Photocritic photography blog

There are cheap projects, and then there are Cheap projects. This is one of the latter, no doubt. In this project, we aren’t modifying a camera, we’re building one completely from scratch! And is that wasn’t enough, you can do so with some tape, some paper, a paperclip… You get the picture: Just stuff you have kicking about the office. Read the rest of the article »

Another of those dirt-cheap yet incredibly useful camera modifications - quickly detachable neck straps!

There are tons of reasons for why you could want to remove the neck strap from your camera. If you’ve got a light camera, most of the time you don’t need it anyway, but even for SLRs, it makes sense: Straps can get caught in the wind, or you may prefer to keep your strap on a very short length, which makes taking it off and on tricky. Read the rest of the article »

Ah, it’s a proper blast from the past, this one… Did you know you can actually load your own photographic film into 36mm canisters? It’s possible, it’s easy, and it actually saves you a mahoosive amount of money, because buying film in bulk is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying film by film. Read the rest of the article »

I think this write-up by GPS aware is most likely to be a joke (the quality of the pictures doesn’t inspire much faith, anyway), but it seems to be a funny project anyway. It re-opens the ages-old discussion of “So, I have a great 35mm camera, why can’t I convert it into a digital camera?”. Read the rest of the article »

Remember when you were young, wearing blue-and-red 3D glasses to make the world go all funny-coloured but vaguely 3D? As it turns out, it is actually possible to this yourself as well! All you need is a photo camera, some DIY skills, and a small stack of materials costing around £20. Read the rest of the article »

If you thought portraiture was difficult, think about how perishable hot foods are. When you photograph it, you’ll want it looking fresh, happy, steaming, and appetising. A normal photo shoot - where you photographs something to perfection - takes a few hours, but the food will only remain good-looking for about 10 minutes at the most.

So what do you do? God knows, I’ve never tried. But my new friend L over at Still Life With laid down the gauntlet… Read the rest of the article »

When a professional pap photographer buys a new camera, the first thing they do is to replace the strap. Why? Because they carry their cameras around so much that the regular strap is a pain. More padding and wider strap means that it becomes at least a little more comfortable to lug around.

Although, of course, you don’t have to be a professional to want to replace your camera strap. In fact, it’s quite easy to make your own! Read the rest of the article »

Taking pictures of kids is difficult, no doubt about it. But as the old Dutch saying goes, “A child’s hand is easily filled” - i.e children are easily pleased. So it shouldn’t take much to keep them happy when taking photos.

One chap came up with a solution that is as ingenious as it is simple: Why not mount a Pez dispenser to your camera?

A few quick mods with a Stanley knife is all that is needed - and the result is staggering. Not only do the kids love it, but the Pez dispenser remains operable, and you can treat them for their being-good efforts during the photoshoot!

Fabulous.

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)

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?