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Watch these 7 filmmaking hacks to get pro results for as little money as possible

Feb 8, 2023 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
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Who doesn’t love saving money? We sure do, and these seven filmmaking hacks from the team at Cinecom.net are going to help you do exactly that. In this video, we see a bunch of great filmmaking hacks to help you get consistent and reliable results while also saving you some money.

Sure, you might eventually want to replace some of these hacks with the proper gear, but when you’re just starting out, you don’t really want to invest a lot of money. You still want to get the best possible results that you can, though. So, why not give a few of these a try?

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I got sick of carrying flash around, so I built them into a backpack

Feb 6, 2023 by Zero Serenity 1 Comment
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The Rig, later named “The Revenant” is an idea that I had at Fanimecon 2019, where I was tired of carrying around a flashgun to get nice lighting. Instead, I wondered if through my backpack I used to carry my equipment around in, could I just use that and hold it static? So I ended up attaching two of my speedlights and small softboxes to the already set tripods and went that Friday to try it out. It worked remarkably well, so it stuck. The idea is not original to me, as I saw someone at Dragon Con years ago doing something similar (without softboxes).

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How to replace light seals in old film cameras for less than $5 with stuff you can find at Walmart

Feb 2, 2023 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
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With the rise in popularity of film over the last few years, it’s no surprise that a lot of old (really old) cameras are making their way back into the used market. Some of these cameras can be 50+ years old and they’re wonderful cameras to go out and run some film through. The problem, though, is that when they get that old (and sometimes not even that old) the seals that prevent light from leaking into your camera can disintegrate and need replacing.

You can, of course, get your old camera cleaned and sealed at a local camera shop (assuming there’s one still left near you that knows what they’re doing) but you can also do it yourself. In this video, Jonathan Paragas of KingJvpes walks us through swapping out the light seals in one of his old Nikomat FTn cameras using nothing but stuff he found in the local craft aisle at his local Walmart.

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This Arduino-powered DIY macro rail helps you shoot perfect stacked macro shots every time

Feb 1, 2023 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
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If there’s one essential item for macro photography, aside from a macro lens (or extension tubes), it’s a macro focusing rail. We’ve featured a few focusing rails here on DIYP before, like the NiSi NM-180 (review here), as well as some other DIY solutions. This one, from Curious Scientist, is an ongoing project based around an Arduino Nano that uses a stepper motor to move your camera along a rail in fine increments.

I say it’s an ongoing project because since releasing his first video on his motorised macro rail slider only a month ago, he’s already posted an update showing almost a complete redesign of the staging platform on which you mount the camera. Depending on your camera and needs, either design might work very well for you, so I’ve included his videos below for both of them.

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How to build your own DIY triple-display laptop to maximise your editing experience

Jan 31, 2023 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
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Triple display laptops have almost sort of been a thing since 2017 when Razer first showed off their then-top-secret triple-display laptop to Linus Tech Tips at CES. Those early prototypes were stolen and somebody was even caught trying to sell them, but they’ve kind of disappeared ever since. There haven’t been any commercially available laptops with triple displays, and most DIY solutions are a little brutal at best.

There are some bolt-on solutions to turn your regular single monitor laptop into a triple monitor machine, but Matt at DIY Perks thinks he’s come up with his own ultimate solution. Naturally, it’s a DIY job, and it actually seems to work pretty well. Matt’s trick is to change the aspect ratio of the displays, going to a pair of vertical iPad displays instead of adding a pair of horizontal screens.

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This DIY gadget captures and saves metadata for your film photography cameras

Jan 30, 2023 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
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One of the great things about digital photography is that it stores metadata within the files of each your photos. It allows you to have a permanent, searchable archive of every image you’ve ever shot. Right now, I can quickly and easily go search for any photograph I’ve shot in the last 21 years (I switched to DSLRs in ’02) and see exactly what camera and lens I used, as well as the exposure settings and other information.

Film doesn’t really do this, though. After all, it’s an analogue medium. At best, typically, we might see the date and time impressed upon the image itself during capture but beyond that… Not really. This device, though, from Alessandro Genova helps you to capture the settings for every film photo you ever take. And it even has a built-in light meter!

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How to turn an old floppy disk into a free infrared camera filter

Jan 16, 2023 by Dunja Djudjic 15 Comments
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Remember floppy disks? We’ve come a long way since they were the primary method of data storage, and now we have terabytes of storage on a cloud, hard disks, and even flash drives. So, your old, dusty floppies are lying somewhere forgotten, and they’re entirely useless. Or are they?

Mathieu Stern dug up some old floppy disks and paired one of them with his camera. How, you may wonder? Well, he turned one of them into an infrared filter. It’s a DIY project that costs basically or literally nothing, and it’s also pretty simple to do. So, if you’re an infrared photographer, you’re going to love this.

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The LEDCard is a pocket-sized DIY macro ringlight for your smartphone

Jan 12, 2023 by John Aldred 4 Comments
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This looks like a fun little project for the electronics-inclined. It’s called the LEDCard, and it’s a credit card-sized macro ring light for your phone that wraps around your smartphone camera’s lens. And if you don’t have a smartphone capable of macro-focusing, don’t worry! LEDCard’s creator, MisterHW, has thought of you, too, with a recess to insert a moulded acrylic lens to help you focus closer.

The whole thing lives on a single PCB and uses rechargeable LIR2430 Lithium-Ion cells, which charge up over USB. Upon charging, the LEDCard requires no wires or cables. It’s turned on or off by the simple push of a button, and an LM3410 LED driver IC lights up all of the SMD LEDs, illuminating the view around your lens for close-up subjects.

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How to build long-working-distance macro lens rigs with your DSLR or mirrorless camera

Jan 11, 2023 by Ted Kinsman Leave a Comment
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Long Distance Working Objectives (LDW) are specially designed lenses intended to provide high-resolution imaging and a greater working distance when compared to conventional lenses.

The benefit to using these in a macro or micro range is that the configuration provides more room to illuminate the subject and also to image at a more convenient distance for focus stacking techniques.

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How I hacked Polaroid Big Shot to shoot Instax film

Jan 2, 2023 by Nicholas Morganti Leave a Comment
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Released in 1971, the Polaroid Big Shot was a funky, green plastic camera that was built for one thing: portraits. The plastic behemoth is simply designed, using a fixed focus 200mm, single element plastic meniscus lens. The grip has a stereoscopic rangefinder integrated in it, which makes framing and achieving focus easy. Focal length is fixed at approximately three feet, emphasizing the portrait centrality of this camera. The shutter speed is a static 1/52 second, combined with an adjustable aperture of f56, f36 or f24. A small aperture and rather slow shutter speed meant most “normally” lit photos would be underexposed, especially indoors, so most photos would require the use of a flash.

For the flash the Big Shot uses Magicubes, which are an explosive, four use, disposable flash cube. There is a large Fresnel diffuser for the flash that is built into the front of the camera, which softens shadows and makes the flash much less harsh. A favorite of Warhol, he used the camera to shoot dozens of portraits, often using the resulting Polaroids as basis for his screen-printing art.

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Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

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