DIYPhotography.net

A simple flash bouncer is the next best thing to shooting off camera flash. It either makes the flash bigger by diffusing some of its light, or have it bounce to the wall / ceiling creating a big spot of light that bounces back to the subject.

I guess this is why there are so many products that provide this function, along with a ton of DIY solutions to the same problem.

This is why it is refreshing to see a new take on that problem. Designer Benny Johansson (who made the genius cap holder and was  finalist on our sofbox contest) came up with a slightly different flash bouncer thingy built from two pieces of recycled plastic - the PilleVippo. The amazing thing about the PilleVippo is that it is super versatile and 100% DIY. It fits both point and shots and DSLRs. All you need is an old plastic container and a template you can get on Ben's site. Click to continue ›

If you wanna shoot first person footage, one of the easiest ways to do so is using a helmet cam. Well, you can always go with a GoPro, but if you want the quality that is coming from a Canon 7D, you may wanna build your own rig.

The good folks at DakaKin came up with a sweet tutorial on how to mount a DSLR on a helmet. The simple rig is made with a pink helmet, a metal bar, a cheap tripod head and some weights. The nice thing is that once the camera is mounted, it is roughly at eye level so it will see whatever the shooter is seeing.

If you're not sure what this is good for, wait for the awesome Max Payne samples at the end of the clip. (not sure Ol' Max will wear pink though)

[How To Make The Best Helmetcam Ever via planet5D] Click to continue ›

I know that usually this site is about more gear, but this post is about less gear. Michael Sasser of Sasser Stills uses nothing but good directing an assistant and one 5-in-1 reflector to produce gorgeous results in a senior portrait session.

I know that I am totally stealing his cat walk move from 0:30

[via SLR Lounge | Fstoppers] Click to continue ›

Well, lets just say I've gotten better at this over the last couple of years. The left image was one of the first I've "scanned" with my DSLR, and the one on the right I've just rescanned using the techniques described below (higher resolution available here). Right now I can get higher resolution and better image quality that what street labs give you on CD.

I've seen many articles on the web explaining the basics of digitising film negative or transparencies with a digital camera. The basics are quite simple: you take a photo of a negative into a light source and invert. That's it. But that alone led me to scan negatives that looked like the one on the left, above. Because I've never seen one tutorial that told me "the whole story" of how to do it properly, I've decided to put together what I've learnt during the last two or three of years of scanning film with my DSLR. Click to continue ›

If you are upset with the money it takes to buy new gear, the next 3 parts tutorial shows how to make a 1 Dollar camera.

It is a 3 part video tutorial and there are written instructions on Money Origami Things here.

Is it easy? heck no! rewarding? I guess. At least it only costs one dollar. Click to continue ›

I am not really sure what's going on in this video by Gramatik, but it seems that their bokeh experiment went out of control. 

Director Brad Hasse & cinematographer Andrew David Watson teamed up with artist Gramatik and built a story about an old guy seeing goblins in cityscape light. Those goblins eventually take over the city.

Here is the nice part, Gramatik releases his music for free, which makes this project even cooler.

I could not figure out which city this tale is taking place. If you know, please share.

If you wanna know how it was made, check our Everything You Wanted To Know About The Magical Shaped Bokeh page. Click to continue ›

If you are doing any extensive light painting work, especially if you are doing it alone, you know that one of the more annoying things about it is triggering your camera.

You could always use the timer, or the intervalometer, but for more complex stuff timing of both the camera and starting the tools becomes harder and harder.

Some cameras have an infra red remote, but the distance is pretty limited.

Sawo of Enlightpaintment came up with a pretty neat solution, they use a garage door opener remote from eBay with Canon's 2.5 mm trigger jack to create a 150ft camera remote that is capable of both focusing and triggering. See the tutorial after the jump. Click to continue ›

For the folks who don't have NASA on their RSS stream, this is a short announcement to remind about the upcoming Solar Eclipse on May 20.

I thought it would be a good opportunity to share some tips about solar eclipse photography. Click to continue ›

I know the title says something about lighting modifiers, but after seeing the last installment of the slanted lens I figured I'd mess around with their timing and start the show where they make camera cookies. (did someone say mother's day?)

Of course, they also pixel peep the heck out of photoflex Octadomes, and showing how to build several simple lighting setups using them. I guess you are here for the lighting, right? so go the beginning of the vid for the octa lessons.

Click to continue ›

Alan Sailer likes to blow stuff up. And when I say blow stuff I mean the good old fashion way. With a canon, custom made air gap strobes and a dedicated controller. After spending a great deal of time on his flickr stream, I asked him a few questions.

Click to continue ›