It's just a bit too wordy... So anyway this is how I did it!

Over the past half year, Latvian photographer Gvido Mūrnieks has been testing out a DIY ring light he made for himself. The light is large enough to shoot with longer focal length, but at the same time it's small and light enough to quickly throw into the trunk of your car on the way to a shoot.

Want a light stick for light painting but don't want to spend a lot buying a commercial product? Light painting photographer Eric Pare recently discovered a cheap and easy solution: tube guards (also known as lamp guards).

There's a stealthy startup in Silicon Valley that's working to revolutionize photography. It's called Light, and one of its goals is putting 52-megapixel cameras in smartphones by next year.

Want a portable and powerful LED light for illuminating your shots? The "Sun-Blaster" is a 1000 watt equivalent LED flashlight that you can build yourself for around $40.

Just months after announcing a 60mm f/2.8 macro lens that has gotten glowing reviews, Chinese gear manufacturer is back with a new product called the KX800. It's a flexible twin light for macro photography that boasts the world's highest guide number.

One of the strange properties of light is that it behaves as both a wave and a particle. Experiments over the years have confirmed both aspects, but none have succeeded in directly observing both natures at exactly the same time... until now.

Scientists in Switzerland have successfully captured the world's first photograph showing light behaving simultaneously as both a particle and as a wave. In the image above, the top "slice" shows light behaving as a wave, while the particles can be seen in the slice below.

The Photographer's Ephemeris is one of the popular sun and moon calculators out there for planning outdoor shoots with natural light. The service has just announced Version 3.0 of its popular iOS app, which is being featured by Apple in the App Store's Photo & Video category.

Romanian photographer Radu Zaciu has been experimenting recently with photographing fruits and vegetables using internal lighting. He places bulbs inside and uses that as the main light source for his series of glowing images. The project is called "The Light Inside."

Want a professional lighting solution that you can carry around in your pocket? Check out Relio, a new pint-sized light that aims to put serious lighting potential in the palm of your hand.

Micro-drones are typically thought of as more of a toy rather than a tool. If you want to capture real recreational aerial footage, you buy a bigger, heftier drone, right? Well, not necessarily. ZANO wants to change all that by packing both power and ease of use into a tiny package that measures just 2.5 x 2.5-inches and weighs just over 1.2lbs.

High speed photography is all about fast-flash; the faster your flash, the faster the instant you can adequately freeze on a digital sensor. Modern strobes are pretty good at this, with flash durations as fast as 1/20,000 of a second, but a Bristol-based company Vela Labs is about to take high-speed photography to unheard-of heights.

Introducing the Vela One, ‘the world’s first high speed LED flash' that boasts a flash speed starting at 1/2,000,000 second, or 500 nanoseconds.

One of the biggest weaknesses of mobile cameras is shooting in low-light. The sensor can't usually handle it very well, and the built-in light sources are usually... well... crap. Here to help with that is Lume Cube, a product currently being funded on Kickstarter that hopes to quite literally light up your smartphone and GoPro imagery.

Photographer Miguel Quiles recently created this quick, informative behind-the-scenes look at how he shot an impressive set of fitness photos using just three lights in a fairly small studio setup.

When it comes to carrying light stands, it’s usually best to use a dedicated case so they don’t get damaged and carrying them is less of a hassle. But there are times when a case isn’t a viable option. This usually leaves you struggling to carry them all at once or making multiple trips to the car just to get your light stands.

Thankfully, Dave Bode from Tuts Plus has come up with a cheap and clever gear-hack that makes carrying several mismatched light stands a lot less awkward.

Two months ago we featured the work of Fan Ho, a Chinese photographer who spent much of his life documenting the streets of Hong Kong. His photographs were, to put it lightly, a hit with everybody who saw them. Strong composition and an incredible understanding of light (if you'll allow the pun) shone through in every frame.

Today, we get to go a little bit deeper thanks to the show The Art of Photography, who recently took a closer look at Fan Ho’s work, taking the time to point out what it is that sets his images apart from the many others out there.

Have you ever wondered what a multi-decade time-lapse of your living room would look like? Well, we don’t exactly have one to share with you, but what we do have is this clever advertisement from Dutch company Philips that tries to imagine what that might be like.

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.

Reflectors are one of the most affordable pieces of gear a photographer can have in their bag. They’re not only small in size (and usually foldable), they're also versatile and provide benefits when using both natural and artificial light.

If you’ve been looking to get your hands on an LED ring light but don’t have the cash to burn, this weekend project is just for you. It’s called the Octo-Light, and it’s a DIY LED ring light create by Instructables user comsa42.

When it comes to the quantity of lights that one needs, opinions are often heavily polarized and a hotly contested debate often rages. There are those that are staunch supporters of one light while others claim that a handful of lights are needed before anything meaningful can be done. Ultimately neither group is right as there is no definable minimum or maximum number of lights that one should use.

Since its launch in October of 2010, Instagram has inspired many a product meant to help you print, use and interact with the photos you take on the service. And one of the newer, cooler Instagram-related products we recently ran across is Cubee: an illuminating Instagram photo cube.

Sometimes we’re left working with inconsistent or otherwise less-than-ideal light sources. And while we can’t always make bad light good, we can certainly control some of the light quality if we get creative. Showing just how to do that is this clever little DIY Diffusion tip by the guys over at Film Riot.

Whether you're using one to shoot video or stills, LED light panels are a wonderful tool to have in your arsenal. But while they are available from a variety of companies, in a number of sizes and shapes, almost all quality LED light panels come with one, discouraging attachment: the price tag.

Thankfully, the above tutorial from DIY Perks breaks down how you can build your own $500 LED light panel for just under $70.

Award-winning photographer Takehito Miyatake is known for his beautiful long-exposure photographs of volcanos erupting, beaches adorned with bioluminescent creatures and fireflies that light up the night sky.

And today, we have for you some of his most beautiful work, all shot on his digital 4x5 camera.

We’ve seen low-light photography before, but what about no light photography. While it seems borderline impossible, researchers have combined a number of techniques to produce photographs in almost complete darkness, where the resulting images are using less than one photon of light per pixel!

Twenty-seven year old Alessio Albi captures incredible, emotionally charged portraits using nothing more than natural light and the environment around his home city of Perugia, Italy.

A nutritionist by profession, photographer by passion, Albi’s work often features female subjects, whose contemplative glares, combined with natural, but cinematic light create beautiful, but at times unsettling portraits.

A few weeks ago we shared with you the first part of a series Karl Taylor created, explaining the inverse square law of light. That is, the intensity of light given off from a source is inversely proportional to the square distance from the source. In the video he shares a number of examples, using a model and his own setup as a demonstration. Now, he’s back with part two.

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.

If the term "inverse square law of light" immediately sets you to hyperventilating as flashbacks of college physics begin playing in your mind's eye, take a few breaths into that paper bag, calm down, and click play on the video above.

In 6 minutes, Karl Taylor will explain this law and how it affects you specifically as a photographer without overwhelming you in the process.