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Bullet Photography – The Cheaper Version

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About three weeks ago we featured a comprehensive tutorial for doing high speed bullet photography.

In that post, Maurice Ribble explained how to use a $195 camera Axe to literally freeze a bullet in mid air (or in mid egg, or in mid cantaloupe…).

Photographer DestinWS came up with a youtube video that explains how to achieve a similar effect (thought less accurate) with a Hiviz kit for $20. While the Hiviz kit does not provide some of the more advanced features of the Camera Axe, it is a great and cheap way to enter the world of High Speed Photography. Video tut after the jump[Read More…]

Last Day For Home Studio Photography eBook $14.95 Promotion

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It was just a week ago that we launched our first eBook: – Home Studio Photography: Your Complete Guide To Building A Photography Studio At Home.

It’s been great seeing the strong connection with DIYP readers and the hundreds of books downloaded and of their ways to help someone build a softbox from macaroni and pastrami PVC and wood.

Today is the last day of our launch week promotion where the book sells for $14.95. starting tomorrow the book will sell for $19.85 – still a heck of a deal, just not as good as $14.95.

We got lots of mail saying that “that’s a d–n fine book”. We also got some mails with questions about the book. the ones that were frequent got into the Frequently page thing. (The FAQ page also features a hot video of the book on an iPad).

You know you want the book – Get It Here.[Read More…]

Home Studio Photography FAQ

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It’s been less than a week after lancing DIYP’s first eBook: Home Studio Photography and we had awesome response from readers. Hundreds of readers bought and downloaded the book so far with great feedback.

Lots of emails have been coming through. Quite a bit of those were thank you for the book emails, but also some common questions that I would like to answer here.

Q: Is there a version for iPad?

We tried to make the book as generic and device friendly as possible. This is why we went with PDF format. It can be read on almost any decide, including the iPad, Android based devices and other readers. All you need is a free installation of Adobe Reader. If you would like to see how the book looks on an iPad (totally RAD!!) check the video at the bottom made by and featuring Neil Creek’s iPad.

Q: Where can I get a hard copy of the Home Studio Photography?

Currently this book is only available as a downloadle PDF. There may be future versions of the book in printed version, but those are not currently on the road map.

Q: Can I print the book?

Actually, I encourage you to print relevant sections of the book for personal use. Since much of the book is printed instructions it would make sense to print the relevant chapter so you can follow it as you go.

Q: Who is that awesomely cute girl on the cover (and on page 44)?

That’s my daughter, Liri. She is 6 at the time of writing this FAQ, and while it may not seem so, she took vast portions in the editing, proofreading and photo taking stages of making this book.

Q: How Do I download the book

After completing payment, the backend servers will send a mail to your paypal mail account. This mail will include a download link which you can use to download the book for 48 hours. If you missed that window, it is ok, just shoot me a mail and I will re-enable your download link. The book is roughly 24MB big, so when prompted click “save as”.

Q: what forms of shipping do you offer?

Well, it’s an eBook so we offer email as delivery, there are some nice aspects to this actually: no postage or S&H fees applied, you can start reading the book within minutes after ordering, and only relevant pages can be printed helping to save some trees.

Q: I don’t have a Paypal account, how can I get the book?

We use Paypal as our payment processor engine since it is a very popular and very secure firm of payment. In  most countries, Paypal will allow you to use a Credit card without creating a paypal account. If you do want a paypal account you can sign for a free one here.

Q: What did you say about the iPad?

Q Yes! I want it. Where do I get it?

Right this way, follow this link to get your copy today.

Breadbox Strip-Light From A Plastic Bread Container, Spaghetti Sauce And A Twelve-Pack

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After seeing some very creative use of strip lighting here, on the Strobist site and Flickr, often as ‘rim’ lighting, I thought “If only I had that fancy gear, my stuff would look as good as Joel Grimes’ stuff!” I had visions of after-shoot champagne lunches with Heidi Klune and groups of graceful models in a spacious studio populated with Broncolor and Hasselblad stuff – RIGHT!

[Editors note: The excellent intro and tutorial were made by John Hagar (flickr), we are trying to keep it family friendly, so no beer by default…].[Read More…]

Shoot 3D Products Using A Suspended 360 Degree Shooting Rig

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Making a 3D display of an object is a great way to display merchandise on line, so this tut would be very relevant to any product or still life photographers.

The usual way of making a 3D display is to put your item on a turn table. The less common way, yet sometime more effective (wit shoes for example) is to suspend the object from a rig. In the following tutorial, Photographer Matt Devlin (Flickr) walks us trough the a build of a 360 deg rig. Matt says (and I heartedly agree that this is a very simple rig to build – 3/10).[Read More…]

A TimeLapse Rail From BBQ Rotisserie Motor

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The holy grail of timelapse movies is motion. Photographers like Tom Lowe (whom you should definitely check out) uses state of the art rails and mechanisms to allow the camera to move slowly and smoothly while capturing frame by frame of the time lapse movie.

While we were playing silly egg timer over here, Photographer Derek Mellott came up with an ingenious way to convert a BBQ rotisserie motor into a moving rail system.

To add insult to injury, Derek uses a TI Graphing Calculator as an Intervalometer. The longtimers here know that I have a soft spot for anything TI ;). Video and a second hack after the jump.[Read More…]

eBook: Your Complete Guide To Building A Photography Studio At Home

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I’ve got a very happy announcement today. DIYP is releasing its first eBook – Home Studio Photography: Your Complete Guide To Building A Photography Studio At Home.

It’s a long name, I know, yet it grasps the essence of the book, providing a full, comprehensive reference book for building a Photography studio at home. You can grab a copy here, or read the details after the jump.[Read More…]

Home Studio Photography: Your Complete Guide To Building A Photography Studio At Home

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Once photographers take the big step forward of moving their lighting off camera, a whole new world of possibilities opens up to them. Those possibilities can only be fully realized if you have the equipment you need to control your light. Unfortunately, photographic light equipment can be prohibitively expensive for the hobbyist. However, light is light, no matter how expensive your modifiers, and there are countless ways to get the same or nearly the same look as pro equipment, for a fraction of the cost.

Home Studio Photography compiles an invaluable collection of tutorials, quick tips and step by step instructions to building your own home studio on a shoestring budget. Not only is this book a goldmine for the starving student, the skills it teaches are valuable for any photographer who wants to spend their money wisely, or needs to modify the light when they haven’t got exactly the gear they need with them at the time.

23 Home Studio Projects For Every Modifier Imaginable

With 16 Full Tutorials, 5 Quick Tips, 3 Ghetto Setups and 3 Cheat Sheets, the book provides a stepping stone into the world of cheap, fun studio building and then studio shooting.

[Read More…]

Create Amazing Light Spirographs With The Spirograph Wheel

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Light painting is the process of using one or more light sources to fill in a single exposure to create a unique image. If you think of the light like a pencil to paper and then add tools like a Spirograph to the situation you might understand what exactly I am doing.

The light wheel is actually pretty simple and you can get pretty creative with it on the fly. It is made up of a bicycle wheel (any size, however I have found that a 20” BMX bike wheel is a good size), A set of battery operated LED string lights. (These can be purchased from eBay or if you are lucky around October through March you can pick them up at Target or IKEA (any store that sells Christmas stuff is likely to have them). The lights are attached using black electrical tape and I used a bike peg I had laying around as the handle.

In this article, 55125 will teach you how to build your own light wheel.[Read More…]

Use Lego For Making High Speed Photography Pictures

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Ok, I’ll be the first to admit, Lego makes some awesome stuff, and I spent countless hours as a kid, Playing with those bricks. My favorite birthday gift for my 8th birthday was the legendary 497 Galaxy Explorer system. With passage of time Lego systems became more complex and involve electronics, special plastics and even programmable pats. Complex to the point where you can turn a Lego Mindstorm NXT set to a device for taking high speed images. This is by no means a cheap solution (unless you already have all the parts), it is a fun project for the engineeringly capable. So photographer and strip light master Silver Paul did just that – converted a Mindstorm set to high speed photography trigger..

The following is not a full tutorial, here is the obligatory disclaimer from Paul: This is in no way a guide or how to, it’s a documentation of my observations of what I did. Enjoy, try it for yourself, but on your own head be it! I take no responsibility for you being idiot enough to follow some random geezers instructions on t’interweb![Read More…]

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