Make: Online: Photography Archives

Archive: Photography

October 4, 2009

Water On Lens Exhibition

Lensimagine
Gorgeous underwater photo exhibit...

Name a truly great British film and chances are it was made at Pinewood Studios, the most cinematic landmark Old Blighty has. Its reputation has resonated worldwide thanks to the biggest names in cinema filling its spaces and next month you will be able to get an insight into the craft and guile that goes on in there, when the Movieum of London in the city’s Southbank showcases underwater photographs from movies such as Casino Royale, The Da Vinci Code and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, as well as television features and music videos.

October 1, 2009

Gorgeous Delta IV Heavy launch photo

From Gizmodo:

Photographer Ben Cooper took this photo of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket launching at Cape Canaveral using a sound-activated camera. And when your camera is that close to a launch, your lens probably won't survive.

This Insane Photo Destroyed a Camera Lens

Vertical panorama of redwood tree

How do you photograph a 300' tall tree in a dense forest with no clear sight lines? Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols did it by taking a bunch of close-ups using a special camera rig and stitching them together digitally. NPR has the full story. [via Hack-a-Day]

September 30, 2009

Photographing your projects

In this week's Ask CRAFT column, I fielded a reader's question about photographing your projects. It's applicable for all kinds of makers, so go on and check it out!

DIY Street View camera

As part of a course at the United States Military Academy at West Point, maker Roy D. Ragsdale developed a prototype Street View-like camera using a laptop, $300 in off-the-shelf components, and open source software. A Python script captures eight 1280x1024px JPEG files that are then stitched together and uploaded to Google Earth.

Construction was straightforward. On a flat octagonal heavy-cardboard base, I glued small posts for the cameras' clips to latch onto. I aligned each unit and then placed the USB hubs and the GPS receiver in the middle. I secured the cables with Velcro and sandwiched everything with another piece of cardboard. The whole thing's the size of a small pizza box, weighing less than 1 kilogram. Excluding the notebook (a 2-gigahertz machine with 512 megabytes of RAM running Ubuntu Linux), the hardware cost about $300.

[thanks, Erico]

September 25, 2009

How-To: Use hard drives for image stabilization

Instructables user BobS made a gyroscopic image stabilizer from two harddrives and some spare parts. I'll save this one for my next helicopter trip over the Serengeti.

Thermal imaging on the cheap

Stephan Martin writes in to tell us about his homemade thermal imaging system, the Thermoscanner. He mounted a TPA81 thermopile array onto an XY servo mount, then hooked it up to his computer using an Arduino microcontroller. A Processing program is then used to collect data from the sensor and display it in an image.

The resolution is pretty coarse, but it is pretty sweet to be able to make thermal images for around $150!

September 21, 2009

Book giveaway + project excerpt: Photojojo! by Amit Gupta with Kelly Jensen

Photojojo Bookcover
Photojojo! Insanely Great Photo Projects and DIY Ideas by Amit Gupta with Kelly Jensen
Book Site: Photojojo.com/book

The best email newsletter hands down for photography crafts is Photojojo. Thanks to Amit's review one year, I found my Nikon D40 and have been in love with taking photos ever since. Now Amit and Kelly wow us again with their new book, Photojojo! Insanely Great Photo Projects and DIY Ideas filled with 50 projects so you can do more with all the cool photos you take. It's not just about printing them out and making a photo album. This book shows you how to use your photos to make cool things such as a lampshade or messenger bag (pictured below).The second half of the book is like taking a photography class. You'll learn techniques for taking better photos as well as fun ways you can experiment with different photo techniques. I love the tips on how to do digital color correcting after you've taken your photos. If you love taking photos and want to learn how to do more with them, this book is for you!

Photojojo Projects
Book Giveaway Time!
We are giving away 3 copies of the Photojojo! book.Just leave a comment in this post and tell us why you need this book. Please make sure you include your email address in the comment form field (won't be published). All comments will be closed by Noon PST on Wednesday, September 23rd. The lucky winners will be announced next week on the site. Good luck!

Photojojo Photomosaic
Project: Ginormous Photo Mosaics
Even if you are living in an apartment and can't put holes in your walls, you can still get some great art up. Download the project PDF to make this stunning photo mosaic where you'll be able to see the wonderful memories you have of your friend and family.

Posted by Natalie Zee Drieu | Sep 21, 2009 11:00 AM
Crafts, Photography, Reviews | Permalink | Email Entry | Suggest a Site

September 20, 2009

MAKE Flickr pool weekly roundup

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Matchbox collision photography [above, bottom-right]
LED throwie analysis [above, bottom-left]
Vintage viewfinder photo adapter [above, top-right]
Timelapse history of the sky [above, top-left]

September 18, 2009

Cheap fisheye lens

This fisheye lens is made from the innards of a broken Sigma 28-200mm lens. I have come across a few broken, or just old and scratched, camera lenses at garage sales that would be perfect for this project.

Although there aren't specific directions on how to make one, the image above does make it look easy. via - DIYPhotography

In the Maker Shed:

High-Speed Photography Kit Version 4

September 16, 2009

Gorgeous bismuth crystal

Check out this amazing photograph of a chunk of lightly oxidized bismuth metal. Wikimedia Commons identifies the author as Alchemist-hp, who has produced some other really cool element sample photos.

Vintage viewfinder photo adapter

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Flickr member victorf built this simple adapter to capture the view from a Kodak Duaflex II with his digital camera. Check out some of the results in his Through the viewfinder photoset.

September 15, 2009

How-To: Great close-up photos

Frustrated by bad photos on Ebay and Craigslist, Instructables user bloomautomatic shares with us some tips for better close-up photos.

September 14, 2009

MAKE Flickr pool weekly roundup

From the MAKE Flickr pool

September 11, 2009

DIY cable trigger for Sony DSLRs

Flickr user foto_fer posted this nice writeup of how to make a cable trigger for his DSLR camera, to allow him to focus and snap photos without touching the camera. The original writeup is in Spanish, however you can read it in English using machine translation. The total cost was around US $22, however it could probably be made using scavenged parts for free.

Don't have a wired trigger port for your camera? Try a wireless remote for your Nikon DSLR, or an electromechanical trigger for any camera.

September 9, 2009

How-To: Make a pinhole Polaroid camera

Instructables user Housekey posted this awesome tutorial on replacing the lenses in a classic Land camera with pinhole optics. Instant pinhole photos!

September 3, 2009

Open source 'Frankencamera' is fully programmable!

Computational photography researchers at Stanford have developed this open-source 'Frankencamera' using a sensor from a Nokia n95 cell phone, Canon camera lenses, and an ARM development board. Their goal is to create a future where your digital camera is no different than any other computer, and you can load new programs into it in order to change how it works. Of course, you can kind of do that now with Canon cameras by using CKDK, however their approach is from the ground up and should be much more versatile.

I love my Nikon camera, but I would love to be able to open it up and reprogram it at my bidding!

[via technabob]

More:

September 2, 2009

Beach calligraphy

Andrew van der Merwe cuts letter-forms into the beaches near Cape Town, South Africa, and takes lovely photos of the results. [via Dude Craft]

September 1, 2009

Star Wars: West Coast defense

The reason Photoshop was invented? I think yes.

AT-ST patrols Cannon Beach, Oregon, at sunset. Evidently the Empire is cracking down on the outlying systems.

Mike Horn made this series of still images over a weekend after several people asked for hi-res wallpapers from his videos Death Star Over San Francisco and Death Star Destroys Enterprise. He Photoshopped them from personal photos and Star Wars images off Wookieepedia.

Flickr set here, suitable for framing.

San Francisco scout trooper on lunch break on the Embarcadero, and in this joint you can bet he downed a few Buds with that burger. Ready to ride.

These stormtroopers are real -- they're members of the 501st Legion Golden Gate Garrison who generously volunteered to be in Horn's video Death Star Destroys Enterprise, shot on location in the old World War II artillery batteries in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco.

Read full story

August 30, 2009