When I started freelancing as a professional photographer, I knew I had to put together a printed portfolio. Unfortunately, I found it very hard to find useful resources on the Internet on how to actually do this. As I had some experience in bookbinding I managed to bind my first book by myself, but after three books I realized that in this stage of my career, I needed to have something a little more flexible.
A must-have tool when shooting a number of photography genres, including the night sky, is a remote release trigger for your camera. Triggers range from very simple cable releases over phone apps that connect to your camera’s Wi-Fi to very specialized intervalometers. I wanted to build something even better...
Simone Giertz is known for making some unique and interesting devices. Her original fame came from making "useless" robots but in this 14-minute video, she constructs a photo booth that would allow her dog to take her own picture.
Redditor Whomstevest has designed and 3d-printed a fully-functional Canon EF to RF tilt adapter and provided the design so that you can build your own at home. The adapter allows any Canon EF lens to adapt to an RF body and features infinity focus, 7 degrees of tilt, and 180 degrees of rotation.
After making a fairly straightforward thermal modification to his new Canon EOS R5, maker/tinkerer Yifan Gu was able to get the camera to record unlimited 8K without having to resort to various timer resetting "hacks." All he had to do was swap out the thermal pads and add a couple more.
I'm having a go at converting my Mavic 2 remote controller from two thumbsticks to a more Aircraft style controller where a whole hand joystick controls Pitch, Roll, and Yaw, and the left stick only controls Throttle/Altitude.
Photography equipment has come a long way in recent years; staggering megapixel counts, blisteringly fast AF systems, and low-light performance that was unheard of not long ago. But in my opinion, one of the most useful and underrated advancements has been in off-camera lighting, notably portable, battery-powered strobes.
Electrical engineering student Sam Zeloof recently created something really cool. Using his ample do-it-yourself skills and engineering knowledge, he retrofitted an old Polaroid camera with a Raspberri Pi and thermal printer, turning it into an instant digital camera that prints photos on receipt paper.
Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut of the Hurlbut Academy recently shared a great DIY tutorial in which he shows you how to build a giant soft box using just some foam core and a few lengths of 1x3-inch wood. The result allows you to create a large, soft light source without breaking the bank.
The Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Insight Investment 2020 Astrophotographer of the Year, Nicolas Lefaudeux, has revealed his technique and the simple DIY adapter that made his award-winning image of the Andromeda galaxy possible.
Waiting while flatbed scanners scan a color negative film is nothing to be excited about. This process and the subsequent color precorrection can take anywhere from an hour to two.
Japanese tinkerer Sanasol has just released a detailed, step-by-step "blueprint" video that shows you exactly how he was able to transform his classic Nikon FM film SLR into a digital camera without harming the film camera at all. If you have a few bucks to spend and a 3D printer handy, you can even follow along.
I’ve been enjoying bird photography from my custom-made floating hide for 3 years now. Being in the water with a variety of birds from waterfowl to wading birds and even Black Skimmers flying by my head has been an amazing experience. It becomes a much more connecting experience both to the natural areas I am in as well as my subject.
A Japanese tinkerer who goes by the name Sanasol has created something pretty cool. Using a homebrew sensor cartridge, he's converted his classic Nikon FM SLR into a functional digital camera without having to alter the 35mm film camera at all.
A couple of days ago a user on r/Gameboy asked the community if there was any way to turn his Game Boy Camera into a functioning webcam so that (in his words) "I can be an a** to people I don't respect." Well, someone came through and showed that it is actually possible to do this.
Here's one of the more unique cameras you'll ever see: designer Adrian Hanft took 28,248 coffee stirrer straws and turned them into a one-of-a-kind camera -- the images show up as 28,248 points of light.
If you're looking for a fun and educational project to try this weekend, Israeli DIY-er Elad Orbach has come up with the cheapest, most simple Schlieren photography setup we've ever seen. Unlike more expensive setups, his creation will let you photograph heat and sound waves using just a smartphone, a mirror, and a selfie stick.
Sam McKenzie from the YouTube channel 3D Printor recently embarked on a fun project. Using a 3D printed adapter he found on Thingiverse, he modded a classic Game Boy Camera, shot portraits using a 70-200mm lens (approximately 3000mm equivalent), and printed one of those portraits on canvas.
I wanted a device that can throw light patterns onto a wall or a model. There are some commercially available but they are quite expensive and I this was only for occasional use. I thought that this is something that can be 3D printed.
Photographer and YouTuber Duncan Dimanche has posted a quick tutorial that'll show you how to create your own DIY wall charging station on the cheap. Depending on your needs this setup can cost as little as $60, and the results look almost as good and functional as some of the more serious builds we've featured.
The Verge Video Director Becca Farsace recently set out to build her very own custom camera by merging a point-and-shoot film camera with the new Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera module and a Raspberry Pi 4 computer. Just one problem... she has zero coding knowledge. Cue a very frustrating week.
Creator Kasper from the YouTube channel MAKESOME recently set himself a challenge. After a request from his friend and photographer Mick Friis, he decided to try and create a cable cam on the cheap—basically turning an RC car into something like a Wiral LITE, or a smaller version of the Syrp slingshot.
Matt Huber over at YouTube channel The Garage Learning has put together a fun and creative walkthrough that takes a different approach to splash photography. Instead of manually throwing water onto his subject, he designed a simple 'DIY catapult' that does the job much better than he can.
Photographer and YouTuber Mathieu Stern has been getting into at-home photo printing lately. But after experimenting with cyanotypes, he decided to simplify even further by trying to print photos using beetroot juice, and nothing else. Dwight Schrute would be proud.
Landscape photographer Lewis Carlyle was recently trying to figure out a photo project to do at home, when he came up with a totally unique, never-before-tried idea: close-up photos of flowers. Okay, fine, it's not exactly revolutionary, but he did manage to put an interesting twist on the concept and create some beautiful images in the process.
Houseplants and film photography have both seen renewed interest among younger people in recent years. Here's a neat way to combine these two loves: you can recycle used film canisters by turning them into tiny pots for plants.
The folks over at COOPH have released a "Best of DIY Smartphone Rigs" video that covers some truly wacky ideas. From a DIY 'gimbal' to a scary looking spinning rig, there are at least a few ideas here you definitely haven't tried yet.
The filmmakers over at Threefold have created a DIY battery charging board with a very useful twist: it's portable. And in the video above, they break down exactly how you can build your own version to suit your on-the-go creative needs.
Italian photographer Ursula Ferrara's Lomography Lomo'Instant Wide camera is a bit different than others you'll find. Instead of shooting Instax Wide instant photos, it's used for capturing tiny wet plate collodion photos.
I'm fine-art photographer Petri Damstén from Kuopio, Finland, and in this article I'll share how I created a tiny smoke machine from an electronic cigarette and 3D printed a part for precise smoke distribution control.
It's nearly the end of April 2020, the coronavirus lockdown is in full swing here in the UK, you've already been out for your one hours allowable exercise, and you're bored! This was me, and my predicament.
New Zealand-based commercial photographer Chris Cameron wanted an ultra-portable solution for supporting lights in cramped indoor spaces, so he created a simple 2-legged leaning light stand.
Solargraphies (pinhole images on photographic paper that capture months of the sun arching across the horizon) were a thing starting sometime in the 2000s. When this caught on broadly in the early 2010s, it got a lot of people excited for film again.
Weird lens enthusiast and YouTuber Mathieu Stern has created another fun stay-at-home DIY lens while stuck in quarantine. This time it's a functional camera lens, complete with focusing mechanism, made almost entirely out of LEGO bricks.
Dora Goodman—maker of gorgeous hand-crafted custom cameras like these—is back with another 3D-printed, open-source camera that you can make at home. It's called the SCURA, and it's a curved pinhole camera that shoots 60x25mm panoramic images on regular 35mm film.
Weird lens aficionado Mathieu Stern has created the rarest of camera lenses with the most precious of materials (in the ongoing pandemic): a roll of toilet paper.
The Bismarck, North Dakota-based video production company Threefold shared this short and sweet 2-minute video showing how they took an old ambulance and turned it into an awesome way to haul a huge amount of equipment from place to place.
Photographer Mathieu Stern has put together a simple step-by-step that will teach you how to turn your digital photographs into beautiful cyanotype prints. If you've never made physical prints at home, consider this your gateway drug.
My name is Antoine Loncle, and I'm an independent photographer. I shared my homemade 8x10 box camera on several photography groups and it received a lot of interest. I figured I'd do a little write up for anyone that wanted to know more about the camera as well as see some images of the building process.
The folks over at Syrp have just released plans for one of the most intense, involved, but potentially rewarding DIY projects you could possibly embark on: building your own professional photo studio with no corners, giving the impression of an infinite background—AKA: a cyclorama.
Photographer Brendan Barry has put together a detailed step-by-step tutorial that might help you stay busy while you're stuck inside. In this video, he'll show you how to take and develop photos by turning your bedroom into a camera obscura, and your bathroom into a makeshift darkroom.
You might have heard of the Pixelstick. “Nothing compares” is one of their tag lines. And this is true... at least price-wise. I have always wanted one to at least try out some light painting with it, but the Pixelstick retails for €400 here in Germany and $349 in the United States.
Our friends at SLR Lounge have created a simple little DIY tutorial that can help you add some creative flare to your portraits... literally. In 2 minutes, photographer Pye Jirsa show you how to make what they call a "flare ring" using some simple crafts supplies.
Sean from Fotodiox has created a fun step-by-step guide that will show you how to turn any portable scanner into a 4x5 digital back for large format cameras. DIY lovers, get your tools ready, this is both simple and effective.
The hybrid processes from the transition to digital photography generated lots of garbage, cheap stuff to experiment with. This story is about one of these discoveries.
YouTuber Jordy of Cinecom.net recently put together a list of DIY filmmaking and photography hacks that are proving to be quite popular. In just under 7 minutes, he covers 9 hacks, all of which use cardboard to make the magic happen.
Recently I became—as I’m sure many of you already are—utterly sick of the endless chargers and cables in my studio. It's a mess of wires that always seem to get tangled and it always ends up looking like Medusa on a bad hair day.
Anyone who has had any exposure to still life photography or studio work will know just how expensive backdrops can be. I have a couple from Kate Backdrops company, one of which I use very often, but I've been hankering after a few more.
For his latest project, Iranian photographer and camera maker Alireza Rostami collected 35mm film canisters and used them to construct the bodies of medium format and large format cameras. The project is called "Unity Camera."
I was recently offered a free Pelican case, and she seemed too young to die. She was structurally sound, so I felt some plastic surgery would make her look 10 years younger... and it did.
