If you thought that the physics behind light painting involves photon accumulation, advanced sensor technology and high end buffer management, you have it all wrong.
The truth of the thing, as Destin explains, is that light painting is done by cute girls throwing beads at boxes. OK, it does not, but Destin and daughter (and Wes Whaley) do a terrific job and explaining all this stuff in a fun and super easy to understand way. (Plus you get to see some of the most unique pregnancy photoshoots ever). Hit the jump to see the full video.
Having lost his Nikon 10.5mm lens cap, photographer Stu Carlson used the bottom end of a Dr. pepper bottle to cap his lens.
"The lens cap disappeared and I hate to have my lens unprotected. So I cut off the end of a Dr. Pepper bottle to use till I could order the right lens cap for it. Quite by accident I had picked a perfect fit for this lens and since a replacement cap is not cheap and this is and it works and fits so well, I have not bothered to order the replacement cap.
While the bottle seems to provide some nice protection, I doubt that the 10.5mm tastes as good as the original content of the bottle.
Wood worker Brian Grabski and photographer Josh Van Patter collaborated both photographic know-how and superb craftsmanship to create this beautiful piece of work. They then used it to shoot Fade around Lake Powell.
A few days ago Jaron Schneider posted an interesting piece over at F stoppers projecting a pretty poor future for the American lighting industry. It's a very interesting read and I encourage you to head over and check it out.
I am not going to repeat the entire post here, but his main point is that the industry has cut costs by moving manufacturing over to China. After moving manufacturing, the industry then moved the engineering overseas. In the end of this process, China no longer needs American brands to produce good lighting gear, and American lighting companies have found themselves fighting their own creations. Jaron ends the post with the sad prediction that “there is no way out of this cycle of depression for most US companies."
Speaking as a small manufacturer , I think that while the points that Jaron raises are valid, they are only a small part of a bigger picture that’s not completely without hope. Here are some of the more encouraging points that come to mind.
If you are more proficient with a credit card than a cable RJ45 plug crimper you can get a pretty long (10m) TTL cord for about $36 at your friendly online book store.
If any of you folks out there had a try, I would love to hear how long you got your cable before commands to the strobe stopped working.
Lastly, if you wondered why you would need a long TTL cord, check out Syl Areana's super smart way of using a Canon TTL master strobe inside a softbox to control other Canon strobes OR David Hobby's Strobe on a Rope self-assist way of off camera flashing.
It is not often that I see a picture and get my eye wet with nostalgia. However this one from David Sittig hit a soft spot for me (click here for lightbox view). Having a Kiev 88, a Seagull 4A and a Minolta SRT 101 in the same shot should be good enough on any given day, but David made the extra step of making it a TTV (Through The Viewfinder) photograph featuring the Minolta and Seagull in the Kiev's viewfinder.(Final image, just in case you care for this kind of thing, was taken with a D90)
I asked David to share the process of taking this image with DIYP readers and much to my delight he said yes:
Elizabeth Giorgi of Being Geek Chic (God, I love this name) shares a great little tutorial that shows you how to make a fashionable camera wrist strap. The kind that is kinda like lanyard that keep cameras from finding their way to the cement pavement.
The stitching job is really easy and if you ever wanted to get into sewing (come'on I know you do) this is a great starters project, that will ease you in to the world of doubles, zig-zags and overlocks. (And you win a wonderful strap in the process). Hit the jump for a full movie tutorial.
For about three years I used a Nikon Coolpix and enjoyed taking photos of snowflakes in the winter. I struggled with the autofocus, so I figured I would invest in a digital camera with manual focus and macro. After much time and web surfing, I found the Canon SX130IS which has very good reviews, manual focus, and a reasonable price.
Memory cards have their speed rating systems. For example, class 6 is the recommended base class for 1080p HD video coming from DSLRs. Those classes however, don't tell you what is the burst rate on individual shots. Mostly because each image has a different MB size to it depending on many factors.
Jaroslav over at Crazy Lab found an interesting way of measuring the burst rate and comparing different factors that affect the camera to card writing speed. TO make the test constant he covered the lens of his Canon T3i and took pictures of darkness. By recording the shutter sound (or music as some call it) and displaying the waveform in Audacity Jaroslav was able to compare burst-rates of different ISOs, capturing modes and cards.
I've seen some crazy setups for high speed photography utilizing all sorts of weird parts. There is even a system that will turn the lights off for you, if you so please. But, this is the first time I am seeing such a huge overkill in term of components used to gain some control over the circuit.
