An important part of taking great photos or shooting great video is paying attention to your lighting. It can be frustrating when you’re shooting indoors and there just isn’t enough light for the job. Instead of struggling with desk lamps, this DIY strip light uses a heavy-duty power strip, a bunch of compact fluorescents (CFLs) and an umbrella stand to create a portable strip light that packs enough lux for photography, shooting video, or just some task lighting in the garage.
Just about everyone has heard that it’s a good idea to find your “good side” to help you take better pictures. A new study published in Experimental Brain Research suggests that your good side is probably your left side.
Becoming a good photographer requires several things, and one of the hardest to learn is lighting. Virtual Lighting Studio is a free web app that lets you light a (pretty awkward) subject with up to six lights so you can see how each setup affects the image. Because lighting is one of those things that you learn best by practice, this is possibly the easiest way to understand what different arrangements can do for your image.
If you’re a professional photographer, you probably haul your gear around in well-insulated protective cases. If you’re an amateur with a few lenses and a decent camera you want to keep safe while you head out for some shots, you need a decent case that won’t break the bank. Over at FStoppers, one budget-minded photographer managed to build his own rolling camera case for around 30 bucks with some affordable luggage and foam lining.
Since the iPhone 4S has better photo capabilities than most non-DSLR cameras, it’s no wonder that many users seek the stabilisation of a tripod. Get around the iPhone not having a tripod mount by using two large binder clips attached to the tripod.
If you’re just getting into Instagram, the social shoot-and-filter app that hit Android last week and sold to Facebook yesterday, then you might want appreciate a primer on each filter’s quirks strengths, rather than flip through all of them with every shot. The Atlantic offers just such a profile.
Mac: The Photo Stream feature in iCloud is a handy way to keep your files in sync across devices, but it’s lacking an easy way to pull a single image out of a folder for quick use. If you’d like a truly simple and seamless way to pull your photos from the cloud directly to your desktop, designer John Marstall has a simple trick.
If Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram has you put off from using the service, there are more than a handful of alternatives out there. Here’s a look at other apps you can use to get the same results from a still-independent developer.
