DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

Still the best motorised mini slider I’ve tried – Smartta SliderMini 2

by 8 Comments

The SliderMini 2 is Smartta’s latest iteration of the SliderMini, its small form factor motorised slider. It’s largely the same as the original and you can read that review here, but it has received a couple of significant changes since the original that allows it to offer much more versatility.

Like the original, the SliderMini 2 is a super-compact slider that allows for easy portability for use just about anywhere. I’ve been using the SliderMini 2 for the past few weeks now in order to try to answer two very specific questions. But first, how about some pretty (yes, I know that’s subjective) sample footage shot using it?

[Read More…]

Smartta’s back with the SliderMini 2 – more power, battery life and (finally) speed ramping

by 2 Comments

 

When Smartta announced the original SliderMini camera slider in 2018, we were all quite excited. It was launched on Indiegogo and for what they were selling for, it offered some fantastic features. We eventually got our hands on one and you can read our review of the original here. It’s a product I still receive questions about on social media and still use regularly.

Well, Smartta has announced the SliderMini 2, which offers some significant upgrades over the original, including a more powerful motor for vertical slides, up to 52 hours of battery life and a new “curve” mode which lets you tweak the speed profiles of your slides, timelapses and stop motion. And this time, it’s just straight up for pre-order. No crowd funding.

[Read More…]

Here’s how to light and shoot cinematic Apple-like product commercials

by Leave a Comment

When it comes to product photography, there are a lot of brands out there who keep a very consistent look and feel to their promotional material. Whether it’s a truck or a toaster, you can immediately tell by the way it’s lit and shot that it belongs to a certain brand.

One such brand is Apple. And while many of their product photos and videos are actually CG, the guys at Syrp have broken down Apple’s techniques to show you how you can shoot it for real.

[Read More…]

How to blend time with motion control from planning to post production

by 5 Comments

Motion control is one of the most fascinating topics of photography and filmmaking for me. It combines several of my favourite subjects. Photography, electronics, engineering and programming. Motion control allows us to create some amazing imagery that just wouldn’t be possible in any other way. It also allows us to do it over and over again consistently.

That’s what drew YouTube channel Media Division to motion control and The Marmalade production house to record their new video intro. Consistency and repeatability. Their goal was to create a composite clip, shot with a moving camera, blending four different speeds of footage from real-time to 25% speed seamlessly.

[Read More…]

The Moza Slypod – Gimmick or a valuable tool for filmmakers?

by 1 Comment

The world was introduced to the Moza Slypod in grand fashion at NAB 2019 earlier this year. We went to the Gudsen stand to check it out while we were there, too. It’s an interesting device, with a whole new take on the camera slider form factor. It essentially looks like a motorised monopod, but how good is it really? In this video, Caleb Pike walks us around the features of the Slypod, and what he thinks about it.

[Read More…]

Axibo is the world’s first AI-powered camera slider

by 3 Comments

A motorized camera slider is a commonly used tool in filmmaking, but Toronto-based company Axibo Media wanted to take it to a new level. They made a motorized slider more (artificially) intelligent than any other. That’s right, the Axibo slider uses artificial intelligence to pan, tilt, and slide your camera, to track objects, even take photos. As far as we know, it’s the world’s first AI-powered camera slider in the market, and it’s meant to be “your personal camera assistant.”

[Read More…]

The Shark Slider Nano is a whisper quiet camera slider for shooting video or timelapse

by Leave a Comment

There are quite a lot of sliders out there these days, and many of them are excellent for timelapse, but quite a few of them have one big problem when it comes to video. That problem is noise, which can make it difficult to not only get a good sync track on the camera, but the slider can actually be picked up by dedicated microphones for external audio, too.

We’d heard that the new Shark Slider Nano from iFootage, though, is whisper quiet. We wanted to hear this for ourselves, so we paid them a visit during NAB 2019 to find out more.

[Read More…]

Make a DIY smartphone slider with a toy car and some household items

by 1 Comment

If you want to take slider shots with your smartphone, there are a few DIY options you can make. But in this video, COOPH teaches you how to make an interesting automated DIY slider on a super-low budget. You’ll need a wooden toy car, a kitchen timer, a few household items and only a little bit of time.

[Read More…]

The best motorised mini slider we’ve tried – DIYP reviews the Smartta SliderMini

by 3 Comments

Of all the tools and devices on which we can place cameras, sliders have always been the one that intrigued me the most. I’ve used quite a few of them over the years and I still really enjoy using them whenever I shoot with one. Especially motorised ones. I’ve even spent some time over the last few months working on motorising one of my own sliders.

For the last couple of weeks, though, I’ve been trying out the new Smartta SliderMini. It’s a mini motorised slider for video and timelapse with remote app control from your Android or iOS smartphone that just launched on Indiegogo. So far, I quite like it.

[Read More…]

How to 3D print your own DIY motorised tracking 2-axis camera slider

by 3 Comments

I’ve been getting into 3D printing quite a bit this year. Mostly with regard to how it can help me with my own photography and video challenges. One of the first things I did was to motorise my camera slider. Now, my own efforts in this realm are still quite basic, but while researching how others have overcome certain issues in this area, I came across this tutorial recently posted to Instructables by jjRobots.

It’s a tracking 2-axis motorised, mostly 3D printed camera slider. This means that it doesn’t just move the camera from one end of the slider to the other, but it also turns the camera. This way, your camera can move while remaining fixed on a specific target. And it’s all controlled from your smartphone – that app’s available for free, too.

[Read More…]

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts