Want a cheap way of shooting right under the surface of water without having to buy a special housing for your camera? Alex over at I did a thing recently built himself a PVC periscope-style device for a total cost of around $10, and the results are great.
When low-quality photos or videos are posted online, people often say that they were shot with a "potato camera." But if you actually want to shoot photos with a literal potato camera, how would you go about doing so?
Thinking of putting together a professional photo portfolio as a high-impact way of sharing your work with potential clients? Check out this informative and inspiring 5-minute video by photographer Caleb Kerr, who recently built a portfolio of his own and put together a helpful walkthrough for anyone interested in doing the same.
Polaroid cameras are fun to use, but shooting high numbers of instant photos can get very expensive very quickly. Tim Alex Jacobs, known as mitxela online, recently solved this problem by modifying a standard Polaroid camera into an instant camera that prints photos on thermal paper (the kind used for receipts).
Hobbyist photographer and Twitter product designer Paul Stamatiou recently decided that his 2-year-old iMac was no longer up to the task of handling his high-res RAW photos in Lightroom. Instead of shelling out $13,199 or $7,128 for a fully loaded iMac Pro or Mac Pro, Stamatiou decided to switch to Windows and build himself a custom Lightroom photo-editing monster.
Looking to make your own DIY overhead camera rig? Well, look no further - here is a 9-minute tutorial from photographer and YouTube star Peter McKinnon that shows you how to do just that.
If you're looking for a cheaper alternative to Lightroom for managing and processing your raw photos, there's some good news: the free and open source software darktable is now finally available for Windows users.
Here's a 2-minute tutorial overview from Circuito that will show you how to make your own automated turntable for photography. With the ability to start, stop, and trigger the camera all by itself, this turntable is great for people looking for a streamlined product photo workflow.
A few days ago, my girlfriend, Victoria was trying to take some photos of a bridesmaid gift she received the night before. She was trying to take these images on her phone and was not having any success. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she gave into my suggestion of taking these photos on her X-T10.
Do you enjoy making your own lighting gear instead of spending hefty fees for commercial products? Here's a 10-minute tutorial by photography instructor Joe Edelman on how to build and use your own strip light modifier for under $25.
Here’s a quick DIY video from Kyle Martin on how to create an extremely powerful suction mount for your GoPro instead of buying GoPro's $40 suction mount. The video is 6 minutes and will show you how to create the mount for around $20 in materials.
Shooting film is fun and developing film is fun, but tediously scanning film is not fun... so I built myself a film-digitizing light box to be used with a flash and a 1:1 macro lens.
"Camera obscura" refers to a device for viewing an image that makes use of the principles of pinhole imagery, and is usually made with a box of sorts. It's this that was eventually turned into the first pinhole camera - and now you can make your own!
Mounting a monitor on your DSLR usually means using an articulating ball mount, which is fiddly and impossible to adjust with one hand. Caleb Pike shows how to build a freely adjustable mount using GoPro parts in this 5 minute video.
In this 8-minute video by Macroscope Pictures, learn how to build a color changing wand light with your own two hands for only $30 in materials. For an extra 15 bucks, you can add a Wi-Fi controller and control the finished product with your phone.
I needed a monitor hood for quite some time but wasn't willing to pay the retail prices charged for them, so I decided to build one myself. In this tutorial I'll show you how to build your own DIY monitor hood for less than $12.
Are you stressed? What better way to de-stress is there than to break things while making cool photographs at the same time? You can break anything, from spaghetti to fancy glassware, there is no limit. It will take you about half an hour to build the Arduino circuit and write the code for this sound triggering photographic system.
There are a ton of options out there for building your own product photography lightbox, but this is one of the simplest and most functional creations we've seen. For under $50, you can build it for yourself.
Fine art photographer Nicky Hamilton just completed an impressive photo series titled "The Lonely Man." Each photo in the project took him an average of 3 months to sketch, build, light, and shoot.
If you enjoy seeing experimental photo projects and unique homemade cameras, check out this "Straw Camera." It was created by filling a wooden box with 32,000 drinking straws for light to pass through.
Want to shoot soft focus photos without shelling out money for a specialty lens (like a Lensbaby)? You can build your own soft focus lens to play around with for about $15.
If you've done research into underwater housing, you'll know how expensive they can be. In some instances, they cost more than the camera. Certainly, when you pay the premium price you're also purchasing assurance, functionality, size, etc. However, rebel that I am, I didn't want to pay the premium, so I built my own.
When photographer Ben Money got back in to film photography a couple of years ago, he decided to set up a dedicated darkroom station for himself at home. But because he didn't have a permanent room to use, he ended up create a self-contained rolling darkroom that takes up just 5-square-feet of space in his garage when collapsed.
Advanced camera stabilizers are becoming cheaper and cheaper these days, but if you're the type of person who enjoys building the things you use, here's a neat tutorial for you. Product Tank released a 7-minute video showing how you can create a DIY stabilizer using LEGO pieces.
Flickr generated a lot of bad feelings back in March 2016 by making its Auto-Uploadr app a Pro-only feature. If you're not Pro but would still like the convenience of automatically uploading new photos, you can build a custom gadget that does it for you.
Looking for a weekend project and have some hardware and software skills? Try building yourself an instant camera using Rapsberry Pi and a thermal receipt printer.
Below is a walk through of how I created ONE image for my portfolio, I will add some of the other images, but I don't have them in my portfolio. This is because this was the start of a series of images and I had set out to come out with only one from each shoot.
Want to add some flexible LED panels to your lighting kit without breaking the bank? This 19-minute video tutorial by DIY Perks is for you. It's a step-by-step guide on how you can assemble your own LED panel for about $60 by buying high CRI LED strip lights (~$25), a PWM LED dimmer (~$8), an articulating DSLR camera arm (~$18), some faux leather for the backing, some wiring and a solder gun.
While sitting in a coffee shop last Friday, I really didn’t want to answer any more emails so I went to a bar instead, ordered a pint and sketched out a bit of a doodle for a big camera. I then called my buddy Zach who shares my open schedule and vague ability with power tools, and he stopped by my studio an hour later.
I explained what I wanted to do and showed him my napkin doodle. I think his reaction was something along the lines of “I have no idea what you’re talking about... but sure”. So we went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of wood and some screws.
New York City-based editorial and commercial portrait photographer Felix Kunze says that the number one question he gets asked by people is how he makes his V-Flats for studio portraiture. He answers that question in the 8.5-minute video above, a step-by-step walkthrough of his build process.