DIYPhotography.net

Reader Mike Coutinho saw the post about the studio compression pole, and this triggered something in his mind.

Mike told me about the Third Hand system (via toolmonger) which provides a very similar functionality.

Same as with the DIY system, you can create a vertical pole from floor to ceiling and hang stuff on it (Flash, backdrop, diffuser panel).

The extra value of this solution is that it does not have to go vertical; the top pad can support various angles, so you can go diagonally wild. Another "feature" is that the Third Hand comes ready and there is not much DIY you need to assemble the pole. Click to continue ›

Gary Fong has become a de-facto standard for speed light diffusion. The accessories made by Gary include the famous Lightsphere and lots of other small flash improvements.

I have tried to make some flash modifiers in the past, like a flash mounted softbox or an improvised beauty dish. Zond is following this approach with a Lightsphere solution.

Zond2 came up with a small and cheap flash application that mimics the lightsphere effect. The materials: A soda bottle, some foam cardboard and a starbucks latte cap.

I did not test this at home, but the concept looks really nice. Click to continue ›

Photographer David Tejada posted a nice video showing how he did a shot of a small room with a computer screed (what he refers to as a CAD room).

He used a CTB gel to create cool atmosphere and a CTO gel on a snoot to warm the subject.

The video will follow up is a second. Before that I encourage you to explore David Tejada's Blog. This guy really knows what he is doing.

Click to continue ›

One of my personal favorite photographers - Annie Leibovitz was recruited to crate the fantasy of every photographer (and every kid alive).

In a project designed to celebrate Disney's 'Year of a Million Dreams' Annie is shooting celebs dressed up as Disney's all time favorite characters. Check out Scarlett Johansson as Cinderella, Beyoncé as Alice and David Beckham as Prince Phillip. Check out my personal most-charming-in-the-world-ever favorite Rachel Weisz as snow white.

Check out the cool behind the scenes (media player, real player) to see
some of the lighting and allot of Annie's eye-level approach that makes
her photos feel so natural. (You can also get a glimpse on the amount of octagon softboxes on the scene)

Click to continue ›

Little more than half a year ago, I published a guide to create your own bokeh. This guide provides a simple technique to shape the bokeh of the unfocused elements in your picture.

Here are the best 6 pictures that employed this technique, courtesy of DIYPhotography readers. I was glad to find creativity both in the shapes used (guess what? Hearts wins the jackpot) and the creativity using this technique. Click to continue ›

Allot of readers are asking me "how can we add pictures to go along with our comments?"

The reasons are numerous - some want to share a picture they took, some want to share a cool DIY project they built and some want to show of with their implementation on one of the DIY hacks from this site.

Well, the age of unknowledgeness comes to an end - here is the picture tutorial for how to add images to comments on DIYPhotography.net (of course you can always use the Flickr stream). Click any of the images for a bigger view. Click to continue ›

Just Fab has come up with a great PVC contraption she calls the Ghetto Studio. It's a great and portable setup that takes great Glamuor shots.

I asked Just Fab to share her plans and setup and she kindly agreed. Below you will find the instructions to build such setup. Total cost is less then 40$.

We have showed a PVC setup before, but it was very big. This PVC setup can be used both indoor and outdoor. The bottom and top are tiltable, covered with Ripstop nylon. Bottom hasa car windshield screen as a reflector. The strobe goes behind the topscrim and bounces off the bottom to reflect up. Instant one light setupto do butterfly lighting. I did have to glue some of the piecestogether to keep it from falling over in the wind, but it's modular andtears down. The bottom screen tilts about 1/16 the way down, the top istilts in the middle. I can reverse those is need be. You simply shootin between the two.

Here is an image taken with this setup. Look for shadows under the eyes. Found any? No!

Sweetness by Just Fab

The next following images show the materials you need to create this Ghetto Studio, as well as assembly needed.

Click to continue ›

Tom Barnett (pxlsnfr) has come up with some great High Speed Photography shots.

Tom uses very basic circuitry to trigger the flash on "hearing noise" and a bit more complex (though still pretty simple) circuit to avoid repeating flash triggering.

In fact the basic circuitry is just one SCR with plus and minus going to the flash and minus and gate going to an amplified mic. See pictures below.

From the number of crushed bulbs on Tom's photostream, I'd recommend his services to any person that wants to be environment friendly and move to Energy-saving compact fluorescents (CFs).

What I like about Tom's High Speed Photography, is that Tom controls this technique flawlessly, and can use it to photograph images with a great amount of creativity.

Click to continue ›

The guys over at make magazine made a pretty awesome tutorial about constructing a Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) kit.

They also have a cool video showing the process of building the rig. Killing the rig. And rebuilding a better rig. The video has been around for some time, so you might have seen it before. I managed to miss it, so if you haven't seen it yet, it's definitely worth 6 minutes of your time.

Click to continue ›

When strolling at my local autostore I stumbled across this very interesting gadget. (Well, not exactly this interesting gadget, but a close sibling).

It is a windshield mount for a GPS device. The natural thing for me, being the why-don't-you-stop-and-ask-for-directions-said-the-wife kinda guy that I am, and the natural and logical thing for me is to buy a GPS. However, those babies cost millions.

I had no alternative but to go to my other hobby - photography and see how I can use this mount for my photography studio. Click to continue ›