DIY Photography.net is seeking help to create a DIY Ring Light out of disposable camera flashes. If you have any ideas discuss them.

Be sure to check out the argyle patterned French bulletin board you can make out of a pumpkin. This is a great way to show off some photos during the harvest season.

Your Awesome New Camera Bag

Aside from a few buttons and some pocket holes, sewing and I have not crossed paths since I was in seventh grade. The stuffed electric guitar made for an excellent "axe," even though the dowel rod supporting the neck snapped well within the first imaginary stage performance. One or two times since (I'm 25 now), I've thought about the things I could make if I only had access to a sewing machine.

I've always thought that the fleecelike blankets they used to give you on flights would have made an excellent liner for a laptop sleeve, and now that I've found plans for a wicked cool Camera Bag (I'd use different fabric, but it's super simple and doesn't look stupid!), the desire to make my own reminds me of the Crumpler 7-Million Dollar Home that I own, love and could never replace (it fits a ton, is comfortable and looks great). So, despite the urge to create something great and useful, I'll have to defer that pleasure to you.

If you've created one of these bags contact me; I'd love to hear your experiences (and see pictures).

Top Photography Blogs

If you're just learning about digital photography (or film) in your spare time, as I am, or are a full time studio shooter, traveler, or other paid camera-slinger you undoubtably subscribe to some photography magazines. I for one keep getting Outdoor Photographer even though my subscription ran out; thanks! I also subscribe to ShutterBug. I find that ShutterBug is insightful for thinking about new techniques and equipment to buy, whilst Outdoor Photographer is mostly just inspiring with some sprinkles of technique. Both magazines, I think are geared more towards learning than say, American Photo or any of those artsy or journalism ones. (Note: I love "artsy" photography, I just don't subscribe.)

However, the purpose of this blog isn't necessarily to point out good magazines that you can get in print, although I guess that might not be a bad idea for a future article about off-screen learning, but in fact it is about the numerous resources of the World Wide Web. There are many great blogs out there that update their content much more regularly than I, and in fact with much more insightful and useful tips and articles. That isn't to say that you should stop reading Photub of course. If you've been a reader of Photub for any length of time, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The blogs that I am listing in this post, are blogs that I consider great additions to your RSS subscriptions—those blogs that probably have enough new content for books or bi-monthly magazines in themselves:

In no particular order...

1. The Online Photographer: The Online Photographer packs a wallop of new commentary, reviews, techniques and personal adventures into a blog that is updated fairly frequently.
2. Photocritic: Perhaps one of my favorite blogs, is this one. The authors always have something interesting to share, and do a good job presenting it. The critiques that are occassionally done are quite helpful to new and upcoming photographers, and the DIY attitude helps create some really useful and fun tools. Of note is the DIY Pringles can macro lens, that I have been wanting to try out.
3. Strobist: Everything you'd ever want or need to know about effective flash photography is right here in this blog. Literally courses of information are contained on the pages of this blog. It's also not all about flash photography. Consider the recent series about Flickr and what it can do for your photography career. Insightful articles, interesting topics and amazing techniques make this truely one of the best photography blogs on the internet.
4. Photojojo: While not really a blog per se, Photojojo's unique style and unique media (email newsletter), make it in a class of it's own. I include it in this list because they do have an RSS feed, making it "blog like." I have just one complaint about Photojojo and that is that they often seem to post stuff late, after it's already been posted elsewhere. Nevertheless, Photojojo has knocked my socks off more than a few times with interesting ideas, it's creative writing style and overall growth.
5. Digital Photography School: Anyone looking for tips can always find something at DPS. Choose a "Random Tip" or read them all. It's easily becoming an encyclopedia of techniques, buying tips, etc. for the beginner, casual student and the advanced amateur.
6. Andy Frazer's Night Photography Blog: Taking pictures at night can yeild some extremely interesting results, but not many will give you insight on creating breathtaking images at night without the flash. Andy Frazer does. You'll see lots of examples of compelling night imagery, if nothing else.
7. After Capture: The only site listed here, that actually is a monthly publication, actually has a decent blog. The blog talks, interestingly enough, about post production of your images. Becomming a "post production prince" might not happen overnight, but it'll probably happen faster with the reading of some of the articles here.
8. DIYPhotography.net: Face it, photography equipment is expensive, and we see time and time again, that a cheap light tent provides excellent results. DIYPhotography.net is all about creating cheap equipment to aide in the creation of great photographs. It's a wonderful collection and continues to grow.

The web is full of great content, and with RSS being used by nearly everyone, there certainly isn't any reason (other than time) that you can't be informed of the latest photography happenings, techniques and ideas every 15 or 20 minutes. Surely there are other great blogs out there that I did not address, but these are the ones I read on a semi-daily basis. If you think your blog should be on this list, please submit it for review, and I'll take a look.

Gel Mods and Cheap Slave Flashes

A while back I mentioned a simple 15 minute light tent, that could be used as a makeshift studio for product shots and other small things. One of the great things about that setup is that you don't necessarily need to have slave flash units to use it, but Dave Pearson shows us how we can use the (very reasonably priced) Quantaray MS-1 flash boosters as the external light source. These things fire when they see another flash, so you don't need to trigger them with some other tool. It's all automagically taken care of for you. Dave's article talks about how to modify them to use gels to get some special effects, and is well worth a look at. His article also mentions Strobist's $10 Macro Studio, which is similar to the 15 minute light tent.

DIY Infrared Filter and Underwater Housing

Sam Noyoun has written two instructables dealing with camera modifications.

The first would have been useful for me last week—a cheap underwater camera housing. The system using "special" Navy SEALS technology (two condoms), provides the seal and a dessicant bag helps keep the moisture out.

The second recently won second prize in a recent instructables.com science contest. (For his efforts he won $10 and a get out of jail free card— Sorry, for some reason I found it necessary to make a Monopoly joke.) This cheap infrared filter can be made in 10 minutes and uses pretty common items.

Thanks Sam for the great tutorials!

Edit: broken link fixed.

Credit Card SD Holder

Photojojo points us to Credit Card SD Holder on Instructables. The idea is simple— never be without an extra SD card again. Now if only compact flash was similar in size, I'd be happy.

Printable Lens Hoods

Lens hoods are a good way to get rid of nonimageforming light, which can cause glare in your photos. Lenshoods.co.uk has a ton of Google ads scattered throughout, and if you can navigate without clicking an ad, you can download some free templates for creating lens hoods for many different lenses.

Not really instructions, but a visual howto for building a remote for a Canon 300D.

Soda bottle tripods like this have been around the web for a while now, but it's always good to refresh the inner DIY.

Why Spend Money on Studio Gear?

There's so much DIY stuff on the internet regarding studio equipment, which I may someday need. Until then, it's fun to read about all these projects that come up for inspiration. Anyway, DSLRBlog recently made a diffusion panel from pvc plumnbing supplies which doesn't even look DIY.

To make a Christmas card, X-Pose build a similar panel shown here.

Make Your Mark

I don't condone graffiti, and in my city of residence (Philadelphia), the anti-graffiti squad is pretty good at it's job. One thing you do see quite a bit of though is stencilings. Stencilings often appear on the sidewalk, or on other non buildings. This tutorial covers the process of taking a picture, and modifying it to a point where you can make a stencil from it. Abstract these techniques for screenprinting t-shirts, or decorating garage sale signs. Please don't vandalize.

Got a few coathangers, some ducttape and an extra bolt that happens to fit in the tripod mount of your camera? Need a portable tripod?

How to Make a Digital Toy IR Camera

Zach Stern makes beautiful infrared images, and with this article, you can make your own Digital Toy Infrared Camera to make your own infrared images. Check out some of his work on Zach Stern on flickr

How to Build a Panoramic Tripod Head for $10

For those interested in stepping into the world of panoramic photography, stiching software can only go so far. Also, with the price of panoramic cameras and equipment it's a pretty easy to talk yourself out of it. Worth1000.com user arodrix wrote a guide on building your own panoramic tripod head for less than $10.