DIYPhotography.net

Thanks for everyone who took part on the Strobist Gel Collection giveaway from Rosco.

One thing that giveaway thought me was never to ask for notes on a picture of a doll that seems to have a lightstand attached to one of its sensitive parts. No dolls were heart while making this cheat sheet. Trust me. The notes on the image, however were hilarious, check them out here. Winners after the jump. Click to continue ›

After reviewing the Rosco Strobist gel collection, I just had to take it for an intense spin.

Since one of the main uses I see for this kit is the ability to color objects and backgrounds for creative effects, I did a little matrix of colors. (I am a computer geek, I know).

As with all the other cheat sheets on the site, I will go through the idea, the setup and end with a creative commons statement. Unlike the other cheat sheets, we are also going to have a Rosco Strobist gel collection giveaway. That stuff is near the end of the post.

Click to continue ›

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Rosco Free sample swatch book program (I am not even gonna link to that, see why in just a bit). I bet you noticed that those fine babies are gone from the stores too.

Here's why: When Rosco made the sample program, the main target of it was to enable stage workers, artists and theater decorator to select just the right gel for their needs. They never saw it coming when a huge crowd of photo enthusiasts started to use those free sample swatch books for gelling flashes. Now why would you want to gel your flash and a solution to the problem + a review after the jump. Click to continue ›

Two things about backdrops.

1. Studio backdrops are not cheap.  A single color muslin backdrop can cost up to 30$ and the fancy ones with patterns can cost even more.

2.  Backdrops take space. No matter how you look at it, each roll of seamless or fold up fabric take space. It is especially "bad" if you're using seamless paper. I mean those rolls are huge and having just a few of them will get you a 'sad smiley' with your significant other.

The easy solution of course is to use a black backdrop; a white backdrop and some magic to get all the rest. (If you've already gelled flashes till your head popped, skip right to the pattern part).

Click to continue ›

Our friend Mason over at photogels.com is giving a 15% discount for gel packs for DIYP readers.

If you wonder what Gels are good for, and what the heck you can do with those awesome combo packs, read on.  There are many great uses for them gel sheets. Here are my favorite four:

Click to continue ›

Craig Colvin (Flickr) came up with a great design for a gel holder on a flash. The design includes an L shaped plexiglass.

Now, if you ever followed the strobist way of mounting gels on your flash, you know the great value those little pieces of colored tape can provide.

You probably also know that it can very annoying to apply the gel strips on the flash or to remove them. Not to mention stacking them together - this becomes a Velcro hell.

The nice design by Craig solves this problem by providing a Velcro free gel chassis. Sometimes you need nothing more than some bended plexiglass. See Craig's full design and instructions here.

If you can not bend plexiglass yourself you may want to consider using an Acrylic stand. I could only find big ones but I know that there is a smaller version from my local coffee bar.

This got me thinking on alternatives to gel holders and the thing that popped to mind was name tag pockets. Those are pretty cheap and once you place on over your flash, you can freely insert and remove colorful gels.

Make sure you don't miss out on the next article - Register to the RSS feed or the newsletter.

More Gels:

- Homemade Gridspot

- Painting With Light

- The Optimizer

- The DIY Speed Strap - Accessories And Samples Click to continue ›

I guess that by now everybody is familiar with the film can bare-bulb flash trick. If not, head over to photojojo and see hoe easily you can make one from an old film container.

I guess the Lomo Colorsplash is a little less known. If you've never heard of this one, head over to the Lomography realm and have a look.

deth2all from DIYP Instractables group came up with an ingenious way to combine the two. By using the famous Lee filters (They will ship them free to your door), deth2all was able to add the color transformation "feature" to the bare bulb film container flash. See the full tutorial here.

There are two nice things with this trick: The first is that you are not limited to the handful of colors the original Lomo had built in. The other niceness (can I say that ????) is that you do not need to buy a Colorsplash Lomo (though I highly recommend getting any Lomo you can put your hands on), you can use this on top of your DSLR.

Click to continue ›

Both the Strobist and Rui talk about the virtues of using gels on strobes to create atmosphere in a shot. Either cold blue or hot read. Uber photographer David Tejada uses gels on a regular basis to spice up his shots.

Reader Tony Bell has an interesting idea on color correction gels. Even though they are cheap and available, you can still beat the price, if you are going for Lomo style and Lomo level color accuracy. Click to continue ›

Photographer David Tejada posted a nice video showing how he did a shot of a small room with a computer screed (what he refers to as a CAD room).

He used a CTB gel to create cool atmosphere and a CTO gel on a snoot to warm the subject.

The video will follow up is a second. Before that I encourage you to explore David Tejada's Blog. This guy really knows what he is doing.

Click to continue ›