If there is one thing I have grown to love about photography, it is the ability to capture, control, and manipulate time. Photography is giving us the option to see things in ways that are impossible to achieve with our naked eyes. This opens up a whole new world of creative options. While cameras do offer us a fair amount of control using ISO, shutter, and aperture, we sometimes need to look at other options to get extremely long exposures....

I switched over to mostly using fluid head video tripods for stills photography about 8 years ago. I still have a couple of Manfrottos with ball heads. I also use ball heads with sliders. But, my go-to is a Libec video tripod with a fluid bowl head. They just make life so much easier, especially on location. It seems I’m not the only one who prefers to work with video tripods for photography, either....

Some of you might remember Kirill Neiezhmakov. He shot the timelapse sequence of the Dubai luxury hotel fire on New Year’s Eve. In that short, he mixed some real time footage with timelapse footage and zooms to great, but short, effect. Well, Kirill’s back with a new timelapse of Madrid, Spain and he’s taking those techniques up a notch. Like the Dubai video, it contains a mix of shooting styles. These include normal real time video footage, timelapse and hyperlapse....

Filters are usually used to enhance your images, add some effects, or protect your lenses. But here’s something different. Exelence Brilliance Indesign has launched Reflective Filter. As the name suggests, it’s a mirror filter that lets your models see themselves, or it can help you while vlogging. Reflective Filter utilizes a simple one-way mirror. Other than letting your models see and pose themselves, it also adds an “Instagrammable” flare effect if you shoot into the light source....

Yet another company has come under the wing of The Vitec Group. The company has now acquired Savage, the leading backdrop brand in the industry, and the two companies will merge by the end of this month. Those of you who do studio photography have probably had experience with Savage backdrops. The company is based in Phoenix, US and it’s been around since 1937. It offers high-quality, specialist, seamless paper backdrops....