Hot Photography Posts
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: Load film into a Hasselblad back
This is a how-to video featuring the A12 film back for a Hasselblad 500 series camera. Watch this photography tutorial to begin using your antique Hasselblad camera and all of its confusing parts. Once you are aware of the unique film loading process for this camera, you can adopt this camera into your photography practice and begin shooting.
Light Painting with Fire: How to Create a Badass Wall of Flames!
Believe it or not, capturing a beautiful shot of a vehicle is more difficult than you think. Sure, you can just snap a photo, but capturing the design, detail, and essence of the car is a whole other story. Lighting, location, settings, and angles are play into how well the photographic representation turns out.
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.
News: The Iridescent Beauty of Bursting Bubbles Captured with High-Speed Photography
Swiss photographer Fabian Oefner wanted to capture the moment right before a bubble bursts, a feat that required surprisingly little equipment, but a lot of time and patience. The result was well worth it though. Here's a quick before and after: The trick to the color, he says, is lighting the bubbles from all angles. He placed illuminated panels all around and used a high-speed flash. The bubbles were blown through a sugar funnel. The trickiest part, not surprisingly, is capturing the exact ...
How To: An Extensive Guide to Creating Bokeh Photography
Bokeh (which translates to "blur" in Japanese) is a photography technique referring to the blurred areas of a photograph. Basic bokeh photographs often have one point of focus, while the background falls away into a dreamy, blurred haze.
News: It's Magic! See 3D Without the Glasses
On last week's Gizmodo Shooting Challenge, submittors were challenged to create photos that could be seen in 3D, simply by refocusing the eyes to merge two appropriately placed white dots.
How To: Use AV mode & High Speed Sync (flash)
In this tutorial, we learn how to use AV mode & High Speed Sync (flash). First, go to AV mode and change the settings to 2.8. When you do this, your shutter speed will blink at 250. To fix this, hit the lightning bolt with the "h" and change it to the high speed setting. Now, your camera will be able to use the high speed shutter with the flash as well. Now, take some shots of your subject in the sun and you should be able to see a huge difference. The background should come in crystal clear ...
How To: Teach your kids how to use their first digital camera
When your kids start discovering technology, it can be a fantastic learning experience. Check out this tutorial, hosted by a third grader, to help your kiddies get used to handling a digital camera. This video is filled with a ton of tips and lots of advice, tailored just for children.
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...
Do-It-Yourself: High Speed Photography Tips & Tricks
High speed photography is awesome. Who doesn't love looking at bullets smash through glass or annihilate a tomato? Or see a babe in a swimsuit do a strikingly slo-mo wet hair flip?
How To: Use the Vivitar 285HV professional camera flash
Got a new Vivitar 285HV and having trouble using the flash? No problem! This video will describe how to use the flash on your new camera and gives some other great tips for new owners! The flash on this camera can be a little different to use than an automatic flash because you have to manually set the settings. Since you can see what the picture looks like if you aren't satisfied you can use the tricks in the video to play around with the flash settings until you get the perfect shot.
How To: Create make shift tripods when you don't have one
Ok, shutterbug, you need to keep your camera from shaking, but there’s no tripod in sight. Relax--you can still get the perfect shot. Here a couple easy tricks to help you get a steady shot without a tripod.
How To: Take pictures of lightning with a Nikon DSLR
Here is a detailed video that explains techniques and equipment you can use to take pictures of a lightning storm. Yes, take photographs in an actual lightning storm. You will definitely need a tripod to take a photograph with a long exposure and a plastic bag to protect your camera from the rain. Telephoto lenses allow you to keep a safe distance and avoid switching lenses during a lightning storm. Equipment used in this video: Nikon d300, Nikon 18-200mm vr and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 vr lenses.
How To: Convert a juice box into a pinhole camera
Make your own pinhole camera from a juice box! A juice box, yes, that's right. Guaranteed to outlast any digital camera! Unless you sit on it, of course.
How To: Take the Perfect Selfie, Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year
Ladies and gentleman, it's official—"Selfie" has been named Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries.
How To: Add Creepy Apparitions to Your Halloween Photos Using the Pepper's Ghost Illusion
Photographers have been using the Pepper's Ghost Illusion for over a century to play up the level of creepiness in their photos. Many of the pictures that claim to be real "sightings" use this technique to project a ghostly figure into the background of their images. Today, it's still used in theatre, "scary" rides at amusement parks, and haunted houses all over the world, which makes it a great photography trick for Halloween time. As shown in the tutorial below by Make's Jason Poel Smith, t...
How To: Make a Cheap Light Wand for Dark Photo Shoots Using PVC and Glow Sticks
Taking photos in the dark or in low-light settings can be tricky. Just using your normal flash can make your subject look washed out, but not using it can result in a totally dark photo with no subject at all.
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: Build a Cheap Ring Light for Your Smartphone with Velcro and an LED Camping Tent Light
When it comes to the quality of a photo, lighting can make or break it. Too much light, and your subject looks washed out. Too little, and you can't even tell what your subject is.
How To: Build a PVC Shoulder Rig Stabilizer for Your DSLR Camera for Under $25
When you're capturing video with a DSLR, not having some type of stabilization system can lead to some pretty awful and shaky scenes. Camera instability is not only painful to watch, but breaks the fourth wall. Once that the invisible barrier between filmmaker and audience is apparent, it may break down that magical relationship between the two.
How To: Make a 50mm Lens into a Tilt Lens Using a Shower Head
There are so many ways to modify your camera using common household items, like clothes hangers, an umbrella, or even a jar of peanut butter. Here's a new, unexpected addition to the list—a shower head. Maciej Pietuszynski came up with this brilliant camera mod, which uses a shower head to turn an old 50mm lens into a DIY tilt lens. This trick works by using the part from the shower head that allows you to adjust the angle. You'll have to take apart the lens and cut the shower head in half. T...
How To: Turn Time-Lapsed Clouds into a Brushstroke Painting with This Photo Stacking Technique
You can create a lot of impressive effects by stacking or layering photos, whether you do it in a darkroom or with Photoshop. The Harris shutter effect makes your photos super colorful, and double exposing or stacking negatives makes for some crazy looking portraits.
How To: Make a DIY Camera Bag Insert to Protect Your Gear
When you have expensive camera equipment, the last thing you want to do is just throw it all in a bag without any kind of protection. If you don't want to buy a separate bag, you can always use an insert, but they can get pretty pricey, too.
How To: Blur Fireworks with Your DSLR for Some Wicked July 4th Photos
Try "unfocusing" your photographs for some dreamy, evocative and somewhat abstract takes on life. Check out the two tutorials (here and here) from Michelle Geoga of Lights! Camera! Photoshop! for tips on unleashing the blur-power of your camera. You can see plenty of example images there to help you out.
How To: Develop Black & White Film with Caffenol
If MacGyver ever needed to develop some black and white film, this is how he would do it. Check out this awesome recipe for film developer, which uses instant coffee, Vitamin C, and washing soda to set up your own darkroom developing lab.
How To: Set up your Canon 580EX II at the Master Mode setting
So you want to control the flashes on your camera using a remote, and you know that you need to get to Master mode on your Canon 580EX II to be able to do that. But Canon made Master mode for this particular model of camera very difficult to locate and enable. However, this video shows you every single step you need to take with your camera in order to be able to set up this particular functionality for your next shoot!
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.
How To: Build your own 35mm lens adapter for a Canon HV20 camera
You don't have to spend lots of money for an expensive lens adapter! You can make one at home. This tutorial shows you how you can take some basic camera equipment, a little extra hardware and make a 35mm lens adapter for a Canon HV20 digital camera.
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: Photograph a pregnant mom
In this video, we learn how to photograph a pregnant mom. Try taking a shot of the woman outside, this will feature her stomach and show off the glow of her skin as well. Process it after you have taken the photo to edit it further. Drape a sheet around the woman as well, which is a really popular photo technique as well. Take fun shots with your partner, animals, other children, and around the house! The camera can focus on different things to show multiple subjects in the scene. Be creative...
How To: Do night photography with your kids
In this video, we learn how to do night photography with your kids. Glow sticks. flash lights, and ghost images are great for night time! First, put your camera in the manual mode and then learn how to set the shutter once you're in manual mode. Put the pop up flash on your camera, then get started taking pictures! Use glow sticks to take pictures of the children, giving a cool effect on the photos. Use different shutter speeds on the camera to capture the sparks on the glow sticks and with s...
How To: Make picture frames out of cardboard boxes
Take a few old cardboard boxes or packing boxes and recycle them into snazzy and cool photograph frames. All you need, apart from the boxes is some tape, string, a little wrapping paper for decoration - and, of course, some scissors and the photograph you want to frame.
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."
News: AMAZING What You Can Capture With a Macro Lens!
Photographer Suren Manvelyan presents an incredible series of macro photographs of eyes, entitled: "Your Beautiful Eyes".
How To: Shoot a white object on a white background
Anxious about shooting a white foreground object against a white background? Learn how to take stunning white-on-white photographs with this free video photography lesson. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, and to get started taking your own wintry photographs, take a look.
News: Move Over, Avatar. I'd Rather Stare at Supermodels in 3D
Fashion Photography goes 3D. And why not? I'm digging it. By Brazilian photographer Jacques Dequeker for the Ellus jeans campaign.
How To: Photograph star trails on 35mm film
This is a great tutorial for photographing beautiful star trails on a 35mm SLR camera. Because only film has low enough ASA to shoot for such long exposures, this tutorial unfortunately apply to digital SLR's.
How To: Shoot unique product photography with long exposures
This video shows you how to light a bottle with long exposure in photography. The end result is to have a picture of a bottle with glowing edges with a black background. For starters you set your SLR camera settings to a 30 second manual shutter speed and a f5. 6 set aperture. Put the camera on a tripod for steadiness and set up your subject. For the subject, on a table, place your bottle in front of your chosen drop cloth. It is best to choose a color similar to the bottle. Then you use a li...
News: Acrobatic Cops Should Ditch the Force, Join the Circus
This year's Biennial of Photography and Visual Arts in Belgium presents work by photographer Thomas Lailaender. His whimsical series entitled 'The Acrobatic Squad' shows "a special motorcycle unit of the Préfecture de Police de Paris in full acrobatic mode as they were practicing their hobby at the Bourget military base".