fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

 

Submit A Story

Twitter for photographers, you’re almost there

by 4 Comments

Twitter has developed into a photographer’s dream platform – almost. This fall, the company enabled uploading higher resolutions images, while keeping the quality.

I am not an avid user of Twitter, so yesterday, when I discovered that I can add a dark theme to twitter, I was pleasantly surprised. A dark background is a perfect environment for colors, contrast and shadow detail. Images deserve that.

You can enlarge an image when you click on it, and that is a very cool feature. Twitter also adds a frame that reflects the image’s color theme.

[Read More…]

Cosina has officially announced the Voigtlander NOKTON 60mm f/0.95 lens for Micro Four Thirds

by Leave a Comment

This one’s been anticipated for a while now, with lots of hushed talk and whispers whenever its name was mentioned. But it’s finally official. Cosina has now announced the new super-bright aperture Voigtlander NOKTON 60mm f/0.95mm lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras.

On the Micro Four Thirds cameras for which it is intended, it offers a field of view equivalent to that of 120mm focal length on a full-frame body. As such, it’s designed primarily for portraits, and should offer a look with depth of field similar to something like the Sigma 105mm f/1.4 Art, but with a slightly tighter field of view. Of course, it has an extra stop and a bit of brightness over f/1.4 for shooting in lower light conditions or at lower ISO to reduce noise.

[Read More…]

Here’s how I made my own custom DIY battery charging station

by 7 Comments

I was, as I’m sure a lot of you are, utterly sick of endless chargers and cables. A mess of wires that always seem to get tangled and it always ends up looking like Medusa on a bad hair day.

I’ve tried various things over the years, I’ve tried to hide them in drawers, Velcro ing them to the wall or under a desk, it has always ended up in the same mess. They also tend to take up a lot of room.

[Read More…]

How to make your own DIY HDMI teleprompter from an old laptop screen

by Leave a Comment

Since we posted about Manny Ortiz’s use of the Parrot 2 Teleprompter a few weeks ago, I’ve been developing my own that I can 3D print (more on that in a future post), but I’ve also been keeping an eye out on YouTube to see what others have done with their own DIY teleprompter solutions.

Then, this morning, I spotted this video from Electronoobs on my feed, where he builds his own teleprompter from scratch. It’s a pretty simple build that plugs straight into a desktop or laptop’s HDMI output, allowing for some level of easy remote control.

[Read More…]

How I restored this beat up old Pelican case to its former glory

by 1 Comment

In a previous blog post, I mentioned I was embarking on a Pelican 1550 repair project. I was looking to buy one, but someone offered the case for free, and I thought it was worth trying to refurbishment.

At worst, I could buy a new case later, and it would cost me nothing other than my time on the refurb. At best, I’d save a couple of hundred dollars on a new case and help recycle something that might have otherwise found its way to the dumps.

[Read More…]

How I built my own DIY wide-angle macro lens

by 9 Comments

The wide-angle paradox

As we know, wide angle lenses show a larger field of view and therefore make things appear smaller and appear further away than they are. Which contradicts the concept of macro photography, where we want our subject to be projected onto the sensor at a magnification ratio of at least 1.0x. So how can we combine a wide angle perspective and macro macro-capabilities?

The concept of wide-angle macro photography is not exactly new and there are other photographers out there, who built their own super-wide macro lenses. There even are a couple lenses on the market that provide 1.0x at a15mm focal length, but I much rather an interesting DIY project than spending 500$ on a niche lens.

[Read More…]

How to calibrate your lens autofocus for $0

by 7 Comments

Sometimes the autofocus on your lenses may not be exactly where you want it. Fortunately, it’s an easy fix as most modern cameras offer “micro adjustment” or “fine tune” option that lets you calibrate autofocus of attached lenses. You do need a calibration tool to do it, though. However, Karl Talyor offers you a simple calibration method without buying (or making) a special tool for it. In this video, he’ll show you how to do it for $0 and in just a few minutes. All you need is a few items that you already have at home.

[Read More…]

How to make a (sort of) DIY JibONE camera jib

by 2 Comments

The recently announced Edelkrone JibONE looks like a fantastic bit of kit. It’s not terribly unreasonably priced at $999 for what it offers, but once you add the motorised head and other doohickies, it can quickly run into several thousand. Filmmaker and YouTuber Chadwin Smith decided to have a go at making his own version of the JibONE.

The video’s called I built my own Edelkrone JibONE for free! and, well, it sort of is, but not really. The setup uses a motorised camera gimbal, so if you don’t already own one of those, then it’s not free. But it’s an interesting option for those who already have the kit shown in the video, but don’t want to go to the expense of the JibONE.

[Read More…]

How to build a massive DIY orbital spinning camera rig

by Leave a Comment

Making cameras move in ways that are different can be a challenge, especially as cameras and all their associated bits seem to keep getting bigger and heavier. In a recent short film release, Skywatch, filmmaker Jason Levy needed to produce a camera rig which orbited around an object in a scene, early on in the film. There was no commercial solution available, so he made his own.

It’s called the Spin Rig and we’ve seen similar such rigs before, although mostly on a much smaller scale or designed for lighter weight cameras like GoPros. The Spin Rig, however, is much more substantial. If you don’t want spoilers, watch the short film first (it’s at the bottom of this post).

[Read More…]

How to make DIY wooden handgrips for under $30

by 3 Comments

Wooden handgrips or kinogrips are becoming more and more popular. I’ve had my DIY grips for a couple years now and I get compliments on them constantly when I’m out on shoots –  but besides being a conversation starter they’re ergonomic, practical, durable, and can be used on a variety of camera rigs. Most of the time these retail for nearly $100 or more, but today, we’ll be making our own wooden handgrips for around $12 per grip. We’re going to be making two different styles – some round / spherical ones, and some traditional/contoured ones.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts