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Double Your Light Stand As A Portable Backdrop Mount System

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In the following article, Martin Kimeldorf will show us how to make a backdrop stand that can be mounted on your I-carry-it-anyway lightstand.

I don’t like to carry a ton of photo stuff. The notion of trucking around 2 lights stands and a cross bar, with backgrounds, plus tripod and additional light stands for off-camera flash…well, it just ain’t me, not at my age. I went into my head-shed and tried to work with an existing light stand (costing $20 $45) and materials found at my local hardware and fabric outlet. I now have a lightweight, portable set up for less than 1/3 the cost of the commercial ones. Plus it is smaller than most being only 6 feet across. I can remain mobile.

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The Headphones Pop Up Flash Diffuser

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In this article Mohamed Talal  shows us how to make a simple diffuser for a DSLR pop up flash.

There are three things that separate this diffuser from other diffusers we have featured before. The first is the total cost – this one really costs nothing.  The second one is the size of the diffusion panel. By using this method you get a nicely sized diffusion panel. Lastly, a quick mod will turn this diffuser to a ring flash.

It is called the Headphones diffuser, but don’t feel obliged to use headphones casing, you can use GI-Joe’s casings, Transformers casings, or just a nice pieces of transparent material.

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Exploring Small Strobes: Going Wireless

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Welcome to this multi-part series of articles on Exploring Small Strobes by Yanik Chauvin from Yanik’s Photo School.

In part 1 on Exploring Small strobes, I looked at why using flash guns instead of the built-in flash and studio strobes. In part 2, I went through the importance of using your speedlight off camera.

What I’ll be going through today, in part 3, is looking at how to trigger and control your speedlights off camera; more specifically wirelessly. You’re probably saying to your self, it’s about time Yanik gets to the practical stuff! And you’re absolutely right! But I had to convince you first! ;-)

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Avoiding The Double Reflection

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On my Ode to my Power Supply Unit post I got quite a few comments about that nasty double reflection. I just had to fix this. The reason for this reflection is that a glass board has some thickness so I got one reflection from the top surface of the glass and one dimmer reflection from the bottom surface of the glass.

I intended to go with the strobist solution of black granite tile when I realized that I would have a hard time explaining my wife why I just had to have a piece of junk I mean a black tile I mean a photography accessory to make my studio complete.

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Two Ways To Get Background Circles

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As you probably noticed, there is a certain background setup I’ve grown to like in the last few weeks.

It is a setup that produces a nice circle in the background. You can see it in the gridspot article, My Ode to PSU and the shot I took to be the icon of the Babies series. You can also see it used on a large scale portrait here.

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DIY Ghetto-Fab Portable Backdrop Stand

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This backdrop holder by Edward Holtzman is one the fastest-to-assemble / cheap-to-build / quick-to-store / don’t-piss-wife-with-photo-junk projects I have seen.

Riding on the PVC wave, Ed created a three section foldable backdrop stand. The genius thing about it is the way Ed overcame the common problem of stabilizing the stand. And the really genius thing about it is that after you are done taking pictures, you can take the stand out to play football with your son.

There is no end to creativity – if you created a cool setup for your shot, and you want to share it with DIYP readers and post it on the site, drop me a note.

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PVC Backdrop/Light Stand

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I love nothing better than a good PVC construction. This is why I was so happy when David Turman sent in this great PVC stand. As any stand it can double as a light stand or a backdrop stand. You can use the stand to mount the cool backdrop you already made, or “just” your store bought backdrop. David is doesn’t talk much, but his picture by picture tutorial is priceless. David, the floor is yours.

Here is my version of a simple and durable PVC backdrop or Lighting Stand. All the pieces are cheap and readily available and assembly is easy. I bought all the pieces at my local Lowe’s for about $11.00, so you can do 2 for about 20 bucks not counting the uprights. You might save even more if you buy a multi-pack of the PVC fittings.

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An Ode To My Power Supply Unit + Setup Shot

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There comes a time at any man’s life, where he enters their workroom oh-my-god-kids-what-is-going-on-room and something smelled funny.

Smells metallic. Burning. My socks on fire? No…. What is it? Smelling my way towards the source, I found it to be my computer. Or more precisely, my four years old power supply’s fan has decided to die on me. A dying fan means that the computer is heating up, which means that blue screens of death will pop in any second now.

I quickly went to the nearest computer store and bought myself a new unit with two fans. I figured if one will die the other one will still be there. Total cost – 65 Dollars. Definitely worth it.

Just before I throw the little guy to the little recycle bin in the sky, I wanted to say good buy in an appropriate, nice way. After all it did give me power for four years.

Loosing my power supply got me thinking that I need better backup to my pictures than the external hard drive I am currently using. After all my pictures are stored on my personal computer. If you have an idea, please post it in the comments section. I also went to reread some of the great stuff Brian has to say about backing pictures up.

So aside from the ode, there is also a setup shot and some explanations after the jump.

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Holding a Nuclear Reactor – A Balloon Shot Anatomy

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One of the things I like best is High Speed Photography, it is an art that combines a hard technical challenge, along with an opportunity to have an artistic say. We’ve featured a few DIY articles about DIYing it, but nothing beats dedicated controllers.

This is why I was really happy to play a bit with the Universal Photo Timer – a heaven for High Speed Photographers. I’ll write a review about it soon. (I know – the name says timer, but it is actually way more then just a timer) Till then, I’d like to share a High Speed shot I did, and with it the process of polishing a picture (or some aspects of it) till it is good. I will also discuss about what’s missing from the final image.
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Exploring Small Strobes: Why Use Speedlights Off Camera

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Welcome to this multi-part series of articles on Exploring Small Strobes by Yanik Chauvin from Yanik’s Photo School.

In part 1 on Exploring Small strobes, I looked at why using flash guns instead of the built-in flash and studio strobes. Today, I’ll be going through the importance of using your speedlight off camera.

So, we already know that direct flash from your built-in flash gives unflattering results, to say the least. Using your speedlight in the same way won’t change much. I did mention that you can redirect the light by rotating the head of your flash gun and bouncing the light off ceilings and walls but you’re still very limited in your creativity. So what’s a photographer to do? I’ll tell you. Get that speedlight off your camera to unleash its full potential!

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