The following idea kinda reminds me of what do you get when you cross kinda jokes. You know, like: What do you get if you cross an octopus with a cow? An animal that can milk itself. Or what do you get if you cross a sheep with a kangaroo? A woolly jumper.
Ok, so what do you get when you cross a GPS flash mount with a Mount it anywhere camera tripod? (Answer after the jump). Click to continue ›
The following post is a guest post from James Evins- an automotive photographer from Houston.
Hi! My name is James Evins, and I am going to talk to you guys (and girls) about a nifty way to build your own automotive rig! Who doesn't love rig shots? The sense of motion achieved and the interesting angles that would be nearly impossible in a car to car or panning shot make automotive rigs an invaluable tool to automotive photographers. Click to continue ›
It is not a secret that I am a big fan of using 1/4" bolts on just about anything to create ad-hoc tripods.
However, this one by Brian Green tops them all.
Brian is the type of guy that hikes, bikes and generally enjoys the good life (I mean the really good life, not the ones that you enjoy on the couch watching Lost). Click to continue ›
In the following article Trevis Thomas (Flickr) shows us how to make an L-bracket - A useful Tripod mod that allows you to mount your camera vertically on the tripod.
I was in the market for a new joystick style-ball head and I thought that the design of the head would be limiting if I wanted to shoot with my camera in portrait orientation. Then I remembered watching a pod cast by Scott Bourne where he showed his camera mounted to a fancy L-Bracket. I thought that that would be the perfect solution and went on the hunt for a custom bracket for my Pentax K20D.
This is another fun project from the factory of reader Jerry Hamby.
It is a reflector holder from a $9.99 tripod, a 3ft long piece of PVC pipe, an elbow to fit, and a small clamp. (The Tripod is 9.99$ on July 26th on Amazon, but I bet similar tripods are always on sale somewhere). Like the previous project from Jerry, the Green Bean Hair Light, it's a short and fun project, and you don't have to make it in whole, if you like the idea, you can expand it to things other the tripods...
The following tutorial on building an Ariel Monopod is a guest post by Adam Hajnos.
Recently I was carrying around my camera and tripod at a music festival when I got the idea to do an aerial shot. I extended the tripod out all the way and put the camera on a timer. Only problem is, my tripod weighs upwards of 50lbs. So here is a simple solution to make a lightweight, portable monopod for "aerial" photography.
Jake O'Connell has come up with a great Idea to create a Magic Arm. What is a magic arm you ask? (You can have a look at the Bogen Magic Arm or read on). - Yes it is time for another Reader Project.
A magic arm is a photography magical instrument much like a tripod, but with two major differences:
The first difference is that (unlike a tripod) the non camera side of the Magic Arm is equipped with a stud (or a stud socket) which allows you to mount it on virtually anything. (Well the spiderpod also does this, but I wouldn't place my Nikon D2x on a spiderpod).
Alternatively, you can use the magic arm to mount a lighting device like a flash or a flag.
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.
It is amazing what you can do with one 1/4" bolt, a washer and a piece of string.
With less then 1$ at Home Depot, you'll get a tiny stabilizer for your camera. The maker of this flick claims to gain 3 stops. I'd bet on around two, but it is good enough for 1 buck.
If you are grabbing this with RSS, you can get the full video here.
For a more complete guide, check out the String Tripod over at DIYP group at instructables. Be warned, though, over there you might end up with a two dollars expense bill as they use more part and get more stabilization.
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More DIYP Instructables:
- Muslin Photography Background
- Great Way To Build a Ringlight
- Photo Studio Compression Pole
- Altoids To The Rescue - The Minty Strobe
Click to continue ›
How to take good panoramas? Sounds simple, right? Take some shots with some overlapping landscape, go to your favorite stitching software, and stitch them up (I like panorama tools AKA PT, and autostich AKA autostich). Right? Not exactly...
If you've done a panorama or two, you must have noticed those annoying vertical stitching lines. Some are caused by wide angle distortion, some due to Polarizer filter that stayed on, and some are the "software's fault". Allot of those annoying stitching lines are caused due to something called parallax. In layman's terms Parallax means that your camera's focal plan does not "sit" (or as Neo would say - is "not in one") with rotations axis of your camera. confused? Here is a great article to explain this. So if you want to get professional panoramas you need to do something about it; This something is called Using the Nodal Point (is it me, or does this term sounds a bit weird). Curious? here is how you find your Nodal Point. Of course DIYPhotography.net is not the first to find this Nodal thing. you can always get some cheap accessories for panorama at Manfrotto. Or you can try and build one yourself, just like Stefan Lindgren - DIY-er extraordiner. Click to continue ›
