Eddie had a hard time finding a camera strap he liked, so he decided to make his own in the style of some rifle slings he found online. The slings were weaved together using 550 Paracord (parachute cord), which has a breaking weight of 550 pounds. He found some for sale for $7 at his local army-navy store, and weaved together his own rugged DIY camera strap.
Our camera stickers are fun, but for something more personal you can make your own 35mm film stickers. All you need is a sticker making machine that usually costs between $10-$20 online or in your local craft store. You can use any film you'd like, though slide film is recommended because it'll give you positive image stickers. With film manufacturers struggling, any reason to buy more film is a good reason! …
Here's another helpful step-by-step guide teaching how to develop B&W film (in this case it's Agfa APX 100) using powered coffee and vitamin C (AKA "caffenol"). You can also download a text version of the process here.
John (AKA knife141) loves turning junk into unusual creations, and one day came up with idea of building a camera for the sole purpose of confusing strangers. He took a $15 digicam and transformed it into a Argus C3 from the mid-1900s: …
Graphic designer Ksenia Podgornaya makes and sells these nifty Polaroid camera greeting cards that feature an original watercolor illustration printed on 100lb satin paper.
Videographer Joel Loukus created a continuous ring light source -- which he calls the "WreathLight" -- using a wreath frame and two strings of Christmas lights. The total cost came out to $24. It's a cheap and easy way of adding some soft lighting to your portraits.
Here's a quick and easy photo hack: cut a slice out of a white film canister to soften the light from your DSLR's built-in flash.
Photographer Joseph Nienstedt was at a grocery store recently when he spotted a $4 plastic flask that reminded him of a curved light modifier he had seen before. After buying it and transforming it into a diffuser using a razor, Nienstedt discovered that it provided softer light than his Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce due to the 5x larger surface area. While it's not a very respectable look for a professional environment, using a plastic bottle as a DIY diffuser could be an option if you're in a pinch or …
For her husband's 40th birthday, Jen had the idea of turning an old, unwanted globe into a unique photo gift showing "his world". She printed photographs onto white tissue paper, and then adhered the photographs to the globe using Mod Podge. Head on over to her site for a step-by-step walkthrough.
Needing a portable light box, Instructables member HHarry came up with a ingenious collapsible design that has built-in lighting. He's also written up a tutorial on how you can build one too, but be warned: the materials may cost you up to $80, and you'll need a good amount of know-how. However, if you're looking for a hefty weekend project and need a convenient way to light and photograph small objects on-the-go, this one's for you.
Here's a quick and easy tutorial that'll teach you a cool method of transferring a photo print (black and white or color) onto a block of wood.
Focus stacking is a technique for creating photos with a large depth of field by combining multiple photos with shallow depth of fields. One of the applications is in macro photography, where the technique is often used to make sharp images of tiny insects. Oleg over at Circuits@Home wanted an easier way to focus stack while shooting in the field, so he build a focus stacking assistant using Arduino. Given two focal points, the tool automatically takes a sequence of photographs, moving the …
Like many electronic devices, cameras often come with certain cables that are neither necessary enough to be used often nor useless enough to be tossed into the trash. A neat trick for keeping them organized and away from other cables is to stick them into toilet paper rolls. You can even go a step further by making a DIY cable organizer using a shoe box, which makes finding a particular cable a breeze.
Instructables user art.makes has a tutorial on how you can make a pair of paper iris glasses with adjustable apertures. You could definitely build upon the idea to make each side more like a camera lens (e.g. adding barrels, f-stop values) -- perhaps as part of a geeky Halloween costume?
Bits of Everything has a great tutorial on how you can make a large and beautiful picture collage for your wall on the cheap: the entire project costs less than $20. Mod Podge glue, which dries clear, is painted over the entire thing to give board a matte finish. This could definitely make for a fun and photographic weekend project.
If you have a GoPro or any other compact camera with a constantly exposed lens, you can protect the lens from scratches when it's not in use by making a cheap DIY lens cap out of a ping pong ball and a rubber band.
Buying large frames for displaying your prints can be expensive. For those of you who are rich in time but short on money, Oh Happy Day has an awesome tutorial on how you can create nice-looking picture frames for just $5. The main ingredients are plexiglass, mat board, cardboard, and paper tape. Buying all the supplies will set you back around $50, but you should have enough material for around 10 frames.
Some photographers prefer using ordinary bags with padded inserts to carry their camera gear, both for aesthetic reason and to prevent theft. Instead of buying an insert, you can also make a custom one with some foam, fabric, and velcro. Abi over at vanilla & lace made one to turn her purse into a camera bag after finding that purse-style camera bags can cost up to $300. She also wrote up a helpful tutorial on how you can do the same.
Want a DSLR viewfinder but don't want to pay big bucks for a professional one? Photojojo has a tutorial on how you can build your own DIY version using a lens from a pair of magnifying reading glasses and some plastic/foam board. It'll definitely draw some weird looks but hey, it works! …
Cut Out + Keep member Myam made this awesome Leica-style messenger bag for a photography-lovin' friend. Sadly there's no tutorial for this bag, but she says that the process is identical to what's seen in this guitar bag tutorial she wrote. A padded insert can also be added to make the bag more suitable for holding cameras. This bag could definitely make for a fun weekend project and photography gift.
Want to adorn a wall with a giant print using your own photography? Here's a great video in which photographer Lee Morris shares how he shot, printed, and framed a massive 5-foot-wide panoramic print for less than $150 -- super cheap compared to the $1,000+ you might pay to have it professionally done. After shooting multiple photos on a bridge in Rome, he merged the images using Photoshop, had a metallic print made by Bay Photo Labs, and then framed it using a large mirror he found at Bed Bath …
Flickr user Alex12Ga turned his Canon 5D Mark II into a DIY digital view camera by mounting a Novar-Anastigmat 75mm f/3.5 lens from 1949 with its original bellows. He mounted the bellows to his camera using an aluminum plate and an EOS mount ring that he salvaged from a broken Sigma lens.
Want to add some simple panning action to a time-lapse video? Trying using a cheap IKEA kitchen timer. GetawayMoments has a tutorial on how to convert a $2-$6 timer from IKEA into a simple device for your time-lapse projects.
Here's a weekend project idea: personalize your camera's wrist strap by making it look like a friendship bracelet! All you need is some embroidery thread and some time. Simply repeat a simple knot over and over and your strap will magically be covered with a neat repeating pattern. Head on over to KEH for the step-by-step tutorial.
Kirsty over at kootoyoo transformed her old Cosina CT-2 into a neat desk lamp that emits light from inside the lens. The legs on the tripod can be adjusted, so it can be used as a floor lamp as well. It'd be awesome if she could make it so adjusting the aperture on the lens would change the brightness of the light. Kirsty is currently writing a tutorial that'll teach you how to make your own -- it'll go on sale starting next week.
After moving into their new dorm room, Caleb Ungewitter and his roommate Kyle decided that their walls looked too empty, so they decided to decorate it with a photo. Not just any photo, mind you, but a gigantic do-it-yourself print of a beautiful city skyline. Using a free program called The Rasterbator, they converted the photograph into 152 separate frames, which they printed out themselves and attached to the wall in a grid.
We've seen DSLR photo booth projects before, but usually they're just simple ways for guests at an event to take self-portraits of themselves. Kevin over at I Dream In Code actually made a fancy photo booth for his brother's wedding that prints out a nice keepsake for guests.
Forget model airplanes... This Plamodel snap model kit is the one to buy if you're a photo-enthusiast (or want to make your kid one). Created by Japanese design house superheadz, it uses simple snap-together parts that allow even the "not-so-mechanically inclined" to assemble their own 35mm camera. There's 44 individual parts, and an instruction manual for building the camera is available online. You can check out some sample photos in this Flickr group pool, and buy one for $17 over on Amazon.
Lomo shooter wn7ant came up with a neat way of turning instant film photos into one-of-a-kind business cards. After printing out his business card design onto a transparency, he cuts it out and sticks it onto an Instax film cartridge. To create a new card, he simply takes a picture -- the contact information on the transparency is printed onto every photograph!
Most cameras designed for young children have kid-friendly designs, but eye-numbingly bad image quality. On the other hand, a cheaper point-and-shoot camera shoots better photos but probably won't last very long in the hands of a child. A way to make a cheap digital camera more kid-friendly and durable is to use Sugru, a special kind of silicone that resembles modeling clay. Strategically cover the camera with pieces of it, and you'll have a camera that even the most reckless child will have a …
Have a bunch of film canisters lying around and not sure what to do with them? You could use them to geekify your Christmas lights by punching a hole in the caps and sticking the lights in.
Inkodye sells a line of light sensitive textile dyes that you can use to print photos onto fabrics. An example is this photo-printed hair ribbon, created using some white silk ribbon and Inkodye Violet. Check out the tutorial over at Upcraft.it to learn how to make your own.
mr-korn over at Lomography recently snagged a cheap Olympus Zuiko 50mm lens on eBay, but the lens didn't come with a lens cap. Rather than try and find a replacement cap for that particular lens, he decided to craft his own DIY cap using a can of Coke.
Mechanical engineer and Flickr user Some Guy (Art) was bored at his job where picture taking was explicitly disallowed, so he did what any rebellious photo-fanatic would do: build a makeshift camera out of trash! Bringing $5 worth of parts (e.g. dowels, bolts, super glue) from home, he successfully turned some machine core -- which he calls "cardboard toilet paper tube on steroids" -- into a 35mm pinhole camera.
Craftzine has a step-by-step tutorial teaching how to turn your unwanted 35mm film into an uber-geeky necklace. Not sure how comfortable wearing it would be, but if you're the type that's constantly looking for new levels of photo geekiness, this one's for you.
Finish modder metalfusion has a sweet DIY way of showing off photographs. After converting .jpg, .gif, or .png photographs into halftone images using a free program, they use a CNC machine to carve the image into black-painted plywood by drilling into the wood at various depths. Up close the "print" looks like a piece of wood with a bunch of holes, but step back -- or squint your eyes -- and the photo can be seen!
Here's a fun weekend project: create a tiny keychain photo album with your favorite photos! Simply print out your photographs as little circles on photo paper or card stock, laminate it, cut them out, and punch the holes. It's a neat way to keep some tiny snapshots with you, and also makes for an awesome gift. To get started, head on over to the tutorial by Happy to Create.
Ties are meant to be soft and comfortable around the neck, so they're a perfect fit for a do-it-yourself camera strap project! Besides an unwanted tie, you'll need some sewing supposed, some ribbon for the ends, and a couple rings for attaching the strap. Check out the step-by-step tutorial over on Ecouterre.
If you ever find yourself with some unwanted negatives on your hands, you can upcycle them into creative film candle holders! All you need is a glass candle holder and some way to fix your negatives to it.
If you've tried to scan film using an ordinary flatbed scanner as you would a piece of paper, you've probably discovered that it didn't turn out very well. The reason is because film needs to be illuminated from behind, while conventional scanners capture light that's reflected off what they're scanning. Before you give up hope and shell out money for a film scanner, here's some good news: you can build a cheap and simple cardboard adapter that turns any scanner into a film scanner!
File this under "awesome ways to show off your photos". Lomographer zakguy had a year's worth of Instax Mini instant photos on his hands and no way to display them, so he created a custom coffee table using his favorite shots! …
Remember that super realistic Leica M3 paper pinhole camera we featured back in June? You can now print and make your own! Photographer Matt Nicholson has created a 10-page PDF with the printable template and detailed instructions, and is selling it for £1.50 (~$2.5) in his online store.
Niklas Roy built a unique electronic "instant" camera using an old black & white video camera and thermal receipt printer. When turned on, the printer slowly prints the live video feed from the camera onto cheap receipt paper. Since the image isn't stored anywhere first, the subject has to remain still during the three minutes it takes for the image to be printed.
Here's a step-by-step video tutorial teaching how to develop your B&W film using instant coffee and powdered vitamin C instead of actual developer. You'll still need some darkroom gear and some fixer, but it's a neat way to experiment with film photography. Photo geeks call this solution Caffenol, and there's even a special Flickr group dedicated to making homebrew developer.
Gavin of Sydney, Australia created an awesome 2-meter long programmable staff that makes painting giant words and images as easy as waving/walking the staff around during a long-exposure photograph. The staff, which he call the LightScythe (we would have called it the "Lightsaber"), was inspired by the Wi-Fi light painting project we shared here earlier this year.
Time-lapse enthusiast and electronics wiz Achim Sack came up with this super-small hardware-based intervalometer. Only a little larger than the size of a standard 2.5mm stereo plug, the device doesn't require any special setup or configuration -- all you do is plug it into your Canon/Nikon/Pentax DSLR and then take two photographs between 0.4 seconds and 18 minutes apart. The device will continue to shoot photos at that interval until the memory card is full or the battery dies. Sadly, it's not …
Editor's note: The guest author of this DIY tutorial, Vadim Gordin, is also selling DIY kits and ready-made Lens Loop slings for $15 and $25, respectively. You can find the project over on Kickstarter.
DSLR Solutions has a new follow focus kit that allows you to keep track of focus points without being bulky or expensive. The $60 kit is basically a clamp, a velcro strap, and some metal markers that attach to the strap. Attaching the markers allows you to bounce between focus points, or keep track of a number of points if you have multiple subjects. We've featured a number of DIY follow focus solutions here in the past, but using a velcro strap and markers is something we haven't seen before.
German wedding photographer Rocco built this ingenious do-it-yourself photo booth using a Nikon, an iPad, and a remote shutter release. Guests can step on a pedal to trigger the shutter, which snaps a well-lit photograph (there's a Speedlight on each side) and beams the image to the iPad via an Eye-Fi card and the app ShutterSnitch. While this photo booth doesn't print out photo strips, it could be a great and fun way to give an event's attendees some extra high-res photos without any extra …
San Francisco-based photographer Ian Tuttle came up with this funky way of adding silhouettes to his Diana F+ photos without Photoshop -- using some Elmer's glue, he attached a couple 1/8” figurines (the kind meant for model railroads) inside the camera upside down. The resulting photographs show a couple shadowy tourists looking at each scene!
