Design Lovefest has a tutorial on how you can make a custom-designed camera strap using 1 1/2-inch natural cotton webbing and acrylic craft paint.

Make It Camera Strap (via Craftzine)

Even if you have a good command of using f-stop numbers and properly exposing photographs, you might not understand the math behind why f-stop numbers are what they are. Here’s a simple (albeit math-filled) explanation by Dylan Bennett of what f-stop is, including a simple trick you can use to memorize the f-stop scale.

Here’s a tutorial by skateboarding photographer Michael Burnett in which he discusses various composition tips and techniques. His area of expertise is in shooting skateboarders, but the tips are very applicable for other types of photography as well.
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Vimeo has partnered up with Nikon for a new educational video series titled Do More With Your DSLR. The first video is about “working with available light”, and is geared towards beginners who are just starting to figure out how to use their DSLR camera. You can find a more in-depth discussion of the concepts in the video (e.g. exposure, white balance, ISO) in this article.

Here’s a tutorial by photographer Joe Edelman that teaches how you can build a studio lighting setup with fluorescent lights for under $200. You can find a detailed parts list over in the description of the video on YouTube.
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If you want an extra personal touch at birthday parties, you can turn portraits of the birthday boy or girl into picture perfect party hats! Simply print out a portrait using a special template, turn it into a cone, add some fringe, and you’re done. Eden over at Sugar and Charm has the low down.

Picture Perfect Party Hats (via Craftzine)

Not too long ago I finally got around to picking up a decent manual flash for exploring lighting and speedlight techniques. I picked up a Yongnuo YN-560 Speedlight Flash for Canon and Nikon, and my friend Sean was kind enough to send me his old radio triggers to play with. I was mostly all set to start exploring the world of off-camera lighting…
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Here’s a nifty Photoshop tip by photographer Alex Wise on how you can use a Threshold layer to approximate black and white points in a photograph, and then use those points in the Curves tool to remove color casts from photos.

Last week we featured some “sound painting” photographs by Martin Klimas, captured by using a speaker to vibrate paint. Here’s a video tutorial by some Arizona State University Polytechnic students demonstrating how you can do your own “sound painting” photos. They use a thrift store speaker covered with a garbage bag and some Crayola poster paint.

(via ISO 1200)

Photo enthusiast Mike Gerdau wanted to play around with bokeh shapes but didn’t want to create a separate “lens cap” for each shape. His solution was to separate the shapes from the cap itself, cutting the shapes into 45x45mm squares that swap in and out of the cap easily. The “slides” can be neatly stored away inside a white plastic Game Boy cartridge case when not in use.

DIY: Circle of Confusion Shape Modifier (via Lifehacker)