In the previous post I demonstrated my lack of patience by constructing a Honl Speed Strap, while waiting for my Amazon Honl speed strap to arrive.

In this post, I'll show the accessories I built, and explain their various effects on a picture taken.

All my DIY accessories have real commercial products made by David Honl. While the lighting result is usually similar, I must say that Honl products look way more professional. (In fact they look professional enough that I bought some of them, even when I knew I can make them myself).

But, just before I go into the details of constructing and demonstrating the different accessories, I would like to highlight some of the comments on the original post, dealing with different materials that can be used to construct a better model of the speed strap.

Today's speedlinks comes a little bit before the usual monthly time for the speed links. The reasons for this is that there are several links that I wanted to share and that will have less relevance if they were not published today. Specifically, I am talking about the monthly TimeShoot project which will expire today.

I tried to get a little bit of everything on today's post and cover studio, digital workflow, photography fun and heavier articles discussing copyright issues. Enjoy the mix.

• The Wall Street Journal lifted my image!
  Leggnet Digital Capture
  The guys at the Wall Street Journal provide a beacon on how to use photographer's intellectual property. Rich tells the story of how one of his images was published in the Wall Street Journal without him knowing.
• 35mm pinhole camera
  ProPhotoLife
  Jim Talkington put up a rocking video showing how he makes his pinhole cameras. It is never a bad time to take some analog shot the old fashioned way.
• Orphan Works bill introduced in US
  Photodoto
  Orphan Works is kind of a new type of copy right for works that their owner can not be found. Photodoto provides a full premier on the subject. Chase Jarvis thinks the bill is not great, but provides some damage control over what this bill might have been.
• Monthly TimeShoot - May 9th @ 12pm ET!
  Cameracon
  Shaw is doing his monthly timeshoot project again, and this is a good reason to take the camera out of storage and go out and take some pictures. This timeshoot target is today at 12pm. I like this project, as it can creates a shared work among fellow photographers from all over the world.
• White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 3 :: From White To Black
  Zack Arias
  Zack is running a segmented tutorial on creating and using white seamless backdrops. The first three parts deal with setup and gear, Light management (+ part two) and Black backdrops. A great read for anyone who is doing a home studio.
• PhotoNetCast
  Photo Netcast
  Photo Netcast is a new pod cast hosted by Antonio Marques, Martin Gommel, Jim M Goldstein and Brian Auer. If you'll click their names you'll see that these are serious folks so the 'cast has to be great as well.
• An Approach to Street Photography
  The Online Photographer
  Mitch Alland shares the story of how he became a street photographer. A great read in my mind as Mitch shares his reasons, his motivations and more. I found that I could really relate to the story, as I am sure many aspiring photographers can.
• Digital Workflow with Adobe Lightroom
  L7foto
  Kerry from L7 photo is doing a series of video Lightroom tutorials. He covers the workflow as well as some tips and tricks. If reading the Lightroom e-book was not enough for you and you want more Lightroom, this is the place for you.
• Color Profiles in Firefox 3
  Ejohn
  If you are a Firefox surfer, Like 51.82% of DIYP readers, you'll be glad to know that version 3 of the Fox will support color profiles.
• Lighting 102: 6.2 - Gelling for Tungsten
  Strobist
  David Hobby is doing his Lighting 102 session and is now covering strobes and Gels. The first two parts discussed Gelling for Tungsten and Gelling for Fluorescent, and there is an assignment in the horizon, so stay tuned.

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Related Links:
- Speed Links for 4-20-2008
- Speed Links for 2-23-2008
- Speed Links for 12-20-2007
- Speed Links for 12-11-2007
- Speed Links for 11-20-2007

I really wanted a speed strap. Ever since the restrictive light post over at Strobist, I wished for one of those magical straps. If you are not familiar with them look at David Honl's site, it is filled with goodies.

"Why do you need one", you ask? Because they are A - Really good at blocking light. B - Small and can get in my small bag when I go out for a shoot and C - They are just too cool that I could not effort not having one.

I even designed a new one. (Not so good, more on that in a few lines).

Then I decided that I am going to get one from Amazon. Since I (like my eight months son) can not delay satisfaction, must take photos to live, I made a new one that really works (and inspired by the Thomas Schwenger Complete Two Seconds Lighting Kit).

The Readers Project column is one of my favorite columns in the DIYP. It is a column that brings you DIYP readers to front page and let you share your experience with the rest of DIYP community. (See the bottom of this post for more projects).

There are actually a few ways to get featured in the Readers Projects column: you can post the setup and explanation to the Flickr Image Pool or Discussion threads; you can drop me a note, or you can give me a call (ok, no one has actually done this yet, but I am open...)

Spiderlights are a great source of light. Basically a Spiderlight is a mount with five sockets with which you can do whatever lighting you want: fluorescent or PL bulbs, hot lights or bulb-strobes (Jim from ProPhotoLife has a great comparison of your options here). The only rebuke is the price: if you want to get your hand on one of those, be prepared to bye-bye a few hundreds of dollars.

As you may know, I am a great fan of off camera flash

I've owned a Nikon SB-28 since my analog days and added a Nikon SB800 when going digital. Advised by Strobist, I added a third flash - a Nikon SB26.

To get all those flashes going off camera, I bought some cheapo Cactus (AKA Gadget Infinity) flash radio triggers - those can be found at eBay for just a few dollars. I initially bought two receivers and when I added the Nikon SB26 to my collection, I bought the third one.

I really like those cheapo triggers and up until now they were lots of fun (see this shot, I just can't miss a shot at showing my son off). Of course, if you need high reliability, you should consider the big brother: Pocket Wizards.

DIYP reader Chaval Brasil came up with an ingenious way to create a ring flash. By routing the light from a hot shoe flash to a CD spindle, Chaval was able to surround his lens with light. Chaval joins a long tradition of readers projects that we had here on DIYP (see The Food Saver Omnibounce, Thomas Schwenger Complete Two Seconds Lighting Kit, and The Christmas Tree Ring Light for more readers projects).

If you did not meet Nick Wheeler (Flickr Stream - a must) until now, you are in for a treat. Nick is what I call a Lean Mean Studio DIY Machine. Unlike the softbox for a hot shoe flash and the softbox made from a well.... a box, this softbox design by Nick is as close to a real life studio softbox design as a softbox can be. As always, Nick has done great job of documenting his work so all the DIYP community can benefit. Making this studio grade softbox takes some time and effort, but well worth the investment.

While this project is great, Nick calls it a prototype and plans on a follow up. Keep tuned to Nick's Flickr stream - you'll soon realize that you came for the DIY projects but stayed for the great photography. It all Nick from here on.

This is a DIY project I have had in mind for a while now. When I purchased my studio flash heads, they came with a couple of small softboxes. Although I prefer to use translucent umbrellas whenever I can (small, light, easy to transport), there are times when a softbox is a better solution. While I could use the studio head softboxes in some circumstances with my small strobes, there was no way of effectively holding the flash in place without a lot of jerry rigging. To this end, I wanted to design a softbox that would be light, reasonably strong and durable, adaptable (double diffuser, grid attachment, barn doors etc.) at a later date and have a quick and easy way to mount the flash.

While I achieved most of these goals, the finished softbox was a bit heavier than I would have liked and as is usually the case with these projects I figured out a number of modifications I would like to incorporate into my next attempt after it was finished. For now, I think I will label this as a 'prototype' and hopefully come up with something better for the mark II version.

It looks like this weekend is going to be weekend at the movies for all photography lovers. So sit back, and enjoy. Now, the trick is get up once the show is over and try some of the things yourself.

After two brilliant videos from Jim Talkington dealing with studio lighting on a budget, comes something completely different.

Photographer and DIYer Guy Montag came up with a nice and easy I-have-no-idea-about-electronics way to make high speed photography shots.

More chat and the video tutorial after the jump.

As a child, I'm sure you've heard the following phrase: "Stick and stones will break my bones but names will never heart me"?

Jim Talkington over at ProPhotoLife has got another take on this childhood proverb. Something like "Sticks and stones will create killer lighting, but money is not needed".

Jim was kind enough to get this photo studio video composed where he shows us how to take the sticks and stones (or rather sticks and concrete) to the extreme, building a studio from cheap continuous lighting, some framed diffusion papers and lots of sticks.

RSS readers - grab this video here.

The other half of this vid comes right after the jump - yep it is a double feature.

Going along with the great show of readers projects, Simon Chung sent me a great idea for a flash diffuser.

Starting with an ordinary food bag, and adding some tinfoil and magic, Simon created an omnibounce. To learn more about the merits of bare bulb diffusers and see a different implementation of this great idea see here.

Have more ideas for wacky things to put on your flash? Hit me in the comments.

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More Reader Projects:
- Strap it on Baby
- Thomas Schwenger Complete Two Seconds Lighting Kit
- Christmas Tree Ring Light
- Got a Light?

A snoot is something you use to constrain the light coming from a flash, you can use it to tight a beam of light, or you can use it to flag light so it will not hit your lens and cause flare.

Scott Campbell came up with this 30 seconds, 2 Dollars snoot that will do just that - snoot your flash. In the process he nuked a catch all sack, but hey! It was worth it. (Kill me if I know how I missed it up till now)

Check out some of the older posts of Scott, he is deep into the realm of DIY.

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Some More DIY:
- The Cheapest Ring Light Ever
- The Ghetto Studio
- Painting With Light
- The Best 6 Ways To Create Your Own Bokeh

Not too long ago, I have posted an article about making a strobe from a disposable camera. I was soon after that I called out to the great community of DIY photographers to make a disposable ringlight from such disposable camera strobes. And why not - they are cheap, available and do not require too much power.

In my mind there were three main challenges in making this project work: 1. Chaining the camera flash units; 2. Triggering the ringflash remotely; and 3. Powering the individual flash units.

Dave Ajax (Divet) from the DIYP Instructables group has risen to the challenge. Dave was also kind enough to allow me to post the full tutorial on this site, keeping the great tradition on DIYP Instructable projects like the Time Lapse Photography project, the Ingenious Camera Stabilizer and the Muslin Backdrop project.

Intro - Disposable Camera Ring Flash

Build a disposable camera ring flash. Disposable cameras are discarded after the film has been removed. Photo labs often have boxes of them under the counter, waiting to be recycled. If you ask nicely, you can often get more than enough to experiment with. Try to get at least six for this project, all of the same type.

Nick Wheeler the photographer who brought you the DIY Strip Light and the Floor Lit Table Top Studio is playing with card board boxes again.

Answering to strobist's ringflash call, Nick created a simple softbox ringflash thingy that uses one strobe to create an awesome ring light effect. (If you really like ringlights, take a look at the huge ringlight collection).

If you did not visit Nick's stream lately, you should definitely head over there. Nick has some new shots from the previous projects (strip light and floor lit studio) with great setup shots. I tell you, sometimes I don't know whether to stare at the pictures or drool over the setup shots.

Nick has done a great job for this tutorial, packing it is great images to explain every little step. You can see how thinking of every aspect of the construction gives professional results.

Some time ago I wrote about taking art images for my mother in law. Since I don't have my dream lens yet, I had to compromise on the lens and use the great (but not ideal for this task) Nikon 18-70 lens. (The image to the lest if one of the original paintings)

I got a few mails and comments about the issue of getting closer to the pictures to make the picture fill a wider part of the frame.

Sample Comment (by 'Anon'):

Kind of a newb, but why would you have used a zoom lens? And at what
distance/mm? I would think 50-70mm would be ideal, or would getting any
closer affect the "family of angles" thing?

As Norm replied, the main issue of getting further from the image was the Family of Angles constraint. Let me explain:

Nick Wheeler is becoming a dangerous guy to leave your boxes by. It looks like whenever a box is around, nick DIYs it into a lighting modifier. This is what I like about Nick, he is never afraid to experiment, be it a mission impossible image or a floor lit lighting setup, Nicks investments in setups pays up big time. I heartedly recommend to check Nick's flickr stream for more inspiration.

This is also my message to you. Go out and try something new. I bet that four times out of five you, like me, will end up with just another glued box. But the fifth time is the one that makes all the difference. This is the time where you put what you have learned by ruining the other four boxes into use and build a really nice piece of studio equipment and saving money for more lenses.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. The reason why bloggin' about DIY and Photography makes me a happy person it because I get to tap into a great stream of creativity fro mother great photographers out there.

Take Thomas
Schwenger for example. After getting some from the Strobist and DIY community Thomas now gives back one of the lightest and easiest lighting kits for portables strobes. With a single page snoot, a mini GOBO and a filter holder, Thomas wins the DIYP kit of the year award. (Of course, like a being a warded a knighthood, there mostly honor in the title, no dough at all.

I love my mother in law. I know this is not a popular statement, but it may explain the following tutorial and experience I am about to share with you.

Rss readers, grab the video here.

My mother in law is an artist. She paints pictures, and lovely ones, if you'll listen to my un-bribed opinion. Last week she asked me to make a video clip from some of her shots so she can share her art. The video is also to be used as a pilot for distributing her catalog in video form.

In the following article I will describe the process of making the promotional DVD, including the setup and lighting, the post processing and the creation of the slideshow. (And of course the "thank you" note I got from my mother in law - priceless).

Part of the fun of being a DIY Photography blogger is being tapped to the great stream of ideas and creativity that flows from the photographer's community. Every now and then I get a mail that makes my day, pointing me to an awesome/ fun/ unbelievable/ getoutofhere project. I also keep regular watch on the DIYP flickr pool to be amazed over and over with DIY projects and creative photographs of readers.

This series of articles which I call "DIYP Readers Projects" is my way to give some loving back to the community and to DIYP readers and expose some of the coolest photography projects around - your projects. The first runner up is the...

What do you get when you cross a Nine Cents Tripod with a Pocket Foldable Tripod? A DIY Gorilla Pod.

Reader Alan Muller came up with a great way to combine the two tripods into a new even-better-then-each-of-the-originals tripod, which is very similar to the well known Gorilla Pod.

On his example Alan uses a bottle flash holder, but this Gorilla pod will firmly hold a medium sized point and shoot.

Alan used number 10 wired to make the legs: twisted and then folded and twisted again. This gives the Tripod a firm set of legs.

The wired can then be wrapped with shrink-wrap (fancy) or electrical tape (Ghetto).

At the base of the bottle, Alan used an eye bolt instead of a cap nut (or machine screw) to allow the attachment of a safety line or bungee etc.

Another bolt of ingenuity (pan intended :) was to use washers to separate the tripod's legs. Those give it stability and make some order in that messy area.

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Other Pods:
- An Ingenious Camera Stabilizer
- The Panorama Head El Cheapo!
- Homemade Cheap Flash Diffuser
- Cheap Mini Monopod
- Not a Tripod, but still great - Create your own Bokeh

About two weeks ago, I asked DIYP readers where are you getting their daily DIY supplies fix. I did this because some of the projects like the flash diffuser and the DIY backdrop had supplies that were not trivial to come across. Image by Alistair Craven

Happily for everyone US residents, it turns out you can get most of the stuff in the store next door or from the web (or in most cases, both). European DIY photography hackers will find it a bit more difficult. (The good news is that LightingMods has a great Euro Strobist list).

No doubt the big two winners were Lowes and Home Depot. It makes perfect sense that DIY lovers will feel right at home at a hardware/DIY store.

Read on for the rest of the list.