Well, just when I thought we had seen all the tutorials possible on studio lighting, Michael Quack comes along and proves me wrong. In his DIY guide to cheap studio lighting, he attacks the whole process of outfitting a complete studio with gusto. Read the rest of the article »
Buying and selling camera gear via the internet can be a nice little side income - I have dabbled in it myself, at times (although I think I’m probably breaking even, rather than making any money, at the moment), mainly through scouring local camera stores and eBay for old (20-30 year old) camera gear
Some people take a lot more pride in their work, however, such as Liem:
The experiment started a bit accidentally. Last year, I purchased a 28-70mm f/2.8 Sigma lens on Craigslist for $100. The seller agreed. It turns out that the lens did not work fully with my 300d, so I almost returned it until I mentioned I was looking for a second body like d30. Well lo and behold, he just happened to be selling one…
In what turns out to be quite an amusing and enterprising tale, Liem managed to buy a Canon EOS 10D for $75 - after only two weeks of trading stuff on the internet. Read the rest of the article »
Sometimes, you can’t help but wonder why something obvious never occurred to you. Like the guy who got rich inventing that little thing that lifts the pizza box up from the middle of the pizza (link).
Another one is this guy, who takes two dirt-cheap digital cameras, and turns them into a stereographic camera, allowing you to take 3D photographs! The effect is not among the most obvious, but the ingenuity is quite nifty. check it out!
With todays autofocus systems, most manufacturers are shipping their cameras with simple matte focusing screens. All good and well when the technologies are working, but what when they aren’t?
Focusing manually is an art, but a split-screen precision ground focussing matte screen can take a lot of the guesswork out of manually focussing a camera - if you have used a manual medium-format camera or an older SLR, you know what we’re talking about. Read the rest of the article »
This do-it-yourself project is a studio broadlight particularly suitable for portraiture.
Unlike point source lights diffused with fabric coverings, this mammoth fixture uses 16 100w bulbs, arranged in a grid within a wooden box, to flood a very large area with soft illumination. This is a rather complicated project, and the parts and materials can easily top $100. On the other hand, the results of this type of lighting is downright amazing, and it may be worth it, if you are seriously into portrait photography.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any sillier, Adrian comes along and creates a pinhole camera out of Lego!
The amazing thing is, it actually works quite well. Another fun tidbit? It comes with a full photo-by-photo explanation as to how it was done.
The camera uses medium format film, which is nifty in itself. The site’s well worth a visit!
So, photography is nowhere unless you have some good lighting. Therefore, one of the most important things you could do, is to have a collection of tricks up your sleeve which will be useful for collecting, distributing, and aiming light. In our very first round-up article, we’re taking our e-surfboards around the interweb to look at a series of cool, relatively cheap DIY projects for making photography lights.
Read the rest of the article »
Do you know of any cool projects out there that could do with some more exposure? Have you written a cool article that you think might fit in on Photocritic? Well, get cracking then! Read the rest of the article »
Making your own lenses is all the rage these days, and we are all for that particular flavour of fun.
Mark Tucker makes a lens out of a Plunger, simultaneously creating what he claims is the ugliest camera in the world. MKAZ is a prolific lens maker who has photo essays and information about no less than 7 lenses he has made himself. Orbit 1 features a compact bellows-style lens which can also be used as a tilt/shift lens, and Chromasia takes it a step further, making an actual Tilt/Shift lens himself. Oh, and there’s of course our very own Pringles macro lens, too.
Bravo, guys, keep them coming!
A DIY photo gadget that you can make from stuff you probably have kicking around in your basement or shed? Is right! We are hooked!
It’s one of those completely daft projects, but it may actually work - I’m sure as hell going to give it a shot!
The main problem of taking photos free-hand is that your hands aren’t particularly sturdy. Myself, I find using a heavier camera makes it a lot easier (the inertia of the camera means it is reluctant to move, so up to a point, a heavy camerea is easier to hold still than a very light camera.), but what for lighter cameras? The answer might just be a String Tripod! Read the rest of the article »
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