DIY

Videographers use a variety of camera movement techniques to capture dynamic motion. Underpinning many of the most visually interesting camera movements are dollies and sliders.

French photographer Mathieu Stern is no stranger to taking photos with unusual cameras. However, his latest camera is perhaps his oddest as he turned Paris apartment into a giant camera obscura and captured a beautiful photo of one of the world's most famous sights, the Eiffel Tower.

Photographer Markus Hofstaetter's wet-plate work often features big, ultra-fast lenses. However, Hofstaetter recently acquired a very tiny lens that has caused him some massive problems.

Pinhole lenses and cameras are fun, easy do-it-yourself (DIY) projects for photographers of all skill levels and ages. Pinhole lenses rarely require many materials, and as Fotodiox shows, photographers can make a pinhole lens with just a soda can.

Traditional photo booths at weddings are old news. Sebastian Staacks, who describes himself as someone who loves to "create stuff," built a bullet time video booth for his cousin's wedding.

The recording of the patterns made by static electricity date back to the invention of the technique in 1777 by Georg Lichtenberg. Since he was the first to observe the patterns they are referred to as Lichtenberg figures.

A couple of years ago I have been occasionally shooting 35mm films with point-and-shoot still cameras while also having the desire to shoot motion picture films.

Italian builder Giovanni Aggiustatutto built a mechanized pan-tilt system to capture smooth, stable video without requiring hand movements. The build uses 3D-printed parts, wood, aluminum, and an Arduino Uno.

Photographer Malcolm Wilson recently converted a Yashica Electro 35mm film camera into a digital camera using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and Raspberry Pi HQ camera module. It's a fun twist on analog to digital conversions, and Wilson says his converted camera is one of his favorite cameras to use.

One of the greatest things about film photography is its friendliness toward do-it-yourself approaches. Want to hack together a working camera out of discount hardware store supplies? All the power to you! Want to shoot on art paper coated in a home-concocted emulsion, contact-printed using authentic techniques from the 1800s? Why not?

As a wildlife photographer, I'm always looking for ways to capture stunning images of animals in their natural habitats. One technique I've found to be incredibly effective is using a custom-made, DIY, DSLR camera trap, which is a camera setup that is triggered by the movement of an animal.

Reveni Labs has announced Dunkbot, an automated film processing machine. Dunkbot fits three 35mm film rolls, a pair of 120 rolls, and up to six sheets of 4x5 medium-format film.

Raspberry Pi's new 1.6-megapixel Global Shutter Camera module promises instantaneous readout across the entire image area, eliminating rolling shutter distortion.

Photographer Mark Hiltz designed and 3D-printed a functioning film camera. Unlike many 3D-printed cameras, as impressive as they are, Hiltz's camera includes a 3D-printed shutter.

Belgium-based YouTuber and DIY enthusiast Handy Bear has created a simple organizing station that lets photographers easily manage charged and uncharged batteries.

Photographer and e-paper fan Cameron Dowd has designed and produced a working Polaroid-like camera that records images on e-paper. As such, the "film" can be used over and over again.

Last year, PetaPixel wrote about photographer Ryan Kojima who built a DIY medium format camera using the CCD sensor from an Epson flatbed scanner. The DIY scanner camera captures massive, detailed 514-megapixel photos. Kojima built his first scanner camera a decade ago, although he recently upgraded it to deliver even better performance.

The Mitutoyo long working distance objectives are popular in macro photography, but often difficult to mount to a camera.

Released in 1971, the Polaroid Big Shot was a funky, green plastic camera that was built for one thing: portraits. The plastic behemoth is simply designed, using a fixed focus 200mm, single-element plastic meniscus lens.

Australian photographer and avid DIY-er Jim Metcalfe recently decided to up his macro photography game by building his own stereoscopic macro camera to capture and create 3D images.

A photographer built a DIY medium format camera from an Epson flatbed scanner and shot a 514-megapixel picture with it.

A team of photographers built a super fast f/0.3 29mm lens from a Leitz projector lens to shoot a beautiful short film.

Photographer and computer science undergrad student Joshua Bird has created a 3D-printed movie camera that uses "normal" photo film canisters, with the goal of letting him enjoy the nostalgic look of film video without paying for expensive motion picture film.

A 3D-printable adapter allows fans of the Game Boy Camera to use small CS-mount interchangeable lenses with it, which also opens the door to adapting much larger optics to the camera first made available in 1998.