DIYPhotography.net

If you are looking at video productions it is often seems that there are big lights, big setups and big budgets involved. Surprisingly, this is not always the case.

Pye from SLRlounge just released a behind the scenes video for his latest production, a video for kickstarter presentation of the One camera bag system (kinda cool bag regardless of the video).

Pye used (almost) nothing but Homedepot lights to create the entire setup. Here is the video below (the resulting product intro video is after the jump)

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The Lastolite Hilite is a really neat, light weight, and portable high key background that can double as a softbox. Oh, did I forget to mention what a bargain it is? It’s not really – it is more than well outside of our reach. Still, I was intrigued by the simplicity of it and the many ways it could be used for still photography and video work. (Look here to see some nifty example videos of the Hilite and high key backgrounds.) I set out to make a DIY version and not break the bank in the process.

The first attempt was to suspend two flat white sheets that were safety pinned together around the periphery over a rectangular frame at the top. Two 45 Watt second slave strobes ($25/ea) were inside on light stands ($21/ea). I have no photos but it was leaning slightly on the positive side of the spectrum between abysmal failure to resounding success. It was at least successful enough to prove out the feasibility of the DIY concept… Click to continue ›

I am not really sure how this 2008 awesome video duo went under the radar here at DIYP, but thanks to our alert readers (thanks Gail) it is now up for your viewing pleasure.

This is by far one of the best DIY Ring Flash designs I've seen and the only thing that tops that design is well document how to video that makes building it looks like a walk in the park.

The design by Craig White is a bit different from the usual paper pizza box ring flash we've seen here on DIYP. It is quite sturdy - made from metal bowls. I would not be surprised if it takes some inspiration from the Terra Cotta Beauty Dish.

Anyhow, here are the two videos, followed by a sum-it-up image. Click to continue ›

If you love IKEA for their cheap furniture, you'd probably love them even more after discovering the huge possibilities they provide for creating lighting modifiers. (Beauty Dish, Ring Light and even a DSLR shoulder rig are some of the projects we covered so far).

In this project Andy Kubbat takes us through the process of building an overhead bare bulb light fixture using a strobe and an IKEA Regolit Floor Lamp priced at $49.99. Click to continue ›

We featured a few beauty dishes before, one made from a turkey pan, and one made from soup bowls. (Even when it seems like DIY, it is actually about food).

With a recent mention about the connection between DIYP and IKEA, I thought that it would be fun to feature a beauty dish made with the very appropriate named IKEA FOTO.

It is a simple build, the smarts here are in the bracket that takes the load of the strobe head and allows for easy mounting on a lightstand or a boom. Click to continue ›

If you've been here over that last week, you know that we love ring flashes. In fact we love them so much we made one :)

While we have featured many many strobe based ring flashes, there is one thing they can not do. Shoot video. This is where you would have to go to a continuous light ring lights.

They have a very flattering quality of light. It just because they are usually so big. If an average strobe ring flash is 40 cm across, you can easily build an 8 or 12 bulbs ring light which is a meter across. Which is just what British videographer Rick Clarke did.

The video is packed with useful info both on how this light works and on how you would go building one with a very minimal set of tools.

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Photographer Kevin Thai reminds us that it is more about how you use your lights than how many of them you have.

In what I would call Home Improvement geniousy, Kevin dumps the old concept of cereal snoots and uses cookie boxes. I am not entirely sure that cookie boxes work as good as cereal boxes... but they sre are sweeter.

However the real smarts lies in the careful positioning of two foam based reflector cards.

And it just so happens that Kevin documented the entire thing with an iPhone set overhead for our viewing pleasure.

Now turn your speakers on, sit back and enjoy the show. Click to continue ›

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 ›