There’s a tutorial over at instructables for creating a large backdrop frame from PVC pipe. The tutorial says it’s for a stage backdrop or room divider but it would work just as well as a photo backdrop.
instructables : PVC stage backdrop or room divider (via Make)
… Continue reading Tutorial: Create a lightweight, cheap photo backdrop from PVC
One of my favorite photo locations right now is our upstairs bathroom. The tub and toilet are separated from the rest of the bathroom by a door which can be opened or closed to let in varying amounts of sunlight from the window in the outer room. Combine that with a small flash and you get perfect portraits every time:
If you’ve got a window, a little investigating may reveal that you get perfect light in your bathroom (or some other small room in your home) at certain times of the day just from that. Sure, it’s a little cramped but you can’t beat the price and you can’t argue with the results.
… Continue reading Quick tip: did you know you have a photo studio in your house?
I was browsing through nikonian.org a few weeks back and found a great offering for folks like me, who want to upgrade from a rickety tripod to a more stable one. As soon as I began looking, I felt the strong urge to take a nap; I was overwhelmed by the number of choices.
Help arrived in the form of James Geib’s “Tripod Comparison Spreadsheet,” a compilation that lists more than 100 tripods and their specifications. The chart arrives as an Excel spreadsheet and lists makes and models, prices, maximum load, tripod weight, maximum and minimum heights, as well as folded heights. What makes this particularly useful is that the columns can be sorted. If price is your deciding factor, sort by price. However, if maximum load really matters, you can sort that way.
To get a copy, write to James_Geib (at) yahoo (dot) com. My copy arrived quickly and was automatically updated after the author found an error.
Original forum post at Nikonians.org
Rationally, I know my camera is excellent. It takes wonderful photographs, it still works great after 50,000 shots, and has all the resolution I can use right now. And yet… how nice it would be to upgrade.
Buying a new camera can be exciting, but it’s important to be sure that you actually need one before taking the plunge. In this guide, we’ll help you decide if it’s time for an upgrade and provide tips on how to select the right camera for your needs.
… Continue reading Is it Time for a New Camera? How to Decide
I was cleaning out my office today when I ran across the most unlikely of items—an original Koala Pad drawing tablet! According to Wikipedia, the Koala Pad was the first graphics tablet available for home computers. (That makes me sound older than I’d like but I’m only 34!)
Today, I own a Wacom tablet and I love it. It offers a level of intuitive ease of use far beyond what a mouse can provide for certain operations. As a digital photographer, a graphics tablet might be an important piece of equipment but it depends a lot on your digital workflow.
The ability to control the lighting in a location can be the difference between a batch of duds and keepers. Nice light is worth a fortune in lenses. Unfortunately, equipment for controlling light can cost a fortune. With that in mind, a friend of mine recently constructed two free-standing lighting panels out of very inexpensive but sturdy PVC pipe (which you can find at any home improvement store).
He uses the panels for portraits indoors and out. Just set your lights up to shine through the panels and position as desired. In addition, outdoors he’s found they work great as portable shade for his subjects to soften direct sunlight.
The parts list and assembly instructions follow. Also, check out the photo set of the assembly process and finished product.
… Continue reading Build your own 42″x78″ free-standing lighting panel for about $40
I finally entered the 21st century and bought an LCD monitor. There’s a lot of debate among photographers about color depth, gamut, and the like with LCD monitors. Most people agree that CRT monitors, properly calibrated, have better, more accurate color and uniform brightness than LCDs. These issues were on my mind as I shopped for an LCD. The trouble with CRTs, of course, is that they are ginormous, power-hungry beasts with color convergence and geometry issues—if you can even find a shop with a decent selection. My old 21″, 72 pound, 1998 vintage Cornerstone CRT was showing it’s age.
I ended up buying a 20.1″ Samsung SyncMaster 204B. It’s a 24-bit panel which means it’s only capable of showing 16.7 million colors (rather than 32-bit “true” color). It’s also true that brightness is not completely uniform across the entire panel and the brightness (and color) shifts slightly as you look at the screen from different positions.
But does it really matter? In my experience, practically, no. When you are seated in front of the monitor, those issues evaporate. If you sit on the floor looking up at your desk or you like to operate your computer from two feet to either side then you might have problems.
I rented this little beauty from Ziplens.com and I’ve been shooting with it all week. It’s a fun lens if a bit of a specialty item. There are a lot of very technical and in-depth reviews of this lens on the internet (here’s a good one that compares all of the wide-angle offerings) so I’ll stick to my impressions rather than delving into charts and graphs.
As I mentioned last Friday, my first rental arrived from ZipLens.com. ZipLens is an online lens rental service that opened last month. The service, like competitor Rentglass.com, rents lenses for periods of one, two, or three weeks at a time for the fraction of the cost of traditional rental services. Shipping both ways is prepaid and all of the return packing material is provided so returning a lens is as simple as packing it and dropping it off at your local post office (or even just giving it to your mail carrier).
… Continue reading Review: Ziplens online lens rental service
ZipLens, a new online lens rental service with shipping within the United States launched today. The service is almost identical to RentGlass.com which I’ve reviewed previously. At first glance, the services appear almost identical in functionality and price, offering a variety of Canon and Nikon mount lenses. One advantage ZipLens has is the ability to reserve a lens that is out of stock. I’ll have a full review of the service soon.
… Continue reading ZipLens online lens rental service launches
