fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

 

Submit A Story

This genius trick gives you an infinite white background for shooting small products

by 5 Comments

This is one of the coolest “hacks” I’ve seen in a while. When tasked to shoot a bunch of small products on a white seamless, you have two options. You can either build a white seamless set, light it and get everything just perfect. But that takes a lot of time and effort.

The other option is what filmmaker Justin Gustavison did. He strapped a white piece of card to his camera, placed the camera on a turntable and then surrounded it with the subjects he had to shoot. Justin posted the results to Instagram and it looks like it works brilliantly.[Read More…]

This is the most well thought out DIY overhead camera rig I’ve ever seen

by 1 Comment

For most of us, when we want an overhead camera rig, we set up a light stand with a boom arm or stick a modified TV bracket on the wall or something. Then we’ll throw up an LED panel, or maybe some Spekulars. But that’s not good enough for YouTuber GreatScott!. Oh no, he built his own custom design using PVC pipe, plywood, aluminium sheets and stuck a computer monitor to it to see the camera viewpoint and made his own LED control circuit to light the scene below.

[Read More…]

Filmmakers, here’s how to create a realistic war scene on a tight budget

by Leave a Comment

Last month, I believe that Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones were pretty much all that occupied your Facebook feed. Both have inspired a massive number of memes, but they have also inspired Film Riot’s Ryan Connolly to create budget-friendly filmmaking tutorials.

After he showed you how to get the Game of Thrones look on a budget, here are some ideas on how to shoot a realistic war scene. It was inspired by Avengers: Endgame, and while it’s shot with a totally DIY approach, it still looks really good! All it takes is some dirt, fake blood, some lights and a minimal amount of special effects.

[Read More…]

How to shoot professional-looking product photos with just one light

by 1 Comment

There are plenty of cheap, DIY product photography tricks (the one with a garbage can will probably forever be my favorite). If you’re on a tight budget, you can always use one of these and get professional-looking shot without using tons of expensive gear. In this video, Ed Verosky shows you how to take great product photos at home using just one light.

[Read More…]

How to build your own DIY floating balloon LED light using a few shower curtains

by 4 Comments

Balloon lights are an uncommon light source for most of us. But such lights are often used in TV and movie production. They’re essentially huge light sources that are overhead of your subjects using very bright bulbs. The balloon part of it acts like a big diffuser to help soften and spread the light out more evenly. They’re not cheap, though.

But this DIY option from Todd Blankenship at Shutterstock shows us a way to make one fairly easily using some shower curtains, LED strips and helium.

[Read More…]

How to make a DIY smartphone gimbal with just a mop, paint roller and tin cans

by 4 Comments

Motorised smartphone gimbals have gotten pretty inexpensive over the last couple of years. Something like the Zhiyun Smooth 4 only costs $120, and you can find ones that are even cheaper if you shop around. But there’s something to be said for the humble gravity stabiliser, especially when you can make one yourself.

In this video, the guys from COOPH show us how we can make a DIY smartphone stabiliser using just a mop head, a paint roller and a few tin cans. It’s a super simple project, and the results look pretty good.

[Read More…]

This guy built a high speed DIY LED flash and put the plans online so you can make your own

by 2 Comments

LED flash still hasn’t really hit the mainstream yet. There are a couple of products out there, of course, like the Rotolite Neo, but for the most part, there’s still not very good for general use. They’re just not powerful enough. But sometimes they can be perfect for the intended use. In particular, high-speed events. This is because you can get an extremely fast flash duration.

You can buy these sorts of light, but they aren’t common and they aren’t cheap. So, tinkerer Tyler Gerritsen thought he’d have a go at making his own. And the results it produces are pretty outstanding.

[Read More…]

How to make a cheap DIY bullet time rig with a lazy susan and some drawer slides

by Leave a Comment

It’s 20 years since The Matrix was released (don’t you feel old?), but the bullet time effect is still incredibly popular. I don’t know what the deal is with the title they gave for this video, but The King of Random just put up this video covering how they made their bullet time slow motion camera rig using a handful of off-the-shelf components. It’s a simple design, but very effective, producing some fantastic final results.

[Read More…]

How to to make your own DIY LED panel for only $13

by Leave a Comment

You know what it’s like, you’re walking through the local dollar store (or pound shop, for those in the UK) and you see some interesting looking cheap LED lights. So, you buy a bunch of them and turn them into a DIY LED panel. At least, what’s what Dave Knop (AKA, Knoptop) did, and it only cost him $13.

[Read More…]

Here are two budget DIY ways to get the black light look without using actual black lights

by 2 Comments

If you want to achieve the black light look in your photos or videos, buying a bunch of black light bulbs can be quite pricey. But, you can DIY it for only $7. In this video, Jakob Owens of TheBuffNerds shows you two super simple ways to get the black light look without exceeding your budget.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts