Archive for April, 2006

Darkroom on a shoestring budget

Oh, the smells of fixative, how I have missed you. I went wholly digital in 2002, and have nary set foot in a darkroom since. But if it hadn't been for dark-rooms and the manual art of processing film, I think I wouldn't have been nearly as good a photographer today*. Developing your own film Did you know that you can develop your own film on a shoestring budget? You can - you need a room that's completely dark (bathrooms are good, add a bit of black duct tape, and you have a dark room!), a developing tank, reels, and chemicals. Oh, and you need to know how long stuff needs to be processed, of course.

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The softer side of photography

There is a lot to be said for making stuff yourself, but what when there are things you can't make? I'm a half-decent programmer, but couldn't write a piece of image software if my life depended on it. Luckily, there is a lot of fantastic freeware out there. My good buddy Ed Perchick has rummaged through the darkest corners of the interweb...

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Make your own Lens Hood!

Lens hoods are great devices - basically, they allow you to shoot more directly into the sun (i.e at a more acute angle compared to the sunrays) without getting the dreaded solar flares. Unfortunately, lens hoods can be silly expensive. But, as you all know when I make a statement like that, there is a cheaper way of doing things - in fact, a much cheaper way!

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Rescuing data from defective flash cards

If you've ever lost all your images of a memory card, due to failure, or by accidentally formatting it, you know how horrible it is. Back in the day, when you lose a roll of film to an accident, at least you can console yourself that you only lost up to 36 photos. Now, if you lose a large memorycard, you can lose hundreds, perhaps thousands of photos. Not very nice. Luckily, your memory card is likely to not lose all of the images, even if some were to become erased or corrupted...

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Choosing a digital compact camera

As someone who occasionally dabbles in photography, I am frequently asked "I have £XXX to spend, and want to buy a digital camera. What should I buy?". It's a difficult question, especially because I've been known to spend high sums of money on digital photographic equipment, and I haven't actually kept myself up to date with what's stirring in the world of digital. I am able to offer a few pointers, of course...

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Print images on green leaves!

Completely out of left field, this story, but it turns out that you can use leaves as photographic paper, by using light and iodine to dye the starch in leaves dark. Random? Well, yes, but it is a fun project, and the results are nothing short of stunning. How does it work? The chlorophyll in healthy green leaves captures light and uses its energy to join together carbon dioxide and water. The result is the organic compound we call starch. It is the basis of much of the food we eat. Starch is white, but if you drop a small amount of a solution of iodine on it, the starch turns black. So that's it really. Why didn't I think of that? Err, never mind. Go read the article and prepare to be amazed!

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Origami + photography = Oribounce

We've been talking about flash diffusors before, but someone kicked me in the shins the other day for having forgotten this guide. and I deserved that kicking for sure - Torsten's OriBounce (Origami Bounce, of course - and a fantastic pun on the OmniBounce flash diffusors from Sto-Fen) is basically just a piece of paper and some tape, but this guy has gone to great lengths to make sure that his diffusor works best. As with most of these projects, making sure that you use thick, glossy paper works best - and if you use gummed paper, you could even build a diffusor that can stand a bit of rain, too! Torsten's guide to the Ori-Bounce is well-written and funny, with loads of photos, too, so why not check it out?

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From flatbed scanner to digital camera

Nowadays, digital cameras are so cheap that we are half a step away from getting them for free with happy meals at McD. That wasn't the truth back in the day, however, which was why Matt Wandel decided to build his own. He cannibalised a $100 flatbed scanner, and used the parts to build a primitive scanning digital camera. Of course, it is completely pointless now that the price of digicams has come down, but I felt all tingly-hearted when I came across this article - the mechanics involved are beautiful in their primitive way, and the results aren't bad at all! (cheers, Tom, for tipping us about this one. Do you have a tip? Why not email us on post@photocritic.org)

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Try nude photography!

As your photographic interests progress, you are likely to try and take photos of somebody in the nude - It's a very honest and challenging artform, which allows for a level of intimacy far beyond your regular portraiture. n{democracy:45} Of course, with the modern world's paranoia about nudity, it's not easy to know where to begin, so I've written a guide which I hope will come in handy to everyone, and give some insight into the hows and whys. Needless to say, the photos behind the cut may not be entirely safe for work, but rest assured they are all relatively tasteful.

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From disposable to slave flash

Disposable cameras have a lot of re-usable electronics in them. The flash unit, for example, is perfectly usable, even after the 27 exposures have come and gone. So what do you do? Well, DIY live decided to turn the disposable camera shell into a slave flashgun. It ain't for the faint of heart, this project, but if you are handy with a soldering iron, it may just be of use. Or you could of course buy one. But what's the fun in that?

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