DIYPhotography.net Photography and Studio Lighting

The following tutorial on building an Ariel Monopod is a guest post by Adam Hajnos.

Recently I was carrying around my camera and tripod at a music festival when I got the idea to do an aerial shot. I extended the tripod out all the way and put the camera on a timer. Only problem is, my tripod weighs upwards of 50lbs. So here is a simple solution to make a lightweight, portable monopod for "aerial" photography.

The following article is a guest post by Dwight Duckstein.

I purchased a used Nikkor 70-200mm, 2.8f lens – the old style that didn’t have a tripod ring. Not wanting to spend even more money on an aftermarket ring that would interfere with the A ring, I decided to make my own. Granted, the materials cost me some change, but it is designed the way I want it, and it works. Your dimensions may vary, depending on which lens and which camera you mount it to, so I am not providing much dimension detail here.

If you are mounting your lights indoors you are safe, but what if you are outside in the blowing wind?

This is not the first time that two shooting hobbies meet. Last time I talked about weapons photography cases and rifle camera straps. This time Christian Hedegaard has a great idea to prevent your light stand from blowing in the wind. The materials? Right, from the gunshop. Here is Christian's story:

I have to hand to you, Ever since I started the "Readers Projects" Quest, I've been getting a ton of great DIY/Photography ideas and projects. After hitting it with the Thomas Schwenger's Complete Two Seconds Lighting Kit and the Christmas Tree Ring Light comes Ben's great project that does not have to do with lighting but can defiantly improve you life if you are one of those photographers that use a hand strap but disappointed from what the market has to offer.

Every once in a while comes that moment when you decide to get a new lens. For me this moment arrived about three weeks ago, when I decided that I deserve a nice photography treat my wife finally said yes, you can buy what ever you want, just stop talking about lenses all the time. (If you just want to learn what my winning lens is, go here and look at the second lens).

I would like to share the process I went through for selecting my next lens to purchase. I am not sure if the process was the best process that one can do to choose a lens, I post it here to help others in their choices. Please hit me in the comments if you find this process can be improved. So here is the tale of the duel between Sharpy (85mm/1.8) and Shorty (60mm/2.8 macro).

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.

Make sure you don't miss out on the next article - Register to the RSS feed or the newsletter.

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

If you're on the PhotoJoJo mails, you must have gotten that awesome time lapse bit. On that post they recommend the Cannon TC80N3 - a round 100 dollars device that give you the ability to take time lapse images. (It is called Intervalometer, but I can't even say it, let alone write it and feel good about myself).

The good guys at the DIYP Instructables group have done it again. You may remember this group from the Minty Strobe, A Great Way to Build a Ringlight and many more.

Chris Thompson came up with a cheap and fun Time Lapse Photography project. If you build one of those please leave a comment here.

It is amazing what you can do with one 1/4" bolt, a washer and a piece of string.

With less then 1$ at Home Depot, you'll get a tiny stabilizer for your camera. The maker of this flick claims to gain 3 stops. I'd bet on around two, but it is good enough for 1 buck.

If you are grabbing this with RSS, you can get the full video here.

For a more complete guide, check out the String Tripod over at DIYP group at instructables. Be warned, though, over there you might end up with a two dollars expense bill as they use more part and get more stabilization.

Make sure you don't miss out on the next article - Register to the RSS feed or the newsletter.

More DIYP Instructables:
- Muslin Photography Background
- Great Way To Build a Ringlight
- Photo Studio Compression Pole
- Altoids To The Rescue - The Minty Strobe

This is a guest post by Ken Stewart, a real DIY pioneer. Having recently gotten into macro photography with a set of Raynox close-up lenses, I found myself wanting a macro focusing rail so I could smoothly and precisely vary the distance between my camera and the subject to get the focus right. A quick check of the web showed me that the cheapest Manfrotto slide I could find was $80 (plus tax and shipping, of course), but I figured I could do better with a little ingenuity, and an obligatory trip to Home Depot.

Have you ever noticed the weird connection between photography and hunting? You go out to "shoot"; You are "taking shots"; And best of all when a bunch of us photographers get together we call it a "big shootout".

It turns out that there is yet another connection, the gear connection. Now don't get me wrong, I am not pro weapons of any kind (other then shooting this person that keeps clinging to me on the bus...), but some of this gear used for guns and rifles can be really useful when dealing with photography equipment.