If you're into video editing you are probably interested in visual effects to some extent. Even if you aren't, bookmark the current article as you will eventually be. Visual effects is not some software magic that works with any footage. With video you have lots of still images per second and the process of making a composite needs to be automated as much as possible. Working on a frame by frame basis is avoided as much as possible. In this video you will find 10 quick tips on the importance of having appropriate video content in order to help easily create more realistic visual effects.

Photography changes year after year, but it's a gradual evolution. However, one area of photography that has been accelerating faster than the others has to be time-lapses. The videos have been getting longer, the shots more dynamic where a dolly is more common, and the quality is getting to the point of staggering. It seems that every frame could be pulled and used in a landscape portfolio. Adding to this trend is photographer Joe Capra with his 12K-resolution time-lapse of Los Angeles.

In this video, Karl Taylor and Urs Recher experiment with and demonstrate the uses of a Parabolic reflector. Using a model who is wearing white against a white background, they produce a number of portraits demonstrating how to shape the Para light to separate the model from the background. The versatility of this practice is quite astounding as the photographer is able to stand in front of the light and have it still perfectly illuminate the model and is a simple one light set up.

In this second installation, Chris Niccolls over at The Camera Store TV, compares the Canon 5D Mark III and Nikon D800, with photojournalist Mike Drew. Mike and Chris look at how these two cameras handle fast action in low light and how JPEG processing compares to the RAW files. What I really dig about this comparison is that it's not another model shoot but rather a real working world photographer shooting under the unique and difficult conditions of a cutting horse competition.

In this video we see Antwerp, Belgium-based commercial photographer Andy Van den Eynde tackling color correction on location. Andy starts by dropping his base temperature down to a cool 2800K and then recreates the warm glowing effect of torch light using gels from his Rosco Color Correction Filter Kit. What I found interesting was how he actually builds torches out of strobes and gels, which provide the rim light and the glow that would be thrown off from actual torches.

From St. Louis’ Bruton Stroube Studios comes the impressively cinematic tale of food preperation as it battles the elements within the kitchen. At just over a minute in length, “Cooking Up A Storm” manages to breathe an extraordinary amount of drama and depth into the culinary practice. This short film is testament to what a skilled production team and sound designer can bring to seemingly oridinary situations.

Once you start doing a lot of video editing, watching your favorite movie or TV show is never quite the same. The way dialogue scenes are cut together, the framing of characters in a shot, and of course scene transitions. In this supercut from the popular TV Show "Stranger Things," see how the editor used a variety of cuts to create compelling transitions.

It’s no secret that image files have quite a bit of redundancy and wasted space — it’s part of the reason why I love the app JPEGMini which helps reduce unneeded information to decrease file size. What you might or might not be aware of is that you can hide information, even large files inside of your images. In this episode of Computerphile, Dr. Mike Pound explains two techniques of burying info in your pictures and the application for photographers. Warning, supremely geeky content ahead.

Shooting a beauty video is not quite the same as shooting beauty portraits. While in still photography there is a single frame, in video you can use the power of the moving image to tell a superior story. Here are three cool techniques that help to create this beauty video clip all in camera.

In this episode of #BehindtheGlass, Albert Ayzenberg sits down with Cinematographer David Klein on the set of "Homeland" to discuss preparation, video gear, and what it's like to join in on an Emmy Award-winning show already in full swing. There's a lot of great insight here on what goes on behind the scenes of filming for television.

A transportive time-lapse is something that never gets old, particularly when it looks and sounds as elegant as a waking dream. Forcibly poetic diction to describe lengthy slider moves and dramatically shifting clouds, perhaps. However, it’s hard to ignore the feeling you’ll get when you take this trip to Døvrefjell, a mountain in Norway that never looked more serene.

There’s nothing quite so frustrating to anyone in the business, as having your camera become outdated in less than a year. When I look at the current line up of camcorders, I’m beginning to think that they’re about to be replaced by the cameras that should have been released in the first place. The camcorder market is falling behind.

Besides being an excellent photographer, Blair Bunting (who you may remember from our Lamborghini Aventador video) is an avid aeronautics hobbyist. He recently had the opportunity to photograph a U.S. military F-16, which was an honor in itself. But when he was offered the chance to fly in the jet, the experience was once in a lifetime. Check out the GoPro madness!

The recently released and long-awaited Sony a7S III marks a significant step forward in terms of camera technology, bringing some remarkable dynamic range and 10-bit 4:2:2 internal recording. As the camera falls into the hands of more reviewers, a question remains: does it have dual gain ISO?

Most gimbals that have been released in the last few years have had a similar design and aesthetic. For the most part, they've had a long handle where the batteries go in and the gimbal head on top. Recently, Zhiyun-Tech released their latest gimbal and I believe this will have quite the impact on the gimbal industry as a whole.

A filmmaker favorite, the Canon C300 Mark II has always been a little more expensive than other cameras with similar specs. Last year around this time, Canon dropped the cost from $16,000 to $12,000, and lowered prices on a few lenses. Now they have dropped it again, bringing it down so that for only $9,999 you can get a shiny-new, internal 4K video camera.

Last week, Nikon released a quintet of LUTs for its Z line of cameras that bring a touch of RED color science to the Nikon world.

Panasonic just published the full release notes of the promised free firmware update for the GH5. Upon release earlier in the year, early adopters of the camera have been blown away with its performance, yet have come across some several teething issues that have been fed back to Panasonic. This release aims to correct some of these issues while also introducing improved All-I modes for higher bit-rate video recording.

In case you haven’t seen this video pop up yet in your social media feeds, check out Comedian Buddy Bolton sneaking up on unsuspecting pedestrians who have stopped to take a selfie. Instead of photobombing though, he had a different plan: cutting their selfie stick in half with gardening shears.

Believe it or not, the great Roger Deakins doesn't have a style, but yet we are inspired by his visual work. In this video you will hear this from his own mouth and you will find a few other cinematography gems.

When you think of video online, YouTube is surely on top of the list. If anything is happening virally, you'll be able to find it on YouTube, or it's embedded in your favorite site with their red and white play button to start watching. In the past, any contributors were able to receive money from videos since YouTube introduced their partner program five years ago. This opened their advertising platform to anyone and everyone to get some money when ads played before and during the video they uploaded. This changed today.

Being overcritical of yourself can seriously hold you back in your photographic career. If you listen to those seeds of doubt too much you could end up crippling yourself to a point where you no longer feel able to create work or know what your next move should be. Let's see how three photographers manage to cope with an extreme version of that inner critic while on a photoshoot.

Cinematographer Danny Cooke spent a week with his guide Yevgein, known as the Stalker, exploring Chernobyl and the city of Prypiat, Ukraine. He came back with a haunting and beautiful video which is essentially a time capsule of the city, frozen by a devastating nuclear disaster that occurred nearly 30 years ago. His aerial shots are especially quite stunning.

Lighting Asylum has brought us this informative look behind the scenes of a sunset portrait shoot, and it gets pretty in depth with how the photographer handles over-exposed back lighting, poor color in the clouds, and flash positioning. The photographer gives some insight on his process for camera settings, and even shows how he gels a flash to get the sky to change colors.

You don't have a dolly, a steadicam stabilization system, or a gimbal, but maybe you have a tripod and a camera. It's more than enough, really, but you need a story. That's what this short film, "Incident by a Bank," is all about. The story has been carefully orchestrated and recorded as a single 12-minute long take from a camera on a tripod.

Eric Cheng of DJI recently took his Phantom 2 to Iceland, hoping to get close enough to fly over the erupting Bardabunga volcano. The footage he brought back is spectacular.

It’s common knowledge that to master a craft you have to practice it every day. As Twyla Tharp says in her classic book The Creative Habit, “I’ve learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns… The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.” But what does that mean for filmmakers whose craft is so macroscopic? A film takes years. It includes writing, casting, financing, producing, editing. So how, exactly, do you practice filmmaking?

I always felt that Kai and the rest of the Digital Rev crew had a sadistic, if not humorous, streak in them and now I have proof. Their latest Cheap Camera Challenge gives filmmaker Philip Bloom till days end to producing a short film with nothing but a 240p resolution Barbie Video Girl doll.