Check out this mummified camera used by Reuters photographer Jo Yong-Hak. Yong-Hak was assigned to cover the popular Boryeong Mud Festival this year in South Korea, and decided to protect his gear with some good ol’ fashioned plastic wrap.
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Time-lapse enthusiast and electronics wiz Achim Sack came up with this super-small hardware-based intervalometer. Only a little larger than the size of a standard 2.5mm stereo plug, the device doesn’t require any special setup or configuration — all you do is plug it into your Canon/Nikon/Pentax DSLR and then take two photographs between 0.4 seconds and 18 minutes apart. The device will continue to shoot photos at that interval until the memory card is full or the battery dies. Sadly, it’s not for sale, but if you’re handy with electronics you can find the schematics and code for free on Sack’s website.

Intervall Timer for Nikon und Canon DSLR v2 (via Hack a Day)

Editor’s note: The guest author of this DIY tutorial, Vadim Gordin, is also selling DIY kits and ready-made Lens Loop slings for $15 and $25, respectively. You can find the project over on Kickstarter.

Here’s a DIY camera strap I came up with 2 years ago and have been steadily revising as I use it while traveling and shooting all over the country. The design is simpler, more comfortable, and more attractive than any of the other commercially available slings. I hope that by sharing my design here, I can generate interest in my project and help DIYers make a great camera sling on their first try.
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Ryan Burnside recently set out to find a cheap way to shoot 360-degree panoramas of scenes, and discovered that shooting a Christmas ornament (or any other spherical reflection) captures all the information needed — all that’s needed is a way to “unravel” the spherical image. Burnside found that the free image editor GIMP can do the trick.
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For part of his MA in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Brendan Corrigan visited car boot sales — a kind of market where people sell things out of their trunks — and purchased old cameras for about the price of a roll of film. He then had the used film inside each camera developed, publishing the photos online alongside the cameras they were found in (along with the price he paid for the camera). His project is called “Make me an offer“.
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In the market for a cheap compact camera? Amazon’s Gold Box deal of the day today is a Canon A490 for $50. Be sure to also grab the free Lowepro case if you decide to buy.

Canon PowerShot A490 (via Photography Bay)

Update: There’s also an amazing deal for a Canon SD1300 over at Radioshack. The $180 camera is currently priced at $70!

If you need a cheap way to bounce some light, don’t want to spend a wad of cash on a real reflector from a camera shop, and don’t want to take the time to make a cardboard and aluminum foil reflector, you can buy a cheap car sun shade (less than $10 at Walmart) as a cheap reflector. They’re lightweight, foldable, and reflect light well — just make sure the reflective surface is white or silver.

Image credit: diy reflectors by damon.hair and used with permission

Photographer Adrian Onsen wanted to use the AI Servo autofocus mode on his Canon 40D in low-light situations, but found that the AF assist beam is only emitted once until focus is achieved rather than every time the camera needs to refocus. He then purchased a laser pointer from a dollar store, disassembled it to obtain a defocused beam of light, and attached it to the top of his camera. The hacked-together AF assist tool ended up working pretty well — Onsen was able to shoot sharper photos at a dance club without anyone noticing the extra light. To learn more check out his in-depth writeup here.

AF Assist tool (via Hack a Day)

Reflector mounts (the things that attach a reflector to your bike) are so cheap that bike shops often give them away for free. Add a standard tripod screw, some washers, and some wing nuts, and you’ll have a super cheap camera mount that you can attach to a bicycle (it’s also a way to attach a camera to some random pole if you need to). You can also find a text version of this tutorial over on Instructables.

Here’s another quick tutorial by Destin, the guy who helped popularize using chickens as a cheap Steadicam alternative. It was made on an airplane flight when he wanted to shoot some photographs of the ice forming outside his window. If you’re ever in a situation where you want to shoot a macro photo but don’t have a macro lens, try flipping your lens around for a cheap and easy macro photography solution.
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