DIYPhotography.net

After seeing some very creative use of strip lighting here, on the Strobist site and Flickr, often as 'rim' lighting, I thought "If only I had that fancy gear, my stuff would look as good as Joel Grimes' stuff!" I had visions of after-shoot champagne lunches with Heidi Klune and groups of graceful models in a spacious studio populated with Broncolor and Hasselblad stuff - RIGHT!

[Editors note: The excellent intro and tutorial were made by John Hagar (flickr), we are trying to keep it family friendly, so no beer by default...]. Click to continue ›

The $7 beauty dish emerged out of a desire to experiment on the cheap, to see if I could duplicate the effect of a real beauty dish and see if it was worth buying one. Here's my disclaimer: These are no substitute for real beauty dishes and the details involve more brute force than calculated physics.

My project followed a surprising amount of noodling around in Ikea, Home Depot and Target looking for the essentials -- something that would let me fire my Nikon SB800 flash into a reflective bowl and direct it toward a subject. I don't know if the final solution is brilliance or BS -- I'm sure you'll all let me know. Click to continue ›

Sometimes, a small softbox would not do it. You just need a bigger light. The thing is that bigger modifiers eat more light up. This a guest post by Edward Peters will show how he dealt with building a large softbox, including building a double flash bracket, mounting two strobes and syncing a pop for up to five strobes using a headphone splitter.

My Wife needed photos of a jewelry piece she had created, but the piece was too big for my favorite 13x13 inch DIY speedlite soft box.

Unfortunately for us, the jewelry has entered a contest and cannot be displayed on the web. However, the good news are that I can share the making of the mega-dual-light softbox that took the image. Click to continue ›

In this tutorial I will explain how I built the softbox used to take the image on the left. It is a 40cm X 40cm foamboard softbox that accepts a strobe. Kinda similar in size and effect to the Photoflex LiteDome XS which I use a lot out of the studio.

On the left image this softbox was used as key, see this lighting setup for another use of the softbox as fill.

It is a simple softbox to make and it takes about half an hour if you have mediocre cutting skills. Click to continue ›

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a technology that can print whatever you want? Like a lens of a D3 body? Actually StarTrek featured a replicator that does exactly that, but as far as I remember it malfunctioned at one point and only replicated sausages and plants.

Anyhow, the family of printable gear (Gels, Lenshoods, Pinhole cameras and photography cheatsheets) just got a new member - Pieroway. A page dedicated to printing Lumiquests-like bouncers.

We have had bouncers before, but never one that prints both sides of the paper in a single click.

You can choose Nikon, Canon or Blank logo. The instructions says to print on stock card - I tried printing on heavier than usual paper.

Use photos, and a piece of history after the jump. Click to continue ›

Have you ever wondered what are the subtle differences between various home brewed beauty dishes?

Photographer Ed McGowan had just the same question in mind. He faced off two of the more popular DIY beauty dishes: on the left corner, wearing blue shorts at feather weight, the Turkey Pan beauty dish. On the right corner, enforced by the elements, wearing red, the Terra Cotta bowl beauty dish.

Winner after the jump. Click to continue ›

We've had our share of dual strobe mounts before, but this is a first for a triple mount. And you'd need every bit of that light if you are shooting a big modifier like the Westcott's 28" Apollo monster.

This tutorial shows you how to make one (or print it out and go to the local shop so they make one).

The detailed instructions were written by Eric Au (Flickr), Calgary based photographer and industrial designer. Always helps to have a Shop at the garage... I wonder how many comments will persuade Eric to go and make this into something you could buy at B&H.

Traditionally, during this time of year, there is a lull in work flow. Not a lot of contracts are signed during late September and October. Things pick up again in November. Typically, I use this time to hone some new technique or try out some new gear. A tiny bit of hackground (pun intended) for you readers, I am photographer and an industrial designer and it was inevitable when those two would collide. I’ve been hacking and developing my own brackets and equipment ever since I could hold a saw.

I use a lot of off camera flash for location work, I sought out to design and develop something that is the size of a palm, but have every feature and the strength of the Lightware Foursquare. Although I currently own and use a Foursquare, it is still not compact enough to throw into my bag (taking into account the handle assembly which makes it work really well).

Instead of trying to copy and reduce the size of a Foursquare, I decided to subtract some light, using 3 instead of 4 Speedlights (I use only Nikon Sb800s). I started with the largest hex, t6160 aluminum I could source locally, 2”. A piece of hex stock offered 6 open, flat sides to mill into features to mount the flashes, the spigot and umbrella thumb screw. Click to continue ›

The cardboard light tent is a constantly popular post here at DIYP, and no wonder it is one of the easiest ways for shoot a small product [note to self, make a really huge cardboard tent].

However, it is not the only way to create good small scale product setups. A while back David Hobby had a great derivative of that box which he titled the lunch box.

Photographer Steve Bennett uses a similar concept to create a table top sized diffusion screen with built in spill control. Click to continue ›

Photographer Paulo Rodrigues (Flickr) gave a nice tip on the DIYP Flickr pool.

Problem: I have a ton of modifiers that I attach to my studio monoblocks using speedrings, I can't get them to work with my hot shoe strobes. This becomes an issue if you are using both hot shoe flashes and monoblocks. Modifiers usually get mounted on a speedring to allow them to attach to a monoblock. Whereas "hot shoe" based modifiers usually use a strap or some clipping device to attach to a speedlight. Click to continue ›

In this post reader Bob Jordan walks us through a DIY one-piece, strobe modifier, which is kinda like a FlashBender. Which in turn kinda remind me of the Honl system (which also has a Honl DIY version).

I am a big fan of the Honl speed strap system and have been using it along with my DIY straps and other additions for a long time. The high control along with the very light weight serve as an excellent on the go modifier system. While I have never tried the Bender, it looks like a worthy alternative. <switching to Jondan> Click to continue ›