It looks like Canon is looking to move some inventory -- or at the very least score some brownie points with its users -- because over the weekend, Canon announced a new permanent price drop on a vast selection of lenses, with discounts ranging from 5% to 33% off.
The Cheap Camera Challenge is back, showing us once more that it takes creativity, not expensive gear, to create an interesting photograph. Pairing a cheap camera with a professional photographer, this episode puts a modest Vivitar camera into the hands of commercial and fine art photographer Harold de Puymorin.
Want to make some great photos but don’t have or don’t want to spend a lot of money? A few days ago I posted photo of a Hummingbird on my Facebook page I took with a new Nikon D810 and a 85mm 1.8. I received a comment asking me “how much money do you spend on your equipment to get a shot like this?” Others comment from time to time that they’d love to get into photography but don’t have the money.
So, I thought, how close can I come to some of the shots I get with my Nikon D600 and the D810 with a really cheap used DSLR? The personal challenge began.
While GoPros are made to shoot underwater (within the confines of their housing – that is – they aren’t exactly made to float, if by some chance you happen to drop your camera while filming underwater.
Of course, there are third party solutions out there to prevent this from happening, but they’re often a bit pricy. Thus, here to ensure that your camera doesn’t sink into the abyss on the cheap is a little DIY bottle mount from Youtube Channel Wandering Designers.
Not a particularly exciting release, but a camera release nonetheless, Canon earlier today debuted the PowerShot SX520 HS and PowerShot SX400 IS: two new affordable superzooms that will get you really close to the action without emptying your wallet.
Just picked up a DJI Phantom but don't have the cash to drop on an expensive gimbal to keep your shots steady and level? Well, it turns out $10 will get you at least half-way there and keep the 'jello effect' and blur out of the videos and photos you plan to go out and capture.
The steadicam has become a staple in the cinematography industry. The problem more often than not, though, is that not a lot of people can afford one.
And so, since production models range in price from a several hundred to a several thousand, a number of tool-savvy people have set out to create their own DIY options. One such example is this extremely solid and good-looking creation by Instructables user and photographer survival434
There are a ton of posts that’ll have you scared to take a DSLR to a color festival or run. I want to share my own color-proof seal for the Holi Festival of Colors in Utah that managed to keep my DSLR completely clean for under $15.
If you’re looking to get more out of your smartphone’s camera with minimal financial investment, look no further. Kai and the DRTV team have created a short little video that goes over ten cheap, clever tricks that'll help you get the most of your mobile photography.
Kai specifically uses an iPhone throughout the video, but a number of these tricks can be used on any mobile device.
Photography can be an expensive hobby to get into. With most DSLRs nowadays coming in at around $400 for even the lowest of consumer level cameras. By the time you add in accessories, the financial aspect can be a bit demanding for a newbie.
But just because it can be financially demanding doesn’t mean it has to be, as our friendly neighborhood DRTV stars explain in the useful video above.
Yesterday evening, Pye Jirsa over on SLR Lounge shared an interesting and informative video about how he’s managed to incorporate a small army of LED camping lights into his photography workflow to great effect.
Get out your Easy Bake Ovens and your polydimethylsiloxane, it’s time to make some lenses. Okay, okay... so it’s not that easy. But researchers at an Australian University have developed a new way to make extremely inexpensive, high-quality lenses by using nothing more than droplets of a transparent silicon and an oven to cure said droplets in.
We all know that almost any smartphone nowadays can hold its own against a proper camera when given to a real photographer with the proper setup. But is it possible for a smartphone to go head-to-head with the likes of a Hasselblad?
In a perfect world, we'd all have the studio of our dreams, and it would be filled with all of the best of gear. Unfortunately, we don't live in such a world, and more often than not we're constrained by a (sometimes very tight) budget.
Here to help overcome that challenge is Jay P. Morgan of The Slanted Lens, who has put together a video that shows just how easy it can be to build a very viable studio out of fairly cheap materials/products in a spare bedroom.
Getting your own commercial camera slider can get a bit pricey, but thanks to Derek Mellott and this great Instructables tutorial, you can build your very own DIY slider in about an hour using only $30 worth of parts from IKEA and a bit of DIY know-how!
If you're just getting into studio photography, trying to figure out how to light, shoot and set up your shots can be both frustrating and expensive. After all, if you're trying to take high-quality studio shots, you need high end strobes and all sorts of other gear, right?
Maybe not. Of course high end equipment helps, but in the video above, photographer Alex Koloskov of Photigy shows you how you can light studio still life shots using a few $30 dimmable LED bulbs instead of strobes.
A while ago, we read an article about how gear doesn’t matter on PetaPixel, while at the same time planning a shoot that would involve a Hot Rod. Inspired by the post, we said, "Let’s do it with a Canon 550D and a cheap lens instead of the Nikon D800," because we really believe that all the latest cameras are quite good, and gear doesn't always matter anyway.
We were introduced to the “Ghetto-Flo” lights after reading the excellent blog of New York-based photographer Brad Trent. He had mounted 4 standard workshop fluorescent light fixtures into light-stand mountable strip lights. “Ghetto-Flo” because they're similar in use to the much more expensive Kino-Flo lights, though there are advantages to the later (variable power and output).
Want to make some business cards for your photography business that stand out from among traditional cards? Try making some in the style of 35mm film slides. Last week we shared photographer Lars Swanson's beautiful slide cards, and this week we have a step-by-step look at how you can make something similar.
If you're interested in making a positive impression on potential clients, but you don't have the funds to spend on printing high-end branded materials, Minnesota-based photographer Lars Swanson's approach might interest you.
When he found himself in need of affordable promotional materials, he decided to work with Samuel J Soulek's creative studio Soulseven to create unique business cards and direct mail holders using
The Magic Lantern team deserve some sort of award ... or a ribbon ... or at the very least a hug. That's because, lately, they've been making ground-breaking RAW video announcements almost weekly. From the very beginning of the story -- when they discovered a RAW DNG output in live view -- to the breakthrough when they began pulling in that stream at 24fps and full 1080p HD, it's been nothing but good news out of the Magic Lantern camp.
But get ready, because the celebration is only just beginning. Before now, taking advantage of Magic Lantern's RAW video capability would have required you to have a 5D Mark III or II, but EOSHD forum user Julian Huijbregts has demonstrated that the same is now possible out of Canon's 5-Year-Old $500 50D!
Want to shoot insanely cool Matrix-style "bullet time" footage at home? You can do so with a single rig built out of relatively cheap components.
NASA spaceship engineer Mark Rober came up with a brilliant way to shoot eye-popping imagery using just a GoPro camera and a cheap ceiling fan.
Wireless connectivity is one of the hot features in the camera world these days, and many (if not most) new cameras either have built-in wireless connectivity or an optional wireless adapter that provides the feature. Unfortunately, the wireless adapters are often quite pricey, especially for higher-end cameras.
Here's something neat that you might be interested in knowing if you shoot with a Canon 1D X: you can connect a cheap WiFi adapter designed for homes and offices to give your camera wireless tethering!
Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how you can make a pretty nice flash diffuser for your macro setup for just a little time and a little money.
Big focal length usually translates into big money. If you don't have thousands to spend on a high-quality far-reaching super-telephoto lens, the fine folks over at Screaming Tree Films came up with this 800mm Frankenlens that'll only make your wallet around $100 lighter (as opposed to thousands).
Olympus isn't the only camera company toying around with the concept of cheap body cap lenses. At the CP+ show in Japan, Pentax took the wraps off a body cap lens of its own for its Q system line of mirrorless cameras. Officially called the "Mount Cap Lens," the accessory is a pint-sized hyper-focal lens that will reportedly produce toy-camera-style photographs.
Businesses aimed at dealing with an increasingly digital photography world are popping up all the time. Beyond just retro photography apps and lo-fi attachments that make it seem like you're shooting with an old camera, the problem now becomes how to prevent those photos from disappearing into binary oblivion.
Polaroid has a solution on the way, and you could always print them yourself, but if you want to get smartphone prints made and sent off right now on the cheap, Flicpost may be your best bet.
Give James Bond, Jack Bauer or Chuck Norris a spork, and they'll figure out a way to overpower bad guys wielding guns. What happens when you give a seasoned photographer a cheap digital camera designed for toddlers?
That's what Kai Wong and DigitalRev did recently. They flew in David Hobby of Strobist and gave him a 2-megapixel Buzz Lightyear camera and three cheapo flash units. Hobby was then tasked with shooting 5 challenges in 5 locations of 5 subjects, using his resourcefulness to make the best images he could with the uber-low-end gear.
Remote shutter release cables are extremely simple devices, but they can cost quite a bit if you buy the official accessories sold by major camera manufacturers. Instructables user nk dtk has an awesome makeshift alternative that's dirt cheap: all you'll need is a cable and a can of soda!
If you've recently purchased a Nikon D600 at its standard body-only retail price of $2,000, you might want to stop reading this post lest you suddenly find yourself filled with manufacturer-induced buyers remorse. If you're a budget-conscious photographer in the market for a new full-frame DSLR, today might be your lucky day.
Nikon has launched a brand-wide fire sale of the Nikon D600. While the body-only price hasn't changed, retailers around the web are selling the camera with a bundled lens and pricey accessories for the same price as the body itself.