Lens hoods can become loose over time, leading to annoying rattling sounds or problematic vignetting if the hood rotates into your shots. Instead of buying a replacement hood, you can apply a quick fix using a little tape or glue. Simply cover the threads with a few layers of tape or a few dabs of non-permanent glue (be sure to wait until it dries). The extra material around the threads should help the lens hood to secure much more tightly to your lens.
To promote its new Xperia phones, Sony hosted a three-day hackathon on a boat to see what creative innovations people could come up with. One of the hackers decided to make a flamethrower-style flash (seen at 2:26), triggering a gas flame to flare whenever a photograph is taken with the phone. Maybe this’ll start a fire-lighting trend in professional photo studios…
We shared a couple weeks ago that it’s possible to scan film using an ordinary flatbed scanner and a DIY cardboard adapter, but did you know you can also use a large-screen cell phone or tablet computer to provide the necessary backlighting? All you need is a way to turn a large portion of the screen entirely white (e.g. a “flashlight” app). Simply place the device facedown over the film on the scanner, and scan it with the cover open. Read more…
Redscale is a technique where film is exposed on the wrong side — rather than having the light hit the emulsion directly, you expose the film through the non-sensitive side.
The name “redscale” comes because there is a strong color shift to red due to the red-sensitive layer of the film being exposed first, rather than last (the red layer is normally the bottom layer in C-41 (color print) film). All layers are sensitive to blue light, so normally the blue layer is on top, followed by a filter. In this technique, blue light exposes the layers containing red and green dyes, but the layer containing blue dye is left unexposed due to the filter. [#]
The two main ways for doing this are loading the film upside down (if your camera allows it), or by purchasing film that has been “converted” already. A third way is to make DIY redscale film by going into a darkroom, pulling out the film, cutting it, flipping it, taping it back together, and then winding it back into the canister. Messy, but it works! Read more…
Flickr user Steve Kushnir came up with this neat idea of building a cheap DIY diffuser using a Pringles can, two layers of paper towels, and some rubber bands. He attached it to his Nikon D5000′s popup flash and uses it for macro photographs of creepy crawlies. Read more…
Claire Chauvin over at Poopscape has a fun project for those of you who have useless 35mm negatives that are lying around and waiting to be tossed. All you need is a cheap and simple lamp (Chauvin used a $7 Ikea Grönö lamp) and some glue (e.g. Mod Podge). Carefully glue the strips onto the lamp and you’ll have yourself a unique, personalized lamp that’ll liven up any room in your house!
IT consultant and photo enthusiast Viktor Takacs didn’t have much success when he tried capturing lightning on camera, so he decided to build this fancy do-it-yourself trigger (which he named “Zeus”) that automatically snaps a photo whenever the photodiode detects a flash of lightning. He even built a knob into the device that can be used to adjust sensitivity. The demo above shows the trigger reacting to manually triggered flashes from a strobe.
Takacs has a detailed post that walks through how he created the device. You can also email him for the code used by the microcontroller.
Have an older camera that doesn’t have a built-in light meter? Instead of buying an expensive light meter, you can download the Pocket Light Meter app for free if you have an iPhone. What’s more, you can even mount it to your camera’s hot shoe if you don’t mind looking uber-geeky while shooting. Nigel over at phototinker wrote a tutorial for creating the iPhone hot shoe holder shown above.
Cinematographer James Miller spent two years developing a technique for converting 8mm footage to digital by beaming it directly onto the sensor of a Canon 5D Mark II. He replaced the bulb on an old projector with LED lights, and used elements from a disassembled lens to focus the light. You can read a step-by-step walkthrough of this project here. Read more…
If you’re looking to buy used camera gear on sites like eBay or Craigslist, a trick you can use to find a good deals is to search for listings that contain spelling mistakes that keep most people from finding them (e.g. “Canom” instead of “Canon”, or “Mikon” instead of “Nikon”). With less exposure — and therefore less competition — you may be able to win the auctions at far below the item’s value.
Obviously searching for various typos by hand isn’t very efficient, so there’s special typo search engines designed to do the hard work for you. A few that you might want to try out are: FatFingers, TypoHound, TypoBay, and TypoBuddy.
