Do It Yourself

There is no denying that shooting on film is expensive. It is among the many reasons major studios have all shifted to using digital cameras for their movie-making. But even with the shift in technology and cost, there is just something appealing about the way these old analog cameras work. This is why engineer and designer Yuta Ikeya decided to make his own analog movie camera with 3D printing.

Like many photo and video creatives, the team at Syrp Lab has a lot equipment that takes up an obscene amount of space. In this seven-minute video, the team shows how it turned a dark and cluttered room into something organized, functional, and fashionable.

My name is David Windestal, and in this video and article, I will share how you can hack and modify a Game Boy Camera to mount serious camera lenses in order to shoot amazing lo-fi photos.

I occasionally like to do some light painting with strobes. To make that easier, I ripped off the legs of an old light stand so that it is just a handheld pole with a light. I also wanted to be able to control my camera with a remote when holding the light so that I can operate my camera on a tripod and do everything without an assistant.

Photographer Ronaldo Carvalho took an old and broken fixed-lens Olympus film camera lens and adapted it to work on a new Canon EOS R6, breathing new life into retired gear.

I purchased some of the new compact and foldable Godox softboxes (e.g. AD-S60S, AD-S65W, AD-S85S, etc) for my Godox AD300 Pros. They work just fine but I wanted to use the magnetic color gels from my AK-R1 kit with them, so I decided to design my own gel holder compatible with the AD300 Pro.

For the last 50 years, we’ve all had to live with the Hasselblad Super Wide C's flaws, its shortcomings, its chunky "industrial chic" looks and function. Like most everyone else, I’ve had the same thoughts and visceral reaction when it came to this particular camera.

A cheap adapter from Sintech allows industrious photographers to take inexpensive SSDs and build their own CFexpress memory cards at home, allowing them to possibly save hundreds of dollars over "official" cards.

Jason De Freitas is a guy who is passionate about both film photography and flying drones, and recently he combined those two loves in a brilliant way: he built an analog-camera drone and shot aerial landscape photos on 35mm slide film.

Battery technology has provided a plethora of ways to take power away from traditional wall outlets, including relatively small packs that can power photography lights. A man in China took that idea to the extreme by building a colossal 27,000,000mAh "portable" power bank.

Sean from Fotodiox came across a vintage magic lantern projector at an antique store and adapted its front lens to a mirrorless camera for a soft and painterly look.

Instead of using a filter or editing technique to achieve a lo-fi look, Sean from Fotodiox went a different route and converted a 1984 Ghostbusters toy and adapted it to a mirrorless camera to create an unusual yet authentic vintage look.

I do mainly large format photography, and I often take my own self-portrait by using my pneumatic cable release that has a long cable and air bulb release. However, I have long been thinking about how to make a more modern kind of remote cable release. In this article, I will show how I created a DIY remote cable release.

Almost anything can be used as a light modifier. As long as it interacts with light in one way or another, it can be considered a light modifier. In this article, I will show you how to build a do-it-yourself (DIY) softbox with things you likely already have around at home.

Do you want to add a new dimension to your photos? Then lithophanes might be the thing for you. This is how you can bring an 18th-century art technique back to life with a 3D printer.

In a new video from Fotodiox, photographer Sean Anderson shows how anyone can make a telephoto pinhole lens out of a few items like a soda can, tape, and an empty Pringles can.

A YouTuber and creator has enhanced the classic GameBoy Camera by 3D-printing a new mount that allows it to use Canon EF lenses.

During the long pandemic quarantine, I bought a laser cutter the size of a small Volkswagen to cut ventilator prototype parts, Brooklyn Film Camera Polaroid scan trays, and a number of other photographic equipment parts. I bought the largest cutter that I could fit in my shop, because I had been dreaming of the 20×24 Polaroid and Afghan box cameras since I was about 16 years old.

I met Carlo a few months ago as I was looking for some honey. I discovered this passionate beekeeper lived only half a mile from my home.

If you're a photographer who often turns to Dollar Tree for cheap photo props or do-it-yourself materials, get ready to pay (a bit) more. After 35 years of selling most products for exactly $1, the retail chain announced today that it is hiking its price to $1.25.

While there are plenty of uses for expanding spray foam, one clever TikTok user has shared a nifty way to use it to safely package gear and equipment for storage or transport.

The Deakinizer lens is a specially modified optic that was commissioned by Roger Deakins for the 2007 film "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" used to create an old-timey feel to the footage, giving the scenes captured in it an almost tilt-shift look.

I recently began shooting with the new LomoGraflok 4×5 instant back from Lomography on my Chamonix 4×5 camera and found that I needed to use a spacer every time we compose a shot.

In this eight-minute video, the creative mind behind Mechanistic shows how he used a 3D printer to create a tabletop "Micro Jib."

Browsing through an antique shop, I stumbled upon a Kodak slide projector with a very peculiar attachment: a large lens. This particular lens caught my eye as it was an absolute behemoth. It was heavy and had “ISCO GERMANY” engraved into it.

I previously shared how I converted my Afghan Box Camera into a slide projector. The principle of the slide projector involves putting a light source at the back whose light passes through some condenser lens. The light then goes through the slide, passes through the projector lens, and is projected at a larger size on the projector screen.

In this six and a half minute video from Fotodiox, photographer Sean Anderson shows how he used over a thousand mini drinking straws to create a "straw camera" that can capture mosaic type images.

In 2014, I started my project Applied Metaphysics – Ground Truth on exemplary still life. The goal was to produce very large prints (2 to 9 square meters and more) at a high resolution so that people could look at them very closely.

I recently had a bad case of fungus in a Sony kit lens. The fungus was between the two outermost lenses that are assembled together in a glued plastic case.

Fotodiox has shared a step-by-step video tutorial on how to turn a simple household magnifying glass into a focusable lens on a mirrorless camera for a unique vintage effect.

Although large-format photography may be an intricate and slow process often shot in a studio, it doesn't mean that it can't be taken outdoors with a little ingenuity.

Ever feel like having an actual camera controller for the latest Pokémon Snap game on the

Those who enjoy using vintage lenses will often acquire them in fine working order, but without lens caps. There are some creators who have made instructions to 3D print new ones, but they all have fatal flaw.

Photography enthusiast and camera tinkerer Nicholas Sherlock has created a new 3D-printed variable length extension tube for macro photography using wide and ultra-wide lenses.

I recently shared about how I turned my Afghan Box Camera into a 4×5 slide projector. In this article, I'll share another idea based on the Afghan Box Camera: to make use of my humble mobile phone camera to create a large format look with the box camera and its lens.

I've got to admit that half of the reason I bought a film camera was to post cool-looking pictures on Instagram, so when I saw these things called "wigglegrams" on Instagram, I immediately wanted to make my own.

In its latest educational online class, Apple collaborated with photographer Mark Clennon to show how to direct, shoot, and edit powerful portraits using an iPhone.

I have made many DIY backgrounds for my photography. Honestly, too many. It gets really addictive. If you have been thinking of creating some for yourself or how you can improve your photography collection for very little money, these tips on creating your own DIY background are going to be super helpful.

After purchasing Takumar 55mm f/1.8 lens years ago, I started building my collection of vintage lenses, and because I don’t like spending a lot of money on them, I became a frequent visitor of thrift stores, flea markets, and online auction sites.

Recently I bought a film camera from the 1970s, the Canon A-1. Considering that the camera is almost three times older than me, it was no surprise that there are a few issues with it.

A film photographer has launched a crowdfunding campaign for DIY pinhole camera kits with the aim of making large-format shooting affordable, accessible, and easy.

For those who shoot with antique lenses but are missing Waterhouse stops, photographer Markus Hofstätter has put together a tutorial that shows a couple of ways that shooters can create their own.

Originally, the geometric chuck was a device to make ornate patterns on a lathe. Invented in the 1860s, the device could have up to 8 layers—each driven by a central shaft.

An engineer has figured out a way to bring the Game Boy Camera into the twenty-first century with a DIY wireless adapter that allows him to easily transfer all the images taken with the aged handheld gaming console camera to his smartphone.