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Use A Texture Projector to Cheaply Create Interesting Backgrounds

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Interesting subjects make for great photographs, so are interesting backgrounds. Photographer Karl Zemlin has a great DIY for projecting strobe light to create interesting backgrounds. (He also has a nifty DIY section on his site)

All you would need is a box, a few Fresnel lenses and some textured glass. The main idea is that you could get the texture of the glass projected on a seamless white (or any other smooth) background.

What makes this design really rock is the little tripod socket at the bottom, so you can simply place this behind your subject on a light stand and have a symmetrical background.[Read More…]

Light Traveling With A Bass Case

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It’s amazing how a new gear bag can brighten up your day. And my new bag is certainly doing wonders for my mood.

Up until recently, I had two modes of operation: Light – in which I traveled with my Bazooka kit – Westcott shoot through umbrella and mini lightstand bunjeed together and held with an M16 strap and Loaded – where I used an old trade-show-stand-bag for an additional stand and umbrella, my softlighter II, and my Apollo box.

It was OK for lagging stuff around, but not very comfy when it comes to packing and unpacking – there was only a top opening, which made it hard to grab the right modifier or to place everything back in.

On my last session with Tomer Jacobson I picked up his little trick. He uses a bass guitar case for lagging his lighting stuff around. I got one today for 35 USD (it was listed 40, but when the store person heard that I’ll be using it for lighting gear, he took 5 dollars off. cool!).[Read More…]

Strip Light Cheat Sheet Card

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The idea behind this cheat sheet is simple – it features three settings of strip light.

Those should help you pre-visualize the use of strip lights as part of your lighting setup.

I began working with strip lights not that long ago and I really love them. having a light source that is hard on one axis and soft on the other is a very interesting tool to work with. Not so easy to pre-visualize though, hence the card.[Read More…]

21 Photographs And Lighting Setups For Every Occasion

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It would be very pretentious of me to declare that looking at the photographs and diagrams below will teach you how to light. That said, looking at the photographs and setups and trying to understand the motivation behind the lighting will give you a good start when dealing with similar lighting dilemmas.

You can always come back to this post to see how a particular image was lit to make a similar setup or to use it as a stepping stone for your own.[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…]

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…]

Need. Bigger. Light

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Sometimes, a small softbox would not do it. You just need a bigger light. The thing is that bigger modifiers eat more light up. This a guest post by Edward Peters will show how he dealt with building a large softbox, including building a double flash bracket, mounting two strobes and syncing a pop for up to five strobes using a headphone splitter.

My Wife needed photos of a jewelry piece she had created, but the piece was too big for my favorite 13×13 inch DIY speedlite soft box.

Unfortunately for us, the jewelry has entered a contest and cannot be displayed on the web. However, the good news are that I can share the making of the mega-dual-light softbox that took the image.[Read More…]

Photek SoftLigher II – A Product Review

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Lately I’ve been finding myself wanting more out of my all around umbrella. I’ve been using the Westcott double fold umbrella for a long time now as my main on location modifier. While I am generally happy with it as a softening device, I wanted to have some more options in my bag without giving up on portability.

The Softlighter II by Photek provides an interesting option for that sake. I’ve been using it for a few days and in general I am pretty happy.

The images on this review are from a recent shoot for Jim Ridolfo profile pic. Jim Ridolfo is an Assistant Professor of Composition and Rhetoric at The University of Cincinnati.[Read More…]

13 Photography Lighting Video Tutorials

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The following is a collection of thirteen video lighting tutorials. The main premise is that after watching those videos you’ll know to light a little bit better, or at least pick up a trick or two.

Now watching those will not make you better pictures, you’ll actually have to go out and shoot some. Hopefully those videos, some only using one light, will provide lots and lots of motivation to try new things.[Read More…]

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