A simple flash bouncer is the next best thing to shooting off camera flash. It either makes the flash bigger by diffusing some of its light, or have it bounce to the wall / ceiling creating a big spot of light that bounces back to the subject. I guess this is why there are so many products that provide this function, along with a ton of DIY
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If you wanna shoot first person footage, one of the easiest ways to do so is using a helmet cam. Well, you can always go with a GoPro, but if you want the quality that is coming from a Canon 7D, you may wanna build your own rig. The good folks at DakaKin came up with a sweet tutorial on how to mount a DSLR on a helmet. The simple rig is made with a
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I know that usually this site is about more gear, but this post is about less gear. Michael Sasser of Sasser Stills uses nothing but good directing an assistant and one 5-in-1 reflector to produce gorgeous results in a senior portrait session. I know that I am totally stealing his cat walk move from 0:30 [via SLR Lounge | Fstoppers] read more
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Well, lets just say I've gotten better at this over the last couple of years. The left image was one of the first I've "scanned" with my DSLR, and the one on the right I've just rescanned using the techniques described below (higher resolution available here). Right now I can get higher resolution and better image quality that what street labs give
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If you are upset with the money it takes to buy new gear, the next 3 parts tutorial shows how to make a 1 Dollar camera. It is a 3 part video tutorial and there are written instructions on Money Origami Things here. Is it easy? heck no! rewarding? I guess. At least it only costs one dollar. read more
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I am not really sure what's going on in this video by Gramatik, but it seems that their bokeh experiment went out of control. Cinematographer Brad Hasse teamed up with artist Gramatik they built a story about an old guy seeing goblins in cityscape light. Those goblins eventually take over the city. Here is the nice part, Gramatik releases his
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If you are doing any extensive light painting work, especially if you are doing it alone, you know that one of the more annoying things about it is triggering your camera. You could always use the timer, or the intervalometer, but for more complex stuff timing of both the camera and starting the tools becomes harder and harder. Some cameras have an
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For the folks who don't have NASA on their RSS stream, this is a short announcement to remind about the upcoming Solar Eclipse on May 20. I thought it would be a good opportunity to share some tips about solar eclipse photography. read more
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I know the title says something about lighting modifiers, but after seeing the last installment of the slanted lens I figured I'd mess around with their timing and start the show where they make camera cookies. (did someone say mother's day?) Of course, they also pixel peep the heck out of photoflex Octadomes, and showing how to build several simple
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Alan Sailer likes to blow stuff up. And when I say blow stuff I mean the good old fashion way. With a canon, custom made air gap strobes and a dedicated controller. After spending a great deal of time on his flickr stream, I asked him a few questions. read more
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It is amazing what you can do with a little vision, even if you are pretty tied by budgetary constraints. Nate Powers and his team of students pushed their budget, and skills to the edge to create a low end (though high value) dancers bullet time shots. The challenges and work frame on this project were quite different from the ones described on a p
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A few weeks back I wrote about what rapid prototyping is doing to the traditional photography industry (well, any industry for that matter). So it was a nice surprise to see this printable micro 4/3 tilt shift lens project from Joe Murphy. It is based upon the popular plunger lenses from Bhautik Joshi but is more rigid and does not use a toilet acc
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One of the more interesting things to see in this era (aside a healthy big mac) is an ongoing synergy between light painting and rapid prototyping platforms like arduino and NXT Lego sets. The Lightplot, created by Ben Cowell-Thomas, is a light painting robot that started as an NXT experiment and evolved into a huge project involving a massive robot
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Today's 60 seconds video is short and sweet. We share a tip on how you can use your house keys to help you rid of annoying ambient sound when you record video at home. For our video, we used the Zoom H1, which is an entry level decent recorder, but this tip will apply for any recorder used. read more
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I always thought that the process of ND filter making is a pretty mechanical thing. That you would place a sheet of glass on one end of the machine, press a button and then a constant stream of ND filters would fall onto a conveyer belt. It turns out it is not so, that the process of filter making, at least at Lee filters is almost entirely manual.
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If you've done any light painting, you must know the Orb. Usually you create an orb by rotating a string with a light at the end while doing a little spin. Round? yes! Perfect? No! What if you wanted perfect? Hugo Baptista Took this to a whole new level by making his orbs with a drill attached to a Telescope mount. Here is his story about creating t
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Getting your camera to move while doing time-lapse movies is not a trivial thing. First you need to set a path for the camera to move in (like a slider, a dolly or a skateboard), then you need to make the camera move slowly, and lastly you need to get the camera to shoot at the right intervals (using an intervalometer). While there are plenty DIY s
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Hey guys, Benjamin "Von Wong" Montreal Based photographer here to write a quick article on what it's like to put together a Mass Photoshoot with two week deadline. [udi: Ben is leaving for a super awesome photography collaboration trip funded via indiegogo, if you like stuff like this, go and check it out] First off, what is a mass photoshoot? We
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Hey guys, Benjamin "Von Wong" Montreal Based photographer here to write a quick article on what it's like to put together a Mass Photoshoot with two week deadline. [udi: Ben is leaving for a super awesome photography collaboration trip funded via indiegogo, if you like stuff like this, go and check it out] First off, what is a mass photoshoot? We
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The Triggertrap mobile (and Triggertrap free) do something really simple and yet really clever. They connect your iPhone to your camera amd act as remote release devices. It's simple because cable releases are simple devices - they usually have two contacts: a focus contact and a release contact. Closing one contact will trigger the internal focus
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
The Triggertrap mobile (and Triggertrap free) do something really simple and yet really clever. They connect your iPhone to your camera amd act as remote release devices. It's simple because cable releases are simple devices - they usually have two contacts: a focus contact and a release contact. Closing one contact will trigger the internal focus
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Should you shoot RAW or JPG? Every photographer asks this at a certain point. The fine guys at SLR Lounge did something I love to do. the pixel peeped the hell out of a RAW and a JPG shot under the same conditions giving an in depth analisys on how jpg and raw files behave under every day use scenarios. The comparison takes images shot with a Canon
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Should you shoot RAW or JPG? Every photographer asks this at a certain point. The fine guys at SLR Lounge did something I love to do. the pixel peeped the hell out of a RAW and a JPG shot under the same conditions giving an in depth analisys on how jpg and raw files behave under every day use scenarios. The comparison takes images shot with a Canon
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Taking a 360 degrees panorama is a cool thing on its own, but taking a video-lapse takes it to a new level. Hugo Baptista created an interesting clip they call a panolapse. It is a combination between a timelapse and a panorama done by mounting a camera on a motorized Meade controller and taking a host every 5 minutes as the mount rotates for 90 min
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Taking a 360 degrees panorama is a cool thing on its own, but taking a video-lapse takes it to a new level. Hugo Baptista created an interesting clip they call a panolapse. It is a combination between a timelapse and a panorama done by mounting a camera on a motorized Mead controller and taking a host every 5 minutes as the mount rotates for 90 minu
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
A little while back we shared a video about creating CFL light fixures for video lights. It involved driling and sawing. Flaviu Leordeanu sent me this cool oncept that uses almost zero toolsd to get a similar effect. The following tutorial shows how to build a powerful “LightStrip” using CFLs. As seen in the picture below, the strip has 10 outle
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
A little while back we shared a video about creating CFL light fixures for video lights. It involved driling and sawing. Flaviu Leordeanu sent me this cool oncept that uses almost zero toolsd to get a similar effect. The following tutorial shows how to build a powerful “LightStrip” using CFLs. As seen in the picture below, the strip has 10 outle
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Just got this quick tip from photographer Andy Manis. It may seem trivial, but I love it nontheless. If any of you use the Paul C. Buff Vagabond Mini battery pack (definitely worth the money), here is an easy way to attach the pack to a light stand by using the strap that comes with the pack and some simple modifications. The pack comes with a spr
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Just got this quick tip from photographer Andy Manis. It may seem trivial, but I love it nontheless. If any of you use the Paul C. Buff Vagabond Mini battery pack (definitely worth the money), here is an easy way to attach the pack to a light stand by using the strap that comes with the pack and some simple modifications. The pack comes with a spr
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
Tamron, our awesome sponsor is giving DIYP readers a Tamron 18-270mm Di II VC PZD lens (value $649) . UPDATE: The giveaway is now over, scroll down to see who won te lens. It is a great all around lens with for both the wide end and the end the tele end. One of those lenses you would consider if you had to take only one lens to an unknown location.
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Tamron, our awesome sponsor is giving DIYP readers a Tamron 18-270mm Di II VC PZD lens (value $649) . It is a great all around lens with for both the wide end and the end the tele end. One of those lenses you would consider if you had to take only one lens to an unknown location. To enter the giveaway all you need to do is answer one simple question
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If you're tired from your "regular" snoot that does the job of aiming flagging light pretty well, but not really much more, photographer Peter Miesch has an interesting take on a non regular snoot. the Film Noir snoot is a telescopic snoot that has a built-in slot for GOBOs which create film noir effects. I suspect that its prime material is cereal
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
If you're tired from your "regular" snoot that does the job of aiming flagging light pretty well, but not really much more, photographer Peter Miesch has an interesting take on a non regular snoot. the Film Noir snoot is a telescopic snoot that has a built-in slot for GOBOs which create film noir effects. I suspect that its prime material is cereal
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
One of my favorite ways to shoot is with accented rim lights. And while I love the look this kind of light produces there is a bit of a trickery to setting those lights up. The reason is that back lights create flare. David Hobby came up with a pretty clever way to block flare generating lights using a frame made from coroplast (the same material
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
One of my favorite ways to shoot is with accented rim lights. And while I love the look this kind of light produces there is a bit of a trickery to setting those lights up. The reason is that back lights create flare. Up till today I used a two tiered solution that worked pretty well for me, but was not trivial in terms of setup times: If I am us
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
This story tells the tale of how Jolene Lupo shot her high speed spirit photograph. While some of the stuff is pretty specific, I love her holistic approach and the way both the concept and final image were built. this is how she describes it: read more
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This story tells the tale of how Jolene Lupo shot her high speed spirit photograph. While some of the stuff is pretty specific, I love her holistic approach and the way both the concept and final image were built. this is how she describes it: read more
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
A while back David Hobby had a post about fitting a monoblock with a cold shoe. I thought it was a pretty clever hack for mounting a pocket wizard on your strobe. It provided for a firmer, nicer strobe-to-pw attachment than the dangling lanyard mount that I use. Plus you got the bonus of better radio perception with the antenna being 100% upright.
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
A while back David Hobby had a post about fitting a monoblock with a cold shoe. I thought it was a pretty clever hack for mounting a pocket wizard on your strobe. It provided for a firmer, nicer strobe-to-pw attachment than the dangling lanyard mount that I use. Plus you got the bonus of better radio perception with the antenna being 100% upright.
| DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting | DIY Photography |
If you like that cross processed look that you get with using instagram, but would rather to use a DSLR to shoot rather than the iPhone, the guys over at SLR Lounge has a sweet video tutorial for you. The video covers how to use the Lightroom curves tool to get a cross-processed vintage look on an image. read more
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