Aerial

The Curiosity rover is one of the coolest machines we ever sent into space. The rover is giving us a glimpse into the never-explored land of Mars by sending us beautiful images taken by its cameras everyday. Curiosity has 17 cameras on deck, which is the most of any NASA planetary missions to date. Take a look at what each camera does, and why some of the cameras shoot just Black and White, and some shoot color. Also, who do you think have more image resolution: the Nikon D800 or Curiosity rover?

Maho Beach is one of the most unique beaches on earth to date. The beach is located on St. Maarten, a tiny island near Puerto Rico. It's so tiny, that the local airport is located only few feet behind the beach where hundreds of people enjoy the sun, the water and the sand. Beach goers + Jumbo planes? big win for us photographers. Check out these crazy images of planes almost touching the tourists on the beach.

A few months ago Lee and I went out to Gulf Photo Plus to see what all the fuss was about and absolutely had one of the greatest trips of our lives. While we were filming our "What makes photographers successful" video, we were hearing rumors that Joe McNally was about to shoot from the top of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. If you've spent any time with Joe, you know he absolutely loves a challenge and lives to create images taken from exotic places (like his shoot on the top of the Empire State Building).

I'm always a fan of watching talented humans. Parkour is one of those activities which I'll never be good at, but am amazed to watch. HeliPOV had the same idea and decided that parkour group 3RUN should be shown off to the rest of us. The HeliPOV team was kind enough to film the groups jumps and dives using their multicopter. Not only does this clip show off some fun acrobatics, but it also gives a sense of what kind of shots a multicopter can pull off.

Some of the most interesting and exciting video footage often comes out of car commercials. The current ad for Cadillac's new 2013 ATS features some pretty awesome footage of the luxury sports sedan speeding down the winding roads of Morocco's Atlas Mountain. This stretch of road overlooking the Dades Gorge is one of the most dangerous roads in the world. So when director Jeff Zwart decided to test the ATS's Brembo brakes and limited-slip differential, he not only put the drivers in danger but also put a ton of camera gear in harms way. Full behind the scenes video in the full post

Felix Baumgartner is up in the air, and if all goes well he will be the first man go to supersonic without the use of a propulsion device: Just him and his space suit. The first launch was aborted due to high winds, but this one seems to be going smoothly. You can get more information outside of the video here at Red Bull Stratos.

To put a little twist on filming one of Nissan's most recent car commercials, the crew involved shot everything on a miniature scale by using a few different RC vehicles. Check out how the team tried to preserve some of the standard elements that you might see in a car commercial. The group gets quite creative in building customized camera mounts to keep the best angles.

The universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old, and a recent composite of images taken on NASA's Hubble Telescope show 13.2 billion of those. Earth years, that is. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full moon.

I don't know what GoPro cameras are made out of that makes seagulls like them so much, but once again a seagull stole a GoPro - this time in San Francisco. The camera was on and aimed at the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset when the bird decided to take the viewers for a short tour over the Bay Area. Check it out, and keep your equipment safe!

11 years passed since that horrible day on September 11, 2001, where 2,996 people lost their lives and many more injured in the biggest terror attack in history. Since that horrifying day, every year on the night of 9/11 - NYC's sky is being lit up by 2 beams of lights as a memorial for the twin towers. Check out the best photos of 'Tribute In Lights' found on the net.

Idaho photographer Jim Harmer over at ImprovePhotography.com takes the time to give you the low down on shooting the night's Milky Way. All you trolls out there be nice cause Jim froze his butt off on this one and he is just so damn likable.

As the Curiosity rover slowly sets up shop on the red planet, we earthlings are getting our first look at never-before seen images of the unexplored landscape around the landing site. A number of panoramic images have been created and are beginning to pop up on the web. While NASA has yet to photograph the beautiful Mt. Sharp, a 3-mile high mountain not far from the landing site and

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!

Aerial Cinematography has always been a fascination of mine. Aerial shots tend to easily blow away normal stationary ground shots I find, but I've always wondered how people achieved such amazing footage and what they used. Follow Josh Lambeth from Birds Eye Productions as he sits down along with his crew and explains exactly what they use and how they use it to gain access to the sky and have their cameras airborne.

Using 6 aircrafts, 138 skydivers jumped at 18,500 feet and created a snowflake shape by holding hands and remaining vertical (head down feet up) to set the new vertical world record. Skydivers traveled from all over the world to take part in the record attempt, including from France, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Australia and the U.K.

Li Wei has earned his way to recognition in China through his trademark gravity defying images. This video, recently featured by the Creators Project, gives a little behind the scenes glimpse of how Li Wei was inspired to pursue his aerial stunts and how his creative ideas have reflected the quickly changing culture and country around him.

For the last few years photographers have been getting nervous about high res video cameras taking still photography jobs but we failed to see the biggest threat... robots! Apparently 12 of these robotic arms have been make to hold Nikon D4 cameras and shoot aerial photography at this year's Olympics Games. Luckily each of these cameras must still be controlled by a human photographer so we aren't going to lose our jobs yet.

The timelapse videos we see from NASA get better and better. This time, Knate Myers took photographs taken from the International Space Station and put them together to make this beautiful time lapse video. “Every frame in this video is a photograph taken from the International Space Station.”

Thanks to remote controlled copters, aerial photography and video has brought some fantastic new content to the scene in the last few years, especially from guys like the Copter Kids. For their latest video, the Copter Kids grab the new Sony FS700 and take it to the skies alongside a motorcycle with some awesome results.

What have you done to get the shot today? Parked your car, walked into a studio? Plunked down a tripod on a sandy, tropical beach? Fiddled with some macro rails? South African aviation photographer Justin de Reuck unstrapped a good deal of his harness, slid open the canopy, and took photos at what I'm guessing is 100 knots, mere feet from the ground. I'm not sure how that plane actually took off with Justin's balls of steel on board, because man, they must be huge.

Check out this high-resolution zoomable panoramic photo taken right after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. Shot from a kite 2000 feet over San Francisco Bay, the detail is jaw-dropping and the scene after the disaster is otherworldly.

Imagine the storage you would need to shoot with a 3.2 billion pixel camera. With 189 image sensors, and weighing 3 tons - this will be the world's largest digital camera. It's called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and is being engineered by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The goal of the project is to “capture the widest, fastest and deepest view of the night sky ever observed." They are looking to the LSST to learn more about

Halvor Angvik and Jeff Nebelkopf created this video with the help of Red Bull and JokkeSommer. The fact that Red Bull sponsored it should tell you all that you need to know: It's absolutely incredible. I've seen some crazy wingsuit stunts before, but

The guys and Brain Farm has been featured on Fstoppers a few times now for their incredible video work and seemingly endless budgets. In this video, Brain Farm teams up with Schiebel to produce the most capable, video recording, radio controlled helicopter in the world. Check out the full post to see their demo reel.

Here's a breathtaking perspective on the city of Dubai, created by UK filmmaker Richard Bentley. It took him two and a half weeks to capture the footage, shooting one to two sequences a day from various balconies and rooftops. He shot with a Canon 7D, and edited in Avid Media Composer. The final product is fascinating. The only problem I have with this video is that it reminds me that I have yet to see this city in person. That needs to change.

These days RC helicopters with video cameras are becoming more and more common because you can control and land them in almost any terrain. Have you ever wondered how you have to land an RC airplane when there are no available runways? Apparently you have to fly them directly at yourself and then snatch them out of the air with your bare hand. Check out this fantastic video which shows the pilot in some pretty incredible locations catching the plane again and again.

I know that we've experienced a pretty big spate of aviation-related posts over the past few weeks. Anyone else getting sick of them? No? Good. Me neither. Here's another one that is just too cool, and makes me way too jealous.

Only a few times have I ever questioned what I'm doing with my life. This video makes me wonder why I am not pursuing this. This is a remixed trailer of a movie called Les Chevaliers du Ciel, which means, Sky Fighters. Whatever the name, this video showcases some of the cleanest and most captivating footage I've seen from the skies. Owe it to yourself to get lost in this visual feast.

Who doesn’t love watching the X Games? Those athletes are crazy. Just as captivating, though, is this behind-the-scenes two-part video on The Northface and X Games Baldface commercial. Director Todd Jones pulls out all the stops in this two part BTS documentary, breaking out a Phantom HD Gold, a helicopter, and building one really enormous jump.