Sometimes, you’re forced to work with what you’ve got, even if that means just the flashlight on your phone. In this 10-minute video, you’ll learn 5 ways to light portraits using just a phone flashlight.
Did you know that you can buy AmazonBasics-branded batteries for certain Canon and Nikon cameras on Amazon? They're significantly cheaper than their Canon and Nikon-branded counterparts.
If you've been in the market for a high-quality photo printer, there's a killer deal going on right now just for you. You can currently get the popular Canon PIXMA PRO-100 with a 50-pack of Canon 13x19-inch photo paper for $60. That's about 87% off the total retail price of $470.
After discovering retouching services being offered on Fiverr, the popular platform that lets freelancers offer ultra-cheap services, photographer Irene Rudnyk recently decided to conduct an experiment to see what kind of results you can get for $10 and less.
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.
Want a cheap and easy way to white balance photos without having to buy a color checker or special cards? Here's a neat hack: you can actually use ordinary white plumber's tape -- the kind you use to seal pipe threads.
After seeing photographer Skyler Burt's experiments with lighting food photos using a cheap work light, photographer Jessica Kobeissi recently purchased that same $20 light from Home Depot for an experimental portrait shoot.
My family and I recently moved back up to North Carolina. It feels so good to be back in the place we feel is home to us. Now surrounded again by all this State’s natural beauty and wildlife, I’ve had quite the itch to ramp up my efforts in bird photography that began down in Florida.
A truly mass-market (and widely adopted) at-home automatic film processing machine has yet to appear in the world of photography. Photographer Mark Webb didn't want to wait around for one to show up, so he cobbled together one with his hardware and software knowledge. It's called the Developist.
How does a $20 work light from a hardware store compare to a $900 studio strobe when it comes to food photography? Photographer Skyler Burt of We Eat Together recently decided to find out. He pitted a HDX 500w halogen work light against a $900 Elinchrom Pro HD 500W monolight.
Here's a 6-minute educational video by Shutterstock in which filmmaker Todd Blankenship discusses the basics of diffusing light and introduces three cheap options for doing so... including a $5 shower curtain.
Professional portrait backdrops can cost over $1,000 apiece. If you'd like to get creative without getting broke, photographer Jessica Kobeissi has a thrifty DIY idea for you in this 4.5-minute video. She shows how you can create a custom backdrop using less than $5 in materials purchased from your local dollar store.
Lighting equipment can be expensive, but sometimes you can get great results using makeshift products that won't put a dent in your wallet. Here's a 15-minute video from Dustin Dolby of workphlo that looks at how you can shoot high-quality product photos using something as basic as an IKEA MELODI lampshade.
In addition to announcing the entry-level Rebel T7 this week, Canon also announced its new EOS 4000D DSLR over in Europe. When the camera is official in the United States, it might become the cheapest DSLR ever launched.
Matteo Bertoli is known for shooting cinematic 4K videos with the latest smartphones and apps to hit the market. But for his latest project, he decided to use the cheapest smartphone he could fine: a $32 used iPhone 3GS from 2009. This 2-minute video is what resulted.
Want to get started with lighting your portraits with an off-camera flash but don't want to break the bank in the process? Photographer Francisco Hernandez made this 10-minute video that shows what you can do with a basic cheap lighting setup.
How much of a difference is there between using an expensive high-end lighting setup and shooting the same portraits with cheaper gear? Photographer Patrick Hall of Fstoppers made this illuminating 9.5-minute video that compares a $10,000 studio lighting setup with a $425 option. Can you tell the difference between the resulting photos?
I love DIY props and big scenes in photography that are well designed. Not many of us photographers have the place or money to create our own stages so I wanted to challenge myself to make one in our living room with a very low budget.
I bought this "digital" camera last summer. I saw it on a table at a boot sale (if you're American, that's a bit like a yard sale). As I picked it, up the seller snapped: "£4. Screen is broken. Won't turn on."
There will soon be a new option for people looking for an affordable ultra-wide-angle lens. Yongnuo is reportedly set to launch a 14mm f/2.8 lens with autofocus capabilities.
There is an almost endless supply of lighting modifiers available on the market right now, some are cheap and some of the better ones are certainly a lot more expensive. But does cost directly relate to quality? Well, a lot of the time yes it does if you're referring to build quality.
The Sainsonic Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 is a lens you can buy for just $170 for mirrorless cameras (Sony E, Canon EOS-M, Micro Four Thirds, and Fujifilm X) that delivers some beautiful bokeh. Here's a 10-minute video by Kai Wong that shows what this lens can do.
Cameras and lenses are expensive. Really expensive. Even the cheapest entry-level DSLR kit today costs $500 or more. But what if you buy the cheapest possible used DSLR? A camera that's over 10 years old? How would it stack up against today's modern cameras? I was curious about this, so I decided to find out for myself.
Travelers like to visit Thailand for cheap foods, medical procedures, and... other less wholesome reasons. One thing people often overlook, however, is the repair services. In Thailand, you can almost always repair any gadget for a very reasonable price. This especially applies to Sony cameras that are made in Thailand. In this post, I’ll explain the process so that you can repair your gadgets and bring them back to life.
IRIS is a new photo booth that's designed to shoot "professional" portraits of professionals for only $20. Instead of looking like typical photo book snapshots, the portraits are supposed to look like they were shot by a headshot photographer with studio lighting.
Last year, I bought a macro lens for the summer. Just a normal one with 1x magnification. I fell into a beautiful and mesmerizing world of minuscule flowers and bugs. I found that in macro photography, you don't have to travel to beautiful places to take beautiful photos -- you can just walk around in your backyard, and discover a whole new world.
Did you know that Amazon sells a $28 flash for Canon and Nikon DSLRs under its in-house brand AmazonBasics? If you've wanted to try your hand at using a flash without investing too much money at first, this one is an option you may want to consider.
High-end photo backdrops can cost over $1,000 apiece. When photographer Jeremy Cowart couldn't find a backdrop he needed a few days ago, he had an idea: Cowart drew his own backdrop on an iPad Pro and printed it out at 40x80 inches on a $4,000 professional Canon printer.
If you're a Nikon F-mount user, the Chinese lens manufacturer Yongnuo has two new lenses headed your way. The first is a small 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens, and the second is a 100mm f/2.
Here's a 4-minute video by French photographer Duncan Dimanche in which he looks into the lightest and cheapest full-frame camera kits available on the market.