Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
It was a while since I was thinking how to perfectly center the Godox H200J bare bulb head in the S-Type Bracket. The AD200 and the S Bracket just cant be centered. Surfing the net, I came across this post by Ken Tam.
Ken thought of removing the screw to secure the headlights accessories. Perfect, but this does not make it more difficult to mount the reflector disc when we combine the AD200 with the S-Type Bracket.
Like many of you, I have a large collection of 35mm slides and negative film that I have taken over the years that are currently pretty much invisible. I ditched my slide projectors with the last house move (they were 240V and hadn’t been used in 20 years!) and so all the slides were stored in their boxes for some sort of future viewing! In my early years, I took a lot of black and white films and so have all those negatives in those paper holders filed away. I’m not saying that these will be great for stock photo images, but there is a lot of my life stored in those boxes! So I’ve always wanted a way to scan them to digital and perhaps pick the best to share with family and friends.
While it was once the only way you could really shoot a photo, wet plate photography went off almost into the realm of complete non-existence just a few years ago. Lately, though, it seems to be making something of a comeback. Much of the hardware isn’t as easy to get as it once was, although it seems to be more popular again now than it has been for a very long time.
One problem to be overcome with wet plate, though, is actually loading the plates into a large format camera. You typically can’t just use a regular sheet film holder. At least, not without alteration. In this video, photographer Markus Hofstätter shows us how he modifies his 8×10 film holders for the wet plate process.
Light painting with tubes is a pretty popular technique and it gives you so many creative possibilities. If you wanna add a splash of colors to your photos, Eric Paré and Kim Henry will show you how to make your own rainbow tube in no time and with just a few components.
Feelworld makes some pretty decent monitors for the money. I have the Feelworld FH7 and the new super-bright Feelworld FW279 – we’ll have a full review on the FW279 coming soon (review here). But HDMI socket placement always seems to be an issue with many monitors. On the FH7, the HDMI ports are underneath pointing straight down, but they’re very close to the mounting thread, making it a very tight fit for HDMI cables.
The FW279 shifts them over to the side, which makes connectivity much easier, but brings another challenge. Namely, gravity. The lateral strain on the socket caused by the weight of the cable can potentially weaken the socket over time. This simple modification by Johannes Gauder solves that issue with just a few cheap components.
When you shoot video, the sound is as important as the picture. If you want to improve both the sound and the lighting, you can kill two birds with one stone with this awesome DIY project. In this video, Caleb Pike of DSLR Video Shooter will show you how to make your own sound panels that will help you improve audio, but you can also use them for lighting.
Once you start with cabled tethering from your camera to your computer you’ll soon want to look into a solution for a strain relief for the cable on your camera side to not only protect you from accidental disconnections, but even more from damaging your camera’s internal connector port.
Pretty soon you will stumble over the JerkStopper by Tether Tools which is basically a small plastic part that cramps around the cable with a short cord that is bound to the strap eyelet of your camera. Well, that little thing is everything else than cheap at over $16 currently.
The Manfrotto RC2 quick release system is one of the most popular in the world for photographers. Its only real competition for tripod mounting supremacy is the Arca-Swiss system. But while very useful, the Manfrotto RC2 base (otherwise known as the Manfrotto 323) onto which your plate mounts has a fatal flaw. The underside of it is not flat.
So, if you want to mount it to a cage, or stack it on top of a plate for a different tripod system, you may face something of a challenge. Fortunately, one enterprising user by the name of Eric Hasso over on Thingiverse designed a solution that can be 3D printed. The folks at LensVid are quite partial to the Manfrotto 323, so they decided to check it out.
The Flying Pixel Portrait Camera uses a video beamer, a single photoresistor, an Arduino and a PC for taking photos of people’s faces. The beamer ‘scans’ the image by projecting a small white square onto a person’s face inside an otherwise completely dark chamber. While the projected square slowly moves over the entire face, the photoresistor captures the reflected luminosities.
This generates a proportional analog electric signal which is digitized by an Arduino and transmitted to the PC. As the PC also controls the position of the projected square, it can now construct an image based on the different brightness values that it receives, one pixel at a time.
There are two things common to many photographers. We’d like to be able to shoot infrared – because why not? It’s a lot of fun – and we probably have an old DSLR or mirrorless camera or six laying around somewhere just gathering dust. Photographer Davin Lavikka fell into those categories, so he decided to do something about
While there are many conversion services out there around hte world now, Davin decided to convert his old Sony A7R into a full spectrum camera all by himself. If you want to follow Davin’s lead and try the same, you do so at your own risk!
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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