DIYPhotography.net

I am not really sure how this one went under the radar, but late is better than never. The fine folks over at Indy Mogul came up with a tutorial on building an 800 Watt video light that relies on our good old friend the Compact Florescent Lightbulb (A.K.A CFL).

The nice thing about this light is that it does not really get warm. And if you ever tried lighting a video with an 750 Watts worth of halogen lighting, you know how hard it is to manage. Click to continue ›

Here is a fact that you should know by now. Images on the net are not up for grabs, even if you don't know who they belong to.

This means for example that if a newspaper found a photograph online, it has to located its copyright owner (sometimes it's easy, if it was found on a Flickr gallery, but sometimes it's harder, it was on that newsletter-you-subscribed-to-when-they-offered-free-Cheetos). Nevertheless, no one could have used your work if they could not obtain permission from you.

Last night, a new act in the UK, called the "Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill" receives Royal Assent which basically means that it is on its way to becoming a law.

Basically that act changed the UK copyright laws to allow commercial use of orphan works including photographs. Click to continue ›

Photographer Anick Morel takes a new twist on the old burning lightbulb photograph. Instead of photographing the bulb in profile, she places a glass above the broken bulb and photographs the smoke formations caused from hitting the glass.

To illustrate the process, here is a diagram that explains the setup: Click to continue ›

Here is a poll which is a little bit different than the ones we usually run. If the photo-fairy went down from heavens and granted you with a $1500 check which you must spend on photography gear, how would you spend it? Share with us in the comments.

While you don't have to spend the entire amount, any access money is magically returned to the fairy.

The photo-fairy chose $1500 because it is exactly enough for either 1 or 2 big items or a whole bunch of smaller items, your pick.

If you are lacking inspiration, you can check out the Amazon photo store for reference, but don't feel obliged to pick from there. Feel free to pick any item(s) related to photography in the world.

[The image at the top (taken from the Australian War Memorial collection) shows what I think a Possum would probably get form the photo-fairy] Click to continue ›

It is not secret that to get a good shot photographers sometimes endure extreme conditions.

To get s good shot or a good story National Geographic photographers sometimes spend months in freezing Ice or blazing Deserts to get the right shot.

I doubt though that any of them had the experience of getting shagged by a Kakapo parrot to get a shot.

Actor Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine roam the world documenting endangered species as part of the BBC's Last Chance to See series. Mark have had the luck to be one of the first photographers to have such a sexual encounter with a Kakapo parrot.

Apparently the parrot, got a bit lonely and tried (and managed) to shag Mark Carwardine while he was taking its pictures. Click to continue ›

Photographer Alexy Joffre Frangieh usually does high end time lapse movies. But as much as we love time lapses, this is not why we are featuring Alexy on the blog today.

Having his gear catch heat during long time lapses, Alexy went ahead and applied a military grade compound called Desert Mirage Lizard. His short and sweet description of the job says: "hand airbushing, fine masking ,no dismounting".

Which to me is quite outstanding, as painting a camera and even more so a lens without dissembling it can cause serious damage to the glass + the paint job is so good, it almost seems as Nikon decided to go united-colors-of-Pentax themselves.

The colored set includes A Nikon D4 and the following lenses: 14-24mm, 28-70mm, 80-200mm & 400mm all f/2.8 and an SB 900

DIYP asked Alexy why he did the paint job and he had three reasons: Click to continue ›

If you are spending a lot of time as a traveling photographer, you must have noticed that in addition to the usual energy consuming gadgets like strobe and camera batteries there are now a plethora of devices that need a USB charging buddy. Things like a Smart phone, an iPad or even a GoPro. Carrying around chargers and sockets for all this gear is kinda messy. Especially if you are traveling to a foreign country and need a power adapter for each charger.

Adam Dachis over at Lifehacker has a sweet solution for this utilizing a gadget travel organizer, a 7-Port USB Hub and an 11,000mAh Portable Battery to make a light weight, portable and tidy charging station. Click to continue ›

Today's HD-SLRs are capable of taking 60fps images at mind blowing resolution. But looking for their ancestors reveals that the first portable "motion picture" camera was actually based on a rifles packed not with bullets, but with a plate of film.

The design of the first Chronograph (this is how they called it) was made by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey and debuted at 1882 by the name of Fusil Photographique or photographic 'rifle'. Click to continue ›

The Retina display on Apple's iPads is amazing. It is so amazing that it makes the 1366x768 resolution on the laptop I am using to write this post feel EGA old. If only there was a way to hook a Retina display to a laptop, then I would really enjoy watching photos on my laptop ....

Well, there is. Andrzej from the Warsaw Hackerspace just hack such a display. Well, Apple are not the only company to offer a 2048 x 1536 resolution, they are just the only company to call it Retina, so technically, it is a hack for a non-retina 2048 x 1536 laptop display.

Click to continue ›

Etsy shop owner Marta Crass (C is for Cardboard) hand cuts little sculptures from corrugated cardboard. Her latest creation is a cardboard camera styled after the very first Nikon SLR - a Nikon F owned by her grandfather.

The camera is hand cut piece by piece without the use of a plotter or laser cutting machine, and will set you back $150.

Sadly, it lacks the ability to take pictures, and is hardly weather protected. Click to continue ›