Whether you’re a photographer or a filmmaker, understanding the principles of light and how it will affect your subject are important. It doesn’t matter if it’s flash, continuous LED, natural ambient, or the harsh bright sun, you want them to help tell your story. There’s a lot of different lighting styles and setups out there. Most of them, though, operate on a fairly basic set of principles. This video from the guys over at Film Riot talks about the different techniques of lighting subjects primarily for video....

As a professional photographer or filmmaker, you probably have quite a lot of equipment. But there are some items you may not count as essential part of your gear, yet they could be a lifesaver when you’re on set. Peter McKinnon shows you seven gadgets that may seem stupid, but you will find them super-useful in plenty of situations when you’re on a shoot. Duck clamps Duck clamps These clamps are small, but sturdy, and you can use them to attach almost anything – backdrops, drapes, clothing, acoustic blankets and so on....

Perhaps you remember this 550MP image of the Carina Nebula shot through a consumer telescope named Stellina. Well, let me introduce you to Vespera, a more compact and powerful version of Stellina made by Vaonis. This hybrid of a smart telescope and a camera has been insanely successful on Kickstarter, and it has raised almost $2 million so far. So if you’re into astrophotography, I believe this could be an interesting piece of gear for you....

Sometimes, you come across a DIY film camera that’s just beautiful in its simplicity. The LIMES 120 is one such camera. Made from an old Hasselblad medium format film back, it shoots 120 roll film and sports either an Industar 110mm f/4.5 lens and a tea can, or a pinhole. Created by photographer Daniele Sandri, a comparison of the camera was recently posted to the Branco Ottico website to show off each of the two lenses....

The best kind of advice is usually the simplest, like “when spending time with others put your phone away” and “soggy cereal is never as good as last night’s takeaway curry so have the curry for breakfast.” In this latest video, Mark Denney tells us the “best composition advice he’s ever heard” and follows up by saying that it’s so simple that he wished he’d known this earlier. Walk around a bit first and survey the scene before even getting your camera out start taking a mental inventory and ask yourself what do you love about this scene?...