Photography

How To: Rasterbate rasterized images from any picture

Empty walls? This is the perfect solution. The Rasterbator creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. Upload an image, print the resulting multi-page pdf file and assemble the pages into extremely cool looking poster up to 20 meters in size. Rasterbating is when you make a photo out of several photos.

How To: Stop Saying "Cheese"! Here's How You Smile More Naturally for Photos

I hate having my picture taken. It's awkward, and I almost always end up thinking, "Is that what I look like all the time?" Most of us think we look awful in photos, probably because we all subconsciously act and carry ourselves a little differently when we know there's a camera on us.

How To: Develop Kodachrome Film (B&W Hand Processing & Kodak's K-14 Process)

Remember KODACHROME? That color reversal film from Kodak? The film that was the inspiration for Paul Simon? The only brand of film to have a state park named after it?

DIY Photo Processing: How to Develop Film at Home for Cheap Using Coffee, Red Wine, or Tylenol

Not many people use film cameras anymore, so it can be hard to find the materials to develop your own photos at home since most local camera stores are closing. But it's actually relatively easy to make homemade developer, and you can make it with a few relatively common ingredients.

How To: Take photos of floating / flying / levitating people

Do you believe you can fly? Or at least, believe that you can take pictures where it looks like you or other people are flying? Or at least jumping really high? This video will show you how to take pictures of flying, floating, levitating, or high-jumping people using a digital camera, tripod, stool, and photo editing software like Photoshop or GIMP. Either way, the effect is surprisingly easy to create and can help you make some really amazing photos.

How To: Turn an Old Kit Lens into a DSLR Macro Lens in Five Minutes

There are tons of ways to make a macro lens for your smartphone, but if you need one for a DSLR, it's not quite as simple as using a magnifying glass or a drop of water. If you have an old kit lens, though, you can turn it into a macro lens in no time—all you have to do is remove the front element. For this hack, Juha Loukola over on PetaPixel used a Canon 38-76mm lens, but says that the process should be pretty much the same for other lenses.

How To: Build a Cheap and Easy Optical Zoom Lens for Your Smartphone

Love taking photos with your smartphone, but don't have a zoom? This tutorial by Unitips will show you how to DIY one with a few simple parts. All you'll need is 1/4" bolts, washers, and wingnuts (two each), some sheet metal, and a pair of binoculars.

News: Creating the Cosmos With Ink, Paint & Water

Artist Pery Burge uses water, paint and ink to create images that look like they might have been captured by the Hubble Telescope or under the super-zoom of a powerful microscope.

How To: 5 Incredibly Cheap and Smooth DIY Camera Mounts for Inside or Outside of Your Car

Shooting a photo or video in a car can be rather difficult without a proper mount, and if you want to secure your camera outside the car, it can be just plain expensive. Luckily, there are tons of DIY camera mounts for both inside and outside your vehicle, and most of them are pretty cheap to make. Here are some of the best.

How To: Control Your Samsung Smart Camera with Your Android or iOS Device

Samsung is helping photographers in getting more utility out of their cameras with their new Samsung Smart Camera App. With it, your device becomes a powerful viewfinder for your Samsung camera, allowing you to not only frame shots, but control multiple aspects of the camera, right through your phone.

How To: Repair the write protection on an SD card

In this video tutorial, viewers learn how to repair the write protect on an SD card. An SD card is a non-volatile memory card format that is used in portable devices. If the write protect on a SD card is broken, the user cannot record any files onto the card. To fix this, viewers will need a small piece of scotch tape. Put the tape on the notch of the SD card. Do not cover the metal tabs at the back. This video will benefit those viewers who have a SD card and would like to repair the write p...

How To: Turn a Styrofoam Bowl into a DIY Beauty Dish for Your Camera's Flash

A beauty dish is a device that redistributes the flash on your camera to make the lighting more flattering in portraits. It's called a "beauty dish" because it's used most commonly in fashion and beauty photography.

How To: Build a Weatherproof Camera Enclosure for Long Term Time-Lapses

There are plenty of ways to create time-lapse photos and videos, but most of them are taken over the course of several hours. If you want to do a longer term shoot over several weeks or months, you'll need a battery that can last that long, and you probably don't want to leave your DSLR sitting somewhere for that amount of time anyway.

How To: Use the Harris Shutter Effect to Get Crazy, Colorful Action Photos

Want to take vibrant photographs like this one? You won't find this filter in Instagram, and that's because it's a little more difficult than just slapping a digital filter on a solo photo. The extra RGB colors are created using a special strip device called the Harris shutter, invented by Robert Harris of Kodak.

News: From Puppy to Adult in 40 Seconds (+ 3 Methods for Creating Time-Lapse)

What's cuter than a puppy? Not much, especially when you omit all the peeing, barking and furniture chewing, as Remedie Studio did with this sweet time-lapse homage to their beloved pup. Below, watch Dunder the German Shepherd grow from 8 weeks old to 1 year in 40 seconds. Inspired? Make your own time-lapse video and post it to the WonderHowTo company blog. We'll show off the best ones. Here are three different methods to get you started:

How To: Convert a halogen lamp into a makeshift ring light

In this tutorial, we learn how to convert a halogen lamp into a makeshift ring light. Instead of pointing this light straight at the person you are photographing, you can use a ring light to make the halogen light less harsh. The prices for ring lights are very expensive, so making this yourself can save you a lot of money. First, go out and buy a round metal mesh object wherever you can find one. You will also need tin foil, a plastic cup, and wire cutters. First, set the metal bowl on top o...

How To: Clean a camera lens & get rid of smudges

Professional camera cleaning is expensive and usually more than you need. Follow these simple steps to keep your lenses clear and smudge-free.

How To: Turn a Sink Strainer into a Soft Focus Camera Lens Filter

Soft focus photography can produce some beautiful images when used properly. It's used a lot in beauty and glamour shots, but can be applied to other types of photos as well. Some digital cameras have pre-programmed settings for soft focus shots, but if you're using a DSLR, you'll need a special lens or filter to do it.

How To: Create Stunning Double Exposure Portraits with Your DSLR Camera (No Photoshop Required)

There are plenty of ways to take double exposure photos, even if all you have is your cell phone. If you have access to a darkroom (or Photoshop), you can do it by stacking negatives. But if you have the right kind of DSLR, you can do it right from your camera by using the multiple exposure setting.

News: Corneal Imaging Photo Process Reveals the Hidden, Reflected 'World in an Eye'

You can take some absolutely gorgeous photos using the natural reflection that appears in people's and animals' eyes. With the right angle and lighting, you can even see a detailed picture of what the subject was looking at when the photo was taken. Photo by Martin Cathrae

How To: Make a Canon Shutter Release Cable

This article will show you how to make a shutter release cable for a Canon camera. It took me about half an hour once all of my materials were gathered. I came in at a total of about eight dollars. It has three switches and buttons. The black button on mine triggers the auto focus. The red button triggers the shutter. Finally, the switch triggers the bulb mode, or long exposure. This can be used to take astronomical photos that show the movement of the stars in the picture. The release cable ...

News: Paint + Water Looks Like Beautiful H-Bombs

Though photographer Mark Mawson's concept is simple, the results are stunning. In a series entitled Aqueous I and Aqueous II, Mawson took photographs of wet paint dispersed in water. The images evoke jellyfish, or rainbow colored hydrogen bombs. Mawson says:"I had seen lots of ink in water shots and wanted to try something which had more body and which produced more organic forms."

How To: Make a wide-mouthed screaming face in Photoshop

Munch's The Scream is one of the world's most famous paintings, and at least since it was painted people have had a fascination with images of larger-than-life mouths screaming. This video will show you how to use Photoshop to create some cool screaming face effects, like making the mouth huge and distorted or even making it cover the entire face! The effects are cool and easy, so try it!

How To: Use Sekonic light meters to balance flash and ambience

In this episode of Digital Photography 1-on-1, host Mark Wallace goes in depth on the subject of light metering and flash balancing. Making use of a Sekonic light meter, Mark shows how to read the light levels in a room, and explains how to interpret those readings in order to adjust flash levels, ISO levels, and alternative light source manipulation. Mark also goes over the important roles that aperture settings and film speeds play when attempting to successfully balance flash and ambient l...

How To: Build a 4x5 pinhole camera

Attention photography lovers! Put down the digital camera for a day and try this DIY project out, constructing a camera that dates back to as early as 4th century BC.

How To: Choose a narrative theme for a photo series

This instructional photography video provides some helpful tips on how to build narrative ideas surrounding body of photography work that you'll want to create. You can use these techniques when building a book, a web site or a series of consistent images for your story. You will not only make your photography work more interesting, but working with narrative will train you to become a better story teller.

How To: Take photographs like Gregory Crewdson

In this Ovation TV original special, acclaimed photographer Gregory Crewdson shares with us his insight into his photographic techniques. Like a film, he uses a lot of production, a lot of lighting, a lot of set design. He is an American photographer best known for elaborately staged, surreal scenes of American homes and neighborhoods. Learn how to take pictures like this master artist.

How To: Take UV Pictures

This video will show you how you can take UV (ultraviolet) pictures with any basic camera. In a few easy steps, you too can be seeing the world in a whole new way.

How To: Take the Perfect Booty Selfie

Today you can be just like Kim Kardashian and take an awesome booty selfie. Taking a booty selfie is So Easy a Guy Can Do It!

Quick Tip: Use a Wired Headset as a Shutter Release Trigger for Your DSLR Camera

Whether you're trying to get an unconventional angle or just want to include yourself in the picture, there are plenty of times when a remote trigger can come in really handy. Of course, if you want to buy one, you have tons of options. But if you already have an Xbox 360 headset, all you have to do is plug it in. YouTube user Gurnarok accidentally found that by plugging his Xbox headset into his camera's remote port, the on/off toggle triggered the shutter release and flash.

How To: Use a Video Projector for Long-Exposure Light Painting in the Snow

There's no shortage of techniques when it comes to light painting—you can use LEDs, flashlights, or even make your own light painting nunchuks. If you want to do something a little different, though, why not use a projector like photographer Brian Maffit did to capture these gorgeous long-exposure shots of a recent snow storm? Maffitt used a projector to play the movie The Lorax onto a tree in his backyard, providing the backdrop for these photos. The long exposure shots were taken using an o...

How To: Turn a Canvas Messenger Bag into a Water-Resistant Waxed Camera Case

If you take your camera equipment with you on a pretty frequent basis, having a camera bag can help protect it and makes it much easier to keep everything in one place. A good camera bag can be pretty expensive, but with this tutorial by photographer Allen Mowery, you can turn a cheap canvas messenger bag into a nice looking DIY waxed camera bag for half the price. For this project, you'll need a canvas messenger bag, a camera insert, and some paraffin wax, which can be found in the canning a...

How To: Make a Mini DIY Camera Tripod Using Old Disposable Razors

Choosing the right tripod stand can be a difficult decision, but if you want to avoid the hassle and save some money, making your own easy to use tripod can be the best way to go. If this tennis ball tripod isn't right for you, then maybe this disposable razors one by Instructables user Jawasan will do. This tripod stand only works for small cameras, so make sure yours is light enough before you start.

How To: Protect Your Camera from Rain with This Hands-Free DIY Umbrella Holder for Your Tripod

When you're shooting in the rain (or other extreme weather conditions), there's a lot more to think about since cameras and water don't exactly mix well. An umbrella will protect your gear, but unless you have someone to hold it for you, it can be a pain to use.

How To: Make a Super Cheap Soft Box for Pro-Looking 'Soft' Light in Your Photos

Remember the young Parker who taught us how to make fun things like the ghost trap from Ghostbusters and the cheap severed leg effect? Well, he's definitely grown since then, and in his latest video he takes a more practical approach to DIY with a cheap and easy soft box for you home photography studio.

How To: Mod Your Old Polaroid Camera for Wet Plate Collodion Photography

Wet-plate collodion photography is a process that lets you develop a photo onto a piece of glass. It has some neat applications, but it's not a simple process, and most people use a special camera to do it because the silver nitrate used to process usually ends up leaking, which would ruin a regular camera.

How To: Take macro photographs with the reverse lens technique

If you want to take beautiful macro photos, without having to pay for an expensive macro lens, try the reverse lens technique and use the lens you already have. This is a creative way to get great photos without spending all of your money on equipment.

HowTo: Make a 50¢ Macro Lens

Forget splurging on a fancy digital camera. All you need to do is attach a lens from a pair of dollar store reading glasses, and you'll get your macro shot. From Sean Lee, how to make a fifty cent macro lens.

News: Everything Is Beautiful Under the Microscope

Below, a selection of images from the Nikon International Small World Photomicrography Competition. The Big Picture reports:

How To: Make your own Variable-ND filter with cheap circular polarization filters

Looking for a Variable-ND filter without having to spend $300? There's a way that you can actually make your own for as little as $10-$20 using some cheap circular polarization filters! Instead of getting a picture tutorial, in this video, you will get a fully commentated walkthrough of the process that he uses to remove the lenses and more to create his own filter!