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Great High Speed Photography Trigger by Tom Barnett

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Tom Barnett (pxlsnfr) has come up with some great High Speed Photography shots.

Tom uses very basic circuitry to trigger the flash on “hearing noise” and a bit more complex (though still pretty simple) circuit to avoid repeating flash triggering.

In fact the basic circuitry is just one SCR with plus and minus going to the flash and minus and gate going to an amplified mic. See pictures below.

From the number of crushed bulbs on Tom’s photostream, I’d recommend his services to any person that wants to be environment friendly and move to Energy-saving compact fluorescents (CFs).

What I like about Tom’s High Speed Photography, is that Tom controls this technique flawlessly, and can use it to photograph images with a great amount of creativity.

pxlsnfr flash trigger

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Let Your Camera See The World – Kite Aerial Photography

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The guys over at make magazine made a pretty awesome tutorial about constructing a Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) kit.

They also have a cool video showing the process of building the rig. Killing the rig. And rebuilding a better rig. The video has been around for some time, so you might have seen it before. I managed to miss it, so if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s definitely worth 6 minutes of your time.

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DIY Lighting – Trading Your GPS For a Flash

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When strolling at my local autostore I stumbled across this very interesting gadget. (Well, not exactly this interesting gadget, but a close sibling).

It is a windshield mount for a GPS device. The natural thing for me, being the why-don’t-you-stop-and-ask-for-directions-said-the-wife kinda guy that I am, and the natural and logical thing for me is to buy a GPS. However, those babies cost millions.

I had no alternative but to go to my other hobby – photography and see how I can use this mount for my photography studio.[Read More…]

A Cheapo Minty Ringlight Strobe – Call to Arms

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So, let’s see what we had here in the last month: we had a cool way of using a disposable camera and an Altoids box to make a small flash.

We also had a cool way to create a ring light (no wait actually we had two cool ways of doing that).

So, of course the question comes, what next?

In my mind the next step of evolution should be combining the two to create the first ever 25 Dollars professional ring flash.

With disposable cameras with flash costing as low as 3.50, it is simply a crime not to build such studio lighting device.[Read More…]

Photo Studio Compression Pole

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usefulguy from DIYPhotography’s Instructables group has posted a pretty neat Instructable explaining how to make a photo studio compression pole. It kinda reminds me of the hardware store light-backdrop stand, but it is even easier to use.

The good news is the cost: all the parts cost 9.43 at Home Depot. Real cheap for an all purpose studio stand.

To make a good thing better, he even has a video showing how one can use the pole in a studio:

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Printing The Flash Mounted homemade DIY Softbox

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I got lots of comments and question asking how to print the flash mounted homemade diy softbox. Some readers have had trouble printing the diagram on multiple pages.

One of DIYPhotography.net readers was kind enough to help me figure out why it was not printing on some computers. Are you having the same troubles? Do not despair.

It appears that the driver for the mdi format I was using to span the print over several pages is not installed by default when you install office. Look at this Microsoft article to learn how to install the driver for this file.[Read More…]

Altoids To The Rescue – The Minty Strobe

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There is some great stuff going on at DIYPhotography.net instructables group. This fantastic group is a true demonstration of the DIY spirit that is behind this site. I have talked before on the subject of creating your own flash. In that article Avner Richard explained how to utilize xenon tubes to create some real Watts/Second power flashes. It is a great piece for the ones that are electrically capable.

If you are not an electrician and fear the high voltage involved, Martin (AKA PKM) has posted an Instructable just for you.[Read More…]

Shooting Heavy Bikes with a DIY Strip Light

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Reader Peter Boden a great photographer in general and a Bike photographer in particular have a neat way to creatively light his subjects – among them a BMW K1200 RS. Without a doubt a subject that needs respectful handling. Not an easy subject to light – highly reflective curved surfaces, combined with black-matte-light-absorbing surfaces. Not an easy task. But wait, there is more. Since we are talking Heavy Bike here, just lighting will not make the cut. Once you have achieved acceptable lighting, you want to make sure you convey the right emotion.[Read More…]

Studio Lighting – Snooted Flood Light

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Reader Michael Lim (zac08) came up with a cool snooted flood light. It combines the concept of a home made snoot with a clamp. The design is similar to a mixup of both, but uses a florescent light instead of a flash.

The bonus here that there is almost no assembly/DIY-ing required; it comes ready from the shop. As for hacking the right materials, the snoot used is a Lay’s Potato Chips pack. (Empty of course, lighting is tasty). Here is what Zac has to say;[Read More…]

Studio Lighting – Great Way To Build a Ringlight

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Reader Bankara has followed up on the cheap ringlight article with another very affordable ringlight. Not as cheap as the one you can get from your LCD, but still way cheaper then the ones you get in stores. He has posted an instructable on how to build one of those monsters babies.

One of the cool features about this particular ring light is that it is collapsible. Yap! It folds in half. Simple math brings me to the conclusion that I’ll only have to defend its existence in my home half of the time. (The other spare half will go toward explaining the wife where her living room went).[Read More…]

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