DIYPhotography.net

Do you find that producing sharp macro photographs is hard due to the super limited depth of field? The way to get around this is to take multiple images with different focus points and stack them together. A tidies work, no doubt.

Macro photographer Domjan Svilkovic was kind enough to share a setup that needs nothing more than a camera, a micro controller, a bunch of cables, a computer, an old DVD an old floppy drive and some basic electronics. OK, that's a lot of stuff, but considering that the alternative for an automated rails are in the high $100s range, it may very well be worth the extra effort.

Now, just before I hand the floor over to Domjan, beware, this is going to get geeky. And by geeky I mean that you need to have some previous electronics know-how (or better yet, ask a friend). Click to continue ›

How would you go about freezing a bullet in mid air?

There is the high enthusiast version, using a cameraAxe and a precise gate similar mechanisms; There is the cheapo version that uses the Hiviz kit and there the Air-Gap Flash.

All the strobes, flashes, monoblocks and heads the use on regular basis are built around a pushing energy into a xenon tube. It is fast. 1/40,000th of a second fast. But from a bullet point of view this is actually kind of slow. Think Matrix-bullet-time kinda thing. Only the bullet is their fast one. Click to continue ›

A while back we featured a BTS that shows how a group of artists used iPads to extrude lightpainting letters from iPads. And I know what you all been thinking. Those artsy folks with their artsy iPads. If only I had that software my light painting extrusions would be far, far cooler.

Well, there you have it. Holographium is an iPhone/iPad app that converts text into iPhone patterns which can be dragged in front of the camera to extrude 3D light painted text.

The app costs 1.99 on the app store here.

And Merry Christmas. Click to continue ›

About three weeks ago we featured a comprehensive tutorial for doing high speed bullet photography.

In that post, Maurice Ribble explained how to use a $195 camera Axe to literally freeze a bullet in mid air (or in mid egg, or in mid cantaloupe...).

Photographer DestinWS came up with a youtube video that explains how to achieve a similar effect (thought less accurate) with a Hiviz kit for $20. While the Hiviz kit does not provide some of the more advanced features of the Camera Axe, it is a great and cheap way to enter the world of High Speed Photography. Video tut after the jump Click to continue ›

The holy grail of timelapse movies is motion. Photographers like Tom Lowe (whom you should definitely check out) uses state of the art rails and mechanisms to allow the camera to move slowly and smoothly while capturing frame by frame of the time lapse movie.

While we were playing silly egg timer over here, Photographer Derek Mellott came up with an ingenious way to convert a BBQ rotisserie motor into a moving rail system.

To add insult to injury, Derek uses a TI Graphing Calculator as an Intervalometer. The longtimers here know that I have a soft spot for anything TI ;). Video and a second hack after the jump. Click to continue ›

Light painting is the process of using one or more light sources to fill in a single exposure to create a unique image. If you think of the light like a pencil to paper and then add tools like a Spirograph to the situation you might understand what exactly I am doing.

The light wheel is actually pretty simple and you can get pretty creative with it on the fly. It is made up of a bicycle wheel (any size, however I have found that a 20” BMX bike wheel is a good size), A set of battery operated LED string lights. (These can be purchased from eBay or if you are lucky around October through March you can pick them up at Target or IKEA (any store that sells Christmas stuff is likely to have them). The lights are attached using black electrical tape and I used a bike peg I had laying around as the handle.

In this article, 55125 will teach you how to build your own light wheel. Click to continue ›

Ok, I'll be the first to admit, Lego makes some awesome stuff, and I spent countless hours as a kid, Playing with those bricks. My favorite birthday gift for my 8th birthday was the legendary 497 Galaxy Explorer system. With passage of time Lego systems became more complex and involve electronics, special plastics and even programmable pats. Complex to the point where you can turn a Lego Mindstorm NXT set to a device for taking high speed images. This is by no means a cheap solution (unless you already have all the parts), it is a fun project for the engineeringly capable. So photographer and strip light master Silver Paul did just that - converted a Mindstorm set to high speed photography trigger..

The following is not a full tutorial, here is the obligatory disclaimer from Paul: This is in no way a guide or how to, it's a documentation of my observations of what I did. Enjoy, try it for yourself, but on your own head be it! I take no responsibility for you being idiot enough to follow some random geezers instructions on t'interweb! Click to continue ›

Most photographers have seen some of Dr. Harold Edgerton's work like a bullet shooting through an apple or a bullet splitting a playing card. Back in the 1960's when Edgerton was taking these types of photos it was quite revolutionary. To take these kinds of photographs Dr. Edgerton had to first invent the modern camera flash. Today duplicating these photos is feasible for just about any amateur photographer who is willing to spend a little time understanding some common high speed photography techniques and some money to buy some specialized equipment. However, the really exciting idea isn't reproducing his iconic photographs, but having people take creative new high speed photos.

© MIT 2010. Courtesyof MIT Museum

This article is going to show you how to use the Camera Axe and it's projectile sensor to take some of your own amazing high speed photographs of objects being hit by bullets. At first it may seem that there are only a few objects to shoot, but once you start getting into this field of photography it seems like every trip to the grocery store, farmers market, dollar store, or yard sale becomes an expedition to find new targets. Click to continue ›

As you may already be aware, light painting is the process of moving light sources around during a single exposure to create an overall shot. A more specific way to include light forms into a photo is with `light stencils'.

The light stencil itself is made up of two main components - the stencil image, and something to contain the light while you shoot that image. A shoebox works really well (with the stencil picture cut into the lid, and the box used to contain the light); or alternatively, a portable soft box could be used (with the stencil attached to the front of the soft box).

In this article, TigTab explains how to create a light stencil using a shoe box. Click to continue ›

If you're reading DIYP for a while you probably know that High Speed Photography is not about high shutter speeds. Au contraire. It is about shooting very long exposures in bulb mode, and using a strobe to freeze the action with a split second light.

This means that once you have a setup read to go, you turn off the lights. go back to your setup and pop the balloon / break the glass / shoot the bullet. Kinda messy and uncomfortable. Ask Edward Horsford, the exploding balloons magician.

Photographer Matt Richardson came up with a better to do it. Matt was already Using an Arduino as the triggering device for the strobe. It only made sense to Let the Arduino turn off the lights and open the camera shutter once the setup was ready.

In the video after the jump, Matt explains this concept, and shared the circuit to make this magic happen. Click to continue ›