This is a more advanced modification that requires disassembling part of the camera and doing some soldering to switch out a capacitor, but the instructions are clear and have good photos of each step.
Check it out at Holgablog
Tag: diy
DIY Polaroid Chocolate film
"g." on Polanoid figured out how to make his own Polaroid Chocolate/Sepia peel-apart film! Apparently you need a B&W positive and a color negative… check out these instructions and example shot, very cool!
Holy shit: "Filminator" DIY film coating machine
Flickr member Dark Orange says:
Can’t buy the film you want any more? Just make the stuff!
In this set you will find random photos and information on a project a friend has undertaken – a machine to make his own camera film.
Plastic and goop go in one end, and camera film comes out the other end. This is not a trivial undertaking.
*update*
This bit of hardware seems to have created a bit of a stir…
Via MAKE Blog
DIY Canon SLR remote timer
Check out Rob‘s DIY 555-based remote timer for Canon SLRs! He says:
Canon makes a SLR camera remote timer that sells for a couple hundred dollars. Using inspiration from various web sites I built one for myself using about $15 worth of parts from RadioShack.
First, it is a simple wired camera remote control. Just plug the cable into the remote jack on the Canon SLR camera and the black button on top will trigger the camera auto focus, while the red button will focus then take a picture.
Second, it is a timer than can be used for time lapse photography…
Continue reading the plans at his blog, My Name Is Rob.
Via MAKE Blog
Cheap DIY UV photography?
Instructables member Tool Using Animal writes:
For years I’ve wanted to mess around with UV photography. Unfortunately, all the websites on DIY UV seem to assume an infinite amount of money and access to specialized equipment on my part. There are two things that I don’t like, when someone tells me I HAVE to spend a lot of money (quartz lenses starting at $3000) or that i need specialized equipment (Wratten 18A filters, not cheap either). So I set out to do it my way, and here’s my $5 solution to UV wavelength photography.
Read instructions at Instructables
mc at uga at edu posted this comment at MAKE Blog (where I found this link):
I don’t want to be a party-pooper, but I’m not at all sure this is ultraviolet photography. Certainly the light bulb piece is a good substitute for an expensive filter, but is the camera responding to UV or to the small amounts of visible light that also get through? Most camera lenses block UV almost totally. If they didn’t, color rendition would be poor.
I suggest making a UV pinhole camera. Film (black-and-white) is very sensitive to UV if there isn’t any glass in the path.
The optical cement used to glue the elements together in modern lenses does block a good deal of UV already, so I suspect that mc is correct, but I’m not 100%. Anyone have any further insight?
Liquid ABS plastic
Bf5man writes: "A useful trick to repair or to do a mockup of a plastic part, is to disolve ABS shavings in acetone, it forms a glue that can be used to repair plastic stuff, or if thicker, can be used to mold things. Here’s an exemple of what can be accomplished with this method."
Sounds kind of nasty and smelly, but also good for casting parts for or repairing toy cameras.
Read instructions at mp3car.
Via MAKE Blog
How to build and calibrate a photo-plane light meter
Science photographer Ted Kinsman wrote this piece on building and calibrating a photodiode-based light meter:
Being in the professional science photography business, I often get asked to photograph the strangest stuff using some very weird lens combinations. Lately, I was asked to take some motion pictures of "microscopic animals". So I set up the microscope and attached it to a 35-mm motion picture camera – but how do you measure the exposure?
A typical answer would be to use a standard film plane meter, but such a device would not fit my situation, and I would still have to perform a calibration on the device.
The answer to my problem was to simply build the type of meter I needed and then calibrate the device…
Continue reading at Microscopy-UK
Cheap DIY large format filter holder
f295 member greyhoundman has posted instructions for how to build an ultra-cheap filter holder for large format lenses:
Ok, I know someone probably sells an adapter for holding filters on a large LF lens. But, not around here, and I like to see what I’m buying.
So again I decided to build what I need.
I used, 1 thin CD case, a piece of PVC pipe and a 6-32 nylon thumbscrew…
Read instructions at the f295 DIY Photography forum
DIY light tent
Flickr member idiot king writes, "”I just made a light tent that’s a little larger than this one (it’s 4’x3′) with a roll of paper for the backdrop and bedsheets as diffusers. I think it cost, in total, about $30 for wood and paper. This will come in real handy for portfolio shots!"
Via MAKE Blog
DIY flash mini-bouncer
"Here Brian shows how to build a homemade cheap flash bouncer. The flash bouncer can be used to increase the size of a hot-shoe flash. The bouncer is great and very easy to build. An alternative to the bouncer is the home made softbox. Another option for building this homemade flash bouncer is to use polypropylene sheet, it is sterdier then cardboard."
Read how-to at DIYPhotography.net
Via MAKE Blog