Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
I have a two DIY ring-flashes. My first one was made out of illustration board, and the second one was made of out of a bucket of fried chicken from our local restaurant. Here is my step by step tutorial on how to make your own DIY ring flash using the leftovers of a KFC dinner. (of course you can but a DIY ring flash kit or a totally pro solution as well, but then the KFC leftovers will be thrown away rather than recycled).
It takes about two hours to make one.
Our favorite maker, Chad Bredahl (previously featured here and here), just released a quickie on how to build a camera Pistol Grip.
A pistol grip is not an expensive item per-se (the great handle from P&C, for example, is about $19), but I love the idea behind it and I think a similar mechanism can definitely be used for other builds as well. And besides, who can resist the chance to dissect a lil girl jump rope.
If you ever tried to shoot video with a DSLR, you’ve probably noticed how quickly your wrist starts to heart. This happen because camera grips were not designed for video. A camera pistol grip changes your hand orientation while holding the camera to a more natural position do it does not get soar after a while. (Kinda similar to how you hold a pistol, hence the name).[Read More…]
By now, we are kinda used to the fact that RAW images can be pulled or pushed to recover details in what were once lost photos.
It seems though that with “cheap” camera that produce RAW footage like the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (or a Magic Lantern loaded Canon), pulling overexposed movies is becoming a viable option for amateurs / advance amateurs videographers too. (It was always an option for the pros).
Swedish videographer Mattias Burling did a short test showing how much burnt data you can recover when shooting RAW with a Blackmagic camera.[Read More…]
It was not that long ago when Lytro stunned to world with a camera that can re-focus in post production. This was quite a revolution as till then, the focus point was at the time when the shutter opened, was the focus pint and that was it. Millions of photos ruined by being almost in focus but not quite and Lytro aimed to change that. The hype, however, did not convert into a fed.
Now researchers in Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany extend the idea of Lytro to enable post production control of almost any possible aspect of photography including: exposure, light-temperature, focus and polarization. (and even a bit of spatial control) They call it The KaleidoCam. This video explains how it works.[Read More…]
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and a movie is worth a thousand pictures. But sometimes you want something in between, something that is as still as an image, yet conveys action like a film. This is an action sequence shot.
Sometimes the best way to achieve an effect is to do it in post. So this post will not involve any gear hacking (although I can think of some elaborate ways to make this with no post at all), but some good old post processing method.
An action sequence shot as a still image that is made from several frames. In the following tutorial Kaan Kiran demonstrates one method of making such action shot.
I very often have this strong negative reaction when a newsletter arrives in my inbox or I see an online article where the heading, for instance, reads: “5 rules to follow when composing an image” — or something to that effect.
I would have been far more positive if the heading read: “10 approaches to consider when composing a landscape image”.
I have plenty of personal preferences when it comes to photography. However, I try to avoid making rules or laws based on what I prefer.
One of the biggest issues in the darkroom is keeping track of time. Whether it’s for developing your rolls of film or exposing negatives onto paper in the enlarger, there’s just very little out there these days to assist with that, and using a phone can be tricky, especially if you’ve got wet chemicals on your hands.
But it seems there’s a new, modern solution to this particular problem; Maya. Billing itself as “The only darkroom timer you’ll ever need”, it has countdown timers, f-stop adjustments, a test strip mode, room light control (what?!?), and it’s modular so you can add more features to it in the future.
Last night, I received an email from EyeEm about a “data security incident.” 22 million accounts have been compromised, exposing the users’ names, email addresses, and encrypted versions of passwords. However, EyeEm wasn’t the only victim of this data breach. It’s the same one that hit 500px, and it also affected 25 million users of Animoto.
In recent years I’ve been privileged to be on the jury for a whole range of photography competitions. These include single image competitions such as WPS International Excellence Awards, Masters of Wedding Photography and the Irish wedding photography awards (In association with Learning to Fly). And with a different focus, I’ve judged a couple of competitions which require a series of images to be submitted forming a documentary narrative. Thes were MyWed Nikon Wedding Photographer of the Year and This is Reportage Awards. I’ll create a separate blog post with my thoughts about judging these competitions and what I learned along the way. This post is really about competitions in general and why photographers should be entering them. And no, they aren’t fixed. They are just subjective (IMHO, please don’t shoot me!).
With Nikon and Canon finally entering the fray and the whole Panasonic/Sigma/Leica alliance thing, it’s starting to get quite exciting in the world of full frame mirrorless. It feels a lot like when DSLRs first came into existence. Of course, we didn’t have Facebook then, so people were more concerned with shooting than measuring.
But these days, kit comparisons are inevitable, especially with the rate at which technology is advancing and new products are being released. In this video, Jay P Morgan looks at the Nikon Z6 and Sony A7III cameras. On paper, they’re pretty close, with both cameras having some slight advantages over the other in certain areas. Some of Jay’s results, though, are quite surprising.
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.
Find my work on My website or follow me on Facebook or My page
