DIYPhotography.net

This is the second part of the Readers Projects series, my way to show my love and appreciation to DIYP readers.

In this series, I'll be posting some of the great projects DIYP readers brought to life. I learned about those projects either from DIYP flickr group (thanks you all for sharing) or from DIYP readers mails. The first project was the Christmas Tree Ring Light, a cold and snowy project. This project is all about fire - to even the temperature. If you've ever watched the legendary mission impossible show, you'll remember that unforgettable starting frame where a match is being lit from nowhere and this match starts a fuse and eventfully... "This message was self destructed after ten seconds".

Photographer Nick Wheeler recreates the magic of MI in his "How to Light a Match" setup. (Yap, it is the same Nick who invented the Floor Lit Table Top Studio Project.

Click to continue ›

One of the things I like most on DIYP is the strong warm community that has build around it. It is more and more often that readers are sending ideas, hacks and modifications that far surpass any ideas that might be having on the late hours of the night.

Reader Joseph A. Sorrentino (flickr) gets the genius-of-the-week award for moding a cable-wrap into a pocket wizard mount device.

Joe has tested several options before going with the cheapest and easiest solution I have seen so far. Here are his thoughts and reasons for designing a whole new Pocket wizard mount from scratch. In my mind all the other alternatives are very good and offer some advantages, but Joe's mount is the best of class. (Check them all for great mounting ideas.)

Click to continue ›

This guest post by Rick S. (aka therickman), Pittsburgh, PA. features a stofen like device for no money at all. (OK, 2 cents, if you get really pecky). It's foldable and it's cheap and it'll give you a bare bulb type of lighting. To learn more about bare-bulb lighting visit the strobist.

Here is a quick and easy way to make a "professional" flash diffuser without shelling out twenty or so dollars at your local camera shop. In fact, the cost of this homemade pearl is... well, nothing! Just your time making it, which should take less than ten minutes. Ready to start taking better images with softer lighting? Let's go! Click to continue ›

Photographer David Greene was kind enough to share a cool lighting technique he uses for fashion photography. Using your everyday florescence fixtures and bulbs David creates two strip lights. Watch the flick.

There strip lights are good enough to go with f/3.5 on100 ISO which is nice, and you don't need to use florescence filters, cuz the bulbs (can you call florescence bulbs?) are daylight balanced. 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 ›

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 ›

Reader B.Stevens has a cool idea for the cheapest most versatile ring light ever (now we have shown some ringlights before, but not that easy to make). The image on the left is using this ringlight (best viewed large). The idea is quite simple: Take a huge apple monitor. If you can get your hands on a 24 incher, you are on the right track. Tape some patterned paper on the monitor. Bring your 1.8 or 2.8 lens and your 1600ISO low noise camera and you are good to go. HEYTHEREWAITAMINUTE you said cheap. So, let me go through this method step by step and see where you can reduce your costs. Click to continue ›

Gridspot (or grid) is a studio accessory that you can attach to your flash. When the flash fires through the grid, the spread of the light rays is limited. The effect you get is very similar to the effect achieved by a snoot, but light more controlled and really hits a small surface. You often want to use a snoot or a grid for avoiding light spillage when you are setting up you back light.

The inspiration for this article came from a strobist article that shows how to make a cardboard gridspot. I thought I can improve it by making it out of plastic known as coroplast. Click to continue ›

Remember those old mice you use to have before computer mice became monsters with twenty five buttons, side buttons, rollers, sliders and what not.

Dave Schlier had a spare oldie (mouse that is) that he recycled into a shutter release cable. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that clicking a mouse is the most affective way to take a shot. But if that what it takes for you computer addicts to take the camera out of the bag, my task here on earth is completed.

Here is how to make one of those cool mice (of course you can always build a traditional release cable): Click to continue ›

As part of the light stand frenzy that's been going on here, I thought I'd introduce you to another way of placing a flash on location in a cheap and fast way. I learned this hack from David hobby at strobist and been grateful ever since. The idea is quite simple. It is similar to the one displayed in the Spatula article (gotta love this word - spatula...), only instead of using a spatula, I am using clamps. And hey! It was from the same trip to the hardware store. Click to continue ›