DIYPhotography.net

In the previous post I demonstrated my lack of patience by constructing a Honl Speed Strap, while waiting for my Amazon Honl speed strap to arrive.

In this post, I'll show the accessories I built, and explain their various effects on a picture taken.

All my DIY accessories have real commercial products made by David Honl. While the lighting result is usually similar, I must say that Honl products look way more professional. (In fact they look professional enough that I bought some of them, even when I knew I can make them myself).

But, just before I go into the details of constructing and demonstrating the different accessories, I would like to highlight some of the comments on the original post, dealing with different materials that can be used to construct a better model of the speed strap. Click to continue ›

As you may know, I am a great fan of off camera flash

I've owned a Nikon SB-28 since my analog days and added a Nikon SB800 when going digital. Advised by Strobist, I added a third flash - a Nikon SB26.

To get all those flashes going off camera, I bought some cheapo Cactus (AKA Gadget Infinity) flash radio triggers - those can be found at eBay for just a few dollars. I initially bought two receivers and when I added the Nikon SB26 to my collection, I bought the third one.

I really like those cheapo triggers and up until now they were lots of fun (see this shot, I just can't miss a shot at showing my son off). Of course, if you need high reliability, you should consider the big brother: Pocket Wizards.

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Photographer J. Chris Hansen built the soup bowl beauty dish for his photography studio. It was all well and dandy while it was mounted on a speedlight. But when he tried to mount the beauty dish on an Alien Bee flash they melted. Luckily for us, Chris did not give up and upgraded the design to use stainless steal bowls. From here it is all Chris. Click to continue ›

I have to hand to you, Ever since I started the "Readers Projects" Quest, I've been getting a ton of great DIY/Photography ideas and projects. After hitting it with the Thomas Schwenger's Complete Two Seconds Lighting Kit and the Christmas Tree Ring Light comes Ben's great project that does not have to do with lighting but can defiantly improve you life if you are one of those photographers that use a hand strap but disappointed from what the market has to offer. Click to continue ›

What do you get when you cross a Nine Cents Tripod with a Pocket Foldable Tripod? A DIY Gorilla Pod.

Reader Alan Muller came up with a great way to combine the two tripods into a new even-better-then-each-of-the-originals tripod, which is very similar to the well known Gorilla Pod.

On his example Alan uses a bottle flash holder, but this Gorilla pod will firmly hold a medium sized point and shoot.

Alan used number 10 wired to make the legs: twisted and then folded and twisted again. This gives the Tripod a firm set of legs.

The wired can then be wrapped with shrink-wrap (fancy) or electrical tape (Ghetto).

At the base of the bottle, Alan used an eye bolt instead of a cap nut (or machine screw) to allow the attachment of a safety line or bungee etc.

Another bolt of ingenuity (pan intended :) was to use washers to separate the tripod's legs. Those give it stability and make some order in that messy area.

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One of the things I like most on DIYP is the strong warm community that has build around it. It is more and more often that readers are sending ideas, hacks and modifications that far surpass any ideas that might be having on the late hours of the night.

Reader Joseph A. Sorrentino (flickr) gets the genius-of-the-week award for moding a cable-wrap into a pocket wizard mount device.

Joe has tested several options before going with the cheapest and easiest solution I have seen so far. Here are his thoughts and reasons for designing a whole new Pocket wizard mount from scratch. In my mind all the other alternatives are very good and offer some advantages, but Joe's mount is the best of class. (Check them all for great mounting ideas.)

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Remember those old mice you use to have before computer mice became monsters with twenty five buttons, side buttons, rollers, sliders and what not.

Dave Schlier had a spare oldie (mouse that is) that he recycled into a shutter release cable. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that clicking a mouse is the most affective way to take a shot. But if that what it takes for you computer addicts to take the camera out of the bag, my task here on earth is completed.

Here is how to make one of those cool mice (of course you can always build a traditional release cable): Click to continue ›

I finally got my slave flash from eBay. This is extra cool, because unlit now I had to choose between two alternatives - none was giving me the flexibility that I needed for my studio shots. (If you are in to optical, here is a cool slave that you can build @ home)

Studio Slave Flash Option #1 was to use my Nikon SB-800 speedlight set on Slave mode, utilizing Nikon's CLS (Creative Light System). The benefits of this mode were exact flash output (Those guys at Nikon really knows what they are doing). The down side here was that I could only use one flash at a time and that I had an annoying "shutter lag" until the camera and the flash did their negotiation thingy. Now that was sad, because I often needed more then one speedlight, and did not enjoy the lag at all.

So Studio Slave Flash Option #2 came into play, which was setting all my flashes with sync cord. That was nice - I could hook up 2 or flashes and had no lag at all. The trouble here was that sync cord is A - expensive and B tends to get in your way. For awhile I use option #2.5 - One speedlight with sync cord and the other on optical flash (I set the Nikon SB-28 on sync cord, and used the built in "stupid slave" capabilities of the SB800).

I was not satisfied. So I got on eBay and got me a radio slave flash. The model I got is called RF604 and has 4 channels. Shipping was fast and I was satisfied. I also ordered an extra receiver, to attach to my second flash. Click to continue ›

I was inspired to do this project after seeing the PVC light tent posted on the MAKE blog. This light tent uses a cardboard box and some white material (Tyvek) and allows you to take reasonable photos of products such as bottles, watches, jewelry, small objects, etc. There is lot's of room for improvement but for the sake of 15 minutes I hope you will agree it's pretty good :) Click to continue ›