Do It Yourself

Sometimes, the best products are the ones you make yourself. PetaPixel is your guide to custom lenses, handmade camera rigs, custom-coded artificial intelligence cameras, and the 3D-printed parts that makes photography truly personal.
A portrait of a woman in front of a piece of cardboard with holes in it.

How to Recycle Cardboard Into a Creative Photography Backdrop

It's no secret that most photography equipment is expensive and typically highly specialized. But that doesn't always need to be the case. In the above video from Adorama, photographer Gavin Hoey walks viewers through how to create studio portraits using a simple sheet of cardboard and some studio lights.

M5Stack Fire components are part of the Filmolino SlideScanner

DIY Filmolino SlideScanner is Open Source and Automates Slide Scanning

Slide scanning can be a tedious endeavor with lots of manual work, but Filmolino aims to change that. The Filmolino SlideScanner is an open-source scanner that uses relatively simple components and automates the process, resulting in faster, easier scanning.

How to Make a DIY Digital Pinhole Camera with a Body Cap

I was interested in seeing how well a pinhole would work on a small sensor (APS-C) DSLR so I decided to give it a try. All I needed to do was to drill a hole in the spare body cap, darken a piece of aluminum foil with a permanent marker, punch a small hole in it, and then tape it to the front of the body cap.

How to Make Your Own Instant Film

A decade ago, I stumbled upon a page where someone detailed their process for crafting their own instant film, something similar to Polaroid Type55 or the New55. At that time, the instructions seemed too complex for me to tackle, and I never ventured into the world of instant film creation.

Wax Paper Photography: Getting the Large Format Look With a $300 Soviet Camera

Anyone who has trawled through a historic photo archive knows the feeling of spotting a large-format photo. Like spotting a beautiful woman in a crowd, it’s hard to drag your eyes away. That depth and clarity, which seems to top reality itself, has only ever been possible with a film plane measured in inches rather than millimeters.

Game Boy Camera without the Game Boy

This DIY Game Boy Camera Ditches the Game Boy, Keeps the Camera

The Nintendo Game Boy Camera holds a special place in the hearts of many photographers and gamers. It is an iconic part of photography history and was the first digital camera that many people owned when it hit store shelves in 1998 for about $50. Among the Game Boy Camera's numerous limitations is that it requires a Nintendo Game Boy, although builder Raphael Boichot has something to say about that with his Dashboy Camera project.

How to Record Electrical Discharges with a Digital Camera

The recording of the patterns made by static electricity date back to the invention of the technique in 1777 by Georg Lichtenberg. Since he was the first to observe the patterns they are referred to as Lichtenberg figures.