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.

Photographer Builds Hybrid Viewfinder with Digital Overlay for Smartphones

Since the advancements made with mirrorless camera systems and their digital viewfinders, cameras with optical viewfinders have become somewhat rare, with hybrid viewfinders being even harder to find. This is why Getschmann decided to dive into his physics and engineering background to build one from scratch for his smartphone camera.

Photographer Turns Slide Projector Into a Arduino-Powered Digitizer

For those with family members who grew up in the 1980s (or earlier), a slide projector was a pretty common way to share and show images before the internet was a thing. But these days, finding a way to get people to sit and view these images in a dark room with you is even harder than finding a functional projector. To covert his old 35mm slides to digital, photographer Scott Lawrence built a custom digitizing system based on a slide projector.

How to Make A Simple DIY Loupedeck or StreamDeck Alternative

As creatives are tasked with greater and greater volumes of work, accessories to help speed up their workflow become more and more valuable. While editing consoles can be incredibly useful, they can also be incredibly expensive, which is why YouTuber "Pedro" of DSLR DIY CNC has shared how you can build your own custom "InfiniteDeck" for just about $50.

How to Make a DIY Omega Contrast Filter Holder

Have you ever had a repeated inconvenience that finally makes you say to yourself, "Okay, I’m done with this garbage"? Well, that’s the exact feeling I had with using contrast filters on my enlarger. Anytime I wanted to use a contrast filter, I needed to use tape to hold it in place while I was printing.