DIYPhotography.net

I know that Flapjack sounds as far as possible from photography, but videographer Andy Bieber so cleverly made those into the most awesome grip ever!

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One of the core elements of any studio or on location system is the light stand. Those enables you to place your light in three dimensional space (i.e. here, there, above the model, at face level and so on).

We have featured a few PVC light stands before but this is the first C-stand that we have encountered. Usually C-stands are used when you need a super stable solution as they are far more stable and heavier that regular light stands.

With respect to sturdiness, I am not sure that C-stands and PVC make a good pair, but this design by Alex Sokolsky was kinda unique and worth sharing. It uses a few PVC fittings with the core element made of 3 PVC Tees glued to 45 degree elbows. (

DIY PVC Light Stand via Alex Sokolsky] Click to continue ›

This little video is quite an interesting submission to our How I took it contest by Julien Robitaille.

There are only 2 weeks left to submit your entries, so don't wait for the last minute.

The video after the jump shows how a gathering of various stuff found around the house (or garage) can be re-purposed to be a video/tether dolly. While I am not sure about the saving on this build, it does show a few interesting uses for aluminum plates, surveying tripods, and the useful four heads tripod accessory from Manfrotto.

Actually, I've been getting quite a few submission about re-purposing surveying tripods . Since they don't belong in the 'photography' section they are a great value for not a lot of money. Click to continue ›

Hey guys,

This is Benjamin Von Wong, Montreal Based Photographer and I wanted to present to you a pretty nifty DIY solution that I've come up with! Recently, following my Von Wong does Europe tour, I've been trying to put together some product review and I found myself in need of a versatile product display solution!

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For me one of the questions when seeing a photograph in an interesting interior is often how did they find the house, how did they get permission to shoot there and how did they squeeze all the lighting gear inside.

Photographer Mark Wallace shows how it's done. They don't go looking for a house, they build a small set out of a few pieces of wood. Mark gives us the full walk through of a set he build for a recent book cover shoot. Everything that is not in the frame is one big don't care, which makes the set building way easier than it sounds.

This clip is the first of two parts, so check out Mark's channel for the follow up next week.

Set Building via iso1200

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A while back we featured a nifty way to slide your camera while taking time lapse movies. At the core of that system there was a BBQ rotisserie motor. It is a very common item, but hell to carry on location.

If you own a slider rail or a dolly (or if you hacked one yourself, or if you own a skateboard), you can take the concept of sliding with you on location.

Norwegian photographer Joakim Fjeldli takes the concept of motorizing a slider, an Igus DryLin in his case, and adds portability. Click to continue ›

Sometimes you want to add a 1/4" threading to objects that don't have threads. It makes sense. I mean, all the mounting gear is already built to support 1/4" thread: Tripods, light stands, swivels...

This allows you, for example to position a flashlight on a swivel and have full control over it's angle and direction. Or mount a point and shoot on a bicycle handle.

Photographer David Sr. Lapeer showed a smart way of doing this on the DIYP flickr threads: Click to continue ›

If you've been following some of the video tutorials we've had here at DIYP, you probably noticed the skateboard dolly that was featured here a few weeks back.

Photographer and videographer Martin Taylor shows us how to build a much fancier dolly which is partially based on a skateboard. This dolly however, is smaller (will fit on table), has a head mount that can support an SLR and can be set to move in circles. It's all Martin from here. Click to continue ›

Photographer David Martinez thought that $110 is a bit too much for a magic arm. He came up with his own version for half the price. It's all David from here.

Over the years I have found a few broken clubs laying near tee boxes on golf courses. Graphite shafts are usually very stiff and I always thought they might be repurposed. So I have collected a few of them. Well it just happened that I was in thinking about buying a Magic Arm recently. A friend had one and it was pretty sweet but the price was kinda crazy. Click to continue ›

A long while back I got familiar with Stick In a Can method for light positioning through the (sadly retired) Pro Photo Life Blog by Jim Talkington. In this post, I'll show how to make one of those and what are some great uses for them.

A stick in a can is the poorman's solution for positioning lights in three dimensional space. Basically it combines a stick, which provides some height and a cement filled can which provides anchoring weight. It works great for positioning worklights, reflectors and just about anything you can clamp.

The Caterpillar above was shot using one of those stick in a can and some magic. (more on the magic in a future post). Click to continue ›