DIYPhotography.net

Lee Morris over at Fstoppers has a great video that explains how you can tether your camera to an iPad wirelessly. This kind of connection allows you to transfer photos to the iPad as you shoot.

You would need to get an Eye-Fi card, either a Pro card or a connect X2.

The nice thing about it is that you don't need to Jailbreak t

he iPad to create an Ad-Hoc wireless network. The new Eye-Fi card will do this for you and act as a router. (well, technically speaking it is not actually a router, but you get the point).

Sadly for mid range dSLRS (like the D300 that I shoot) it does not appear that Eye-Fi are going to release a CF version soon (or ever).

How To Tether Your Camera To An Ipad Without Jailbreaking via Fstoppers Click to continue ›

A few days ago I met Ron Uriel (hebrew site) at an event he was shooting. Aside from the camera and on camera flash (got forbid) he was also carrying a small impact flash on a light stand, taking it along and using it as on the go bounce flash. The beauty of the thing was that the flash was not attached to any power outlet, but sustained using a DIY battery pack.

I asked Ron to share how he made it, and he luckily for DIYP he agreed.

When it comes to on-location photography, I tend to KISS (Keep It Simple Sweetheart). This means that I prefer carrying the minimal amount of gear and focus on photography rather than on set up and tear down. That is where my quest for portable lights began. Click to continue ›

Magisto is one of them cool companies who have an idea that is very simple on one hand, yet quite complex on the other.

They promise to eat your videos (600 Megabytes at a time) and spit out a refined one minute of awesome, fine edited video that cuts in the good stuff and leaves out all the boring stuff.

So the premise is simple, give us your videos, we'll give you something worth sharing.

So yesterday late evening I got a call asking if I could take a CEO portrait of Oren Boiman and Alex Rav-Acha the co-founders of Magisto. I go "Sure!"

And we need them by tomorrow 10 AM so the local press can use them. "Sure!"

But you can only start shooting at 9. <pause>... OK.

Oh, and we want to have a grungy feeling, so please take it in a car shop or something. <longer pause>...

And we also need head shots! Click to continue ›

Indie films are a never-dry tap of production creativity. And gear not an exception in that regards. In most cases Indie films don't have the huge budget of Hollywood productions so you think twice before making a call and ordering 1/2 a ton of light.

The Underwater Realm is no different in that regard. In fact it is ground breaking. The movie is set entirely under water which required water proofing and submersing any light, power or camera used.

They are also ground breaking in the fact that they are sharing their production in a weekly video blog. If you are a bit of a maker or a starting away videographer, you'll get completely sucked in.

This week's edition is all about creating a submersible Kino Flo. Kino Flo is a light a bit like florescent, only stronger, light balanced and completely flickerless. On the other hand, it is fragile, expensive, and most importantly, it does not like water. Click to continue ›

There are lots of ways to use a large scrim, you can use it to create partial shade, reflect natural light, or fire strobes into it (from either side) for a diffused light source.

When your subject matter is really big - like say a car - you need a really big scrim if you want to create a large soft light source. Large scrims and frames can run into some serious money. This is still relevant if you shot with a Specialized Car Rig.

This guy did just that to shoot some random cars. (by this guy I mean Roberto Bigano, and by random cars I mean some Bugatti's) Click to continue ›

It is not a big secret that dancers are one of my favorite subject matter. I was just so lucky to have the opportunity to shoot Liron Kichli, one of Israel's dance scene rising stars a few Saturdays ago.

It is my believe that when working with such a talent as Liron, preparation can have a tremendous impact, so it is a good idea to have a detailed plan before meeting on location and watching her doing stretches.

On this post, I am going to cover some of the aspects and planning you should consider practicing in order to have a great and successful shooting day, from equipment, through location and flower. Click to continue ›

If you are tuned to DIYPs twitter and facebook accounts you know that something big is coming on May. We are diligently making preparations.

We thought long and hard about what will the best way to kick off our new product and decided on doing a video. So, directed by Zeke Kamm of Nice photo mag, we headed out to the wilderness.(You're gonna have to read till the end if you wanna see it big :)

For this particular shot Zeke wanted me to take a "bad picture". Crossing out all the regular "bad pictures" ideas - like soft focus, bad exposure and so on, we thought what can be worst than getting smeared on a wind shield. I say, not much. Click to continue ›

I just love this project by Joris van den Heuvel. It is an exemplary project of following a larger skeleton for making just about any travel flight case.

Strobes, cameras and lenses can definitely fit in, but all the lighting modifiers would go in a different bag - a bass case :)

Most of my photo shoots take place in a local music venue. I have great fun shooting various metal bands, using two camera bodies, 4 fast lenses and a remote flash gun, with a replacement value of around €3500 nowadays. Carrying all that stuff into a place with no real safe place to put it is a considerable risk. And I'm not even talking about taking everything to the stage; I usually put my stuff in an area that's off limits to visitors, and take only what I need to the stage. Still, putting it in bags, however sturdy they are, might not be safe enough to prevent someone stepping on it when I'm not around - Shrug....!

I used to be a performing musician for twelve years, and I kept my equipment and bass guitar in flightcases I built myself. Those cases have been around the country - even beyond, and held up extremely well. So it's only logical to put my photo equipment in a flightcase as well. Luckily DSLRs, lenses and flashes aren't as big and heavy as bass guitars, amplifiers and speaker cabinets smiley.

This article is just a showcase. Head over to Fuzzcratfs for a considerably more in-depth article on how to build a flightcase. You'll see this case as an example project with much more technical details about the tools and materials used. Click to continue ›

If you're using strobes, pocket wizards, remotes, or RC cars, you are probably using AA batteries. Those are small little wonders of energy.

Here is the big question, how do you manage them on location? How do you keep the loaded batteries ready for grab?

How do you make sure the empty ones get enough charge?

How do you sleep at night knowing that a battery may stop working at any given time?

Good questions! Benny Johansson, AKA Benvelo created a full system just for that and guess what? It is graphically rocking. Click to continue ›

It's amazing how a new gear bag can brighten up your day. And my new bag is certainly doing wonders for my mood.

Up until recently, I had two modes of operation: Light - in which I traveled with my Bazooka kit - Westcott shoot through umbrella and mini lightstand bunjeed together and held with an M16 strap and Loaded - where I used an old trade-show-stand-bag for an additional stand and umbrella, my softlighter II, and my Apollo box.

It was OK for lagging stuff around, but not very comfy when it comes to packing and unpacking - there was only a top opening, which made it hard to grab the right modifier or to place everything back in.

On my last session with Tomer Jacobson I picked up his little trick. He uses a bass guitar case for lagging his lighting stuff around. I got one today for 35 USD (it was listed 40, but when the store person heard that I'll be using it for lighting gear, he took 5 dollars off. cool!). Click to continue ›