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Save some money by 3D printing your own camera gear

Individuals often find it annoying to pay for extra gear after already spending a huge amount on the camera itself. Thankfully, 3D printing can help those on a tight budget. Not only is it cost-saving, but can offer users huge flexibility in terms of design and uniqueness. To be candid, there is no limit to the possibilities, given the advances happening around additive manufacturing technology.

Whether you are an independent filmmaker or a professional, a 3D printer is there for your rescue. You can create accessories such as organizational tools, mounts, lens caps, shoulder rigs and whatnot. Most importantly, you do not have to look through tons of marketplaces to find the exact match for your needs. Just modify the existing design to create unique gears and accessories.

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Breathing new life into an old vintage slide projector lens with 3D printing

Browsing through an antiques shop, I stumbled upon a Kodak slide projector with a very peculiar attachment: a large lens. This particular lens caught my eye as it was an absolute behemoth. It was heavy and had “ISCO GERMANY” engraved into it.

After seeing the price of only $10, I had no choice but to bring it home with me. My intentions were realized but not well thought out; remove the lens and convert it to fit on my DSLR. After poking and prodding the projector, I assumed the lens was removable and went at it with a screwdriver. Thankfully this assumption was right, and it was removed easily.

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How to make a simple 3D-printed grid snoot for your strobe

A grid snoot is a great light shaper for photographers who want to throw a little light into a tight spot or highlight a select part of a scene, or cast a beam across a surface.

It is a favourite of DIYers and can be hacked together using card, tape and a bundle of drinking straws. In the past I have made snoots using off-cuts of Nomex.

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Protect your lenses with your own custom 3D printed rugged lens caps

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There are a lot of 3D printed accessories out there for photography and filmmaking. One of the more popular items that people print are lens caps. There are quite a lot of different lens cap designs out there, but most of them have one big problem. They’re entirely 3D printed, including any spring mechanism to lock them onto your lens.

Depending on the material you print with, such as ABS, PETG or perhaps Nylon, this might never be a problem. But if you print with the usual PLA, this can become very weak over time as it’s used. YouTube channel DSLR CNC DIY has a solution, though, with a rugged lens cap design that uses a binder clip arm as a spring for maximum longevity.

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These 3D printed variable extension tubes let you shoot macro with EF lenses on Sony E cameras

Macro is always a popular photography subject. Even if it’s not something you shoot all the time, it’s something that pretty much all of us will have a go at given the chance. But macro lenses are expensive, so it’s not something that a lot of people will try, even if they want to. There are less expensive options out there, though, especially if you own a 3D printer.

We’ve featured photographer Nick Sherlock and his 3D printed extension tubes and macro accessories before, but this pair of extension tubes is particularly interesting. They’re variable extension tubes with ranges of 0-35mm and 50-150mm, designed to let you adjust their length to whatever you need using Canon EF mount lenses on Sony E mount bodies.

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Check out this 3D Printed seamless background stand for photographing small products

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Shooting small products can be a lot of fun. It can also be quite challenging, too. In the case of Clayton Parker of 3D printing YouTube channel Uncle Jessy, he wanted to photograph the models he’d been creating on his resin printers. He essentially wanted to build a studio for them, in miniature. He decided to go for what is essentially a seamless backdrop.

It is exactly the sort of thing you see in human-sized studios for shooting portraits. Only smaller. Clayton tried some not-so-great solutions in the past and just learned to deal with them before finally stumbling across this locking Photographic Sweet Stand by HPaul over on Thingiverse. And, well, judging by the video, it seems to do the job pretty well.

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Nikon turns to space, investing $91,000,000 in aerospace 3D printing manufacturer Morf3D

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I was wondering what Nikon was going to do to keep itself alive with an ever-shrinking camera market that seems to be slowly but surely turning its back on the 103-year-old company in favour of Sony and Canon. Well, it turns out they’re investing in space. To be more specific, they’ve invested as the major shareholder in US startup Morf3D.

Morf3D is an additive manufacturing company supplying the aerospace industry, supplying companies like Boeing, and according to Nikkei Asia, the deal sees Nikon investing 10 billion yen (~$91 million) in the company, becoming a majority stakeholder. This puts Nikon in the supply change for small satellites, a growing market in the aerospace industry.

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This amazing stop motion film was made using 200 3D printed frogs

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Recently, I’ve been looking into picking up a resin 3D printer. Finally, yesterday, I caved and ordered myself an Anycubic Photon Mono, which should be arriving tomorrow. In preparation for its arrival, I spent yesterday evening searching YouTube for information about the printer, resin, software, problems I might run into and how to solve them, etc.

And then I stumbled across something very cool. An experimental stop motion film that utilises 200 frogs, 3D printed on the Anycubic Photon Mono X (the big brother to the one I’m getting). It was created by Tom Grigat at TOMs Modelling in Motion and it just looks amazing. He even included some behind the scenes of how it all came together.

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This huge DIY camera crane built with metal tubes and 3D printing has a very cool trick up its sleeve

There are a lot of great tools out there for moving your camera these days, and there are plenty of more affordable options out there for most of them, too. Including camera cranes. So, why did Ivan Miranda decide to build his own? Well, when you break your tripod, need to replace it and have a whole bunch of large 3D printers at your disposal… Why not?

This is a pretty large build, as you can see from the thumbnail above and it’s very different to the one we saw from Alex Chappel a few months ago. Ivan’s is more of a traditional style crane, rather than the stand Alex built, but like Alex, Ivan utilised some metal tubes and 3D printing to turn his vision into a reality. And I think he pulled it off quite nicely.

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Check out these eight 3D printed photo & video tools designed to make your life a little easier

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I put off getting a 3D printer for the longest time. I didn’t want to get one just for the sake of having a new toy that I’d get bored with, so I held off getting one until I felt I had a genuine need for one. Now, I have five – the most recent of which are the Snapmaker 2.0 A350 and its predecessor, the Snapmaker Original, and I find them absolutely invaluable.

I’ve been using them recently to print a bunch of tools and accessories to help me with my photography and filmmaking. Some of them are workflow and organisation accessories while others are actual tools used to create content. So, here, I’m going to talk about some of the most useful things I’ve printed lately.

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